Female characters in Hindu Epics
Indian epics depict a diverse range of divine and human characters. They express morals and values in the same way as gods and goddesses are identified for their role in the cosmos. Some of the female characters in these epics play major roles. A majority of them are represented as mothers or spouses, although others are shown independently. They acquire a wide range of characteristics, but only a handful are crucial to the story. Hindu epics also portrayed various types of relationships. These epics contain examples of polygamy, adulterous, and sanctioned relationships. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are Hinduism's two most important epics. Rama and Sita's story is told in the Ramayana. The Mahabharata is about the war between two groups of cousins along with some substories about other characters. Following is a list of important female characters who appear in the epics.
Ramayana
1. Dashratha was the king of Koshala Kingdom, whose capital was Ayodhya. He had three wives, Kausalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra. Kausalya was the eldest wife, and she gave birth to a son, Rama, and a daughter, Shanta. Kaikeyi was the second wife of Dashratha, and she gave birth to a son named Bharata. Sumitra was the youngest queen. She gave birth to two sons, Lakshmana and Shatrughna.
2. Rama married Sita. She was the adopted daughter of King Janaka of the Videha kingdom. Her stepsisters, Urmila, Mandavi, and Shrutakirti married Lakshmana, Bharat, and Shatrughna, respectively. Urmila was the daughter of King Janka, and she was dedicated to Sita as Lakshmana was to Rama. Mandavi and Shrutakirti were the daughters of Kushadhwaja, the younger brother of King Janaka.
3. Shanta was the elder sister of Rama who was abandoned by Dashratha and adopted by Romapada, king of Anga kingdom. She is mentioned in Mahabharata and some other versions of Ramayana but not in the Valmiki Ramayan. Shanta married Rishyasringa, son of the sage Vibhandaka. Rishyasringa is known to perform a yajna for Dasharatha to beget male offspring, and as a result of that, Rama, Bharata, Lakshmana, and Shatrughna were born.
4. Kesari was a vanara who married Anjana, who gave birth to Hanuman.
5. Hanuman is one of the most popular Hindu deities and a divine monkey god. He is known for his brave initiative and devotion to Rama. He is portrayed as a celibate but in some legends and folk tales, various names are introduced as his spouse. Suvarchala was the youngest daughter of Surya and a spiritual wife of Hanuman. Hanuman married her in order to learn all 9 Siddhas from Surya, which can be obtained only by a married person. Suvannamaccha is the daughter of Ravana's popular Southeast Asian version of Ramayana. She is depicted as a mermaid who used to seal the rocks from the causeway built by Rama’s army to enter Lanka. Hanuman fell in love with her and she bore him a son, Macchanu. Some folklores mention Anangkusuma, daughter of Ravan, and Satyavati, daughter of Varuna, to be the wives of Hanuman.
6. Vali was the king of Kishkindha, a kingdom of the Vanara. He married Tara, addressed as either the daughter of the Vanara physician Sushena or Brihaspati.
7. Sugriva was the younger brother of Vali. His wife was Ruma. After the death of Vali, he succeeded as ruler of the kingdom and married Tara as his second wife.
8. Manthara was a servant of Kaikeyi. She convinced Kaikeyi that the sovereignty of the king should belong to her son Bharata and Rama should be ostracised from the kingdom.
9. Ravana was the king of the Lanka kingdom and the one who abducted Sita. He married Mandodari and Dhanyamalini. Mandodari was the daughter of Mayasura, a great ancient king of the Asuras, and Hema, an apsara. She is described as a beautiful and righteous woman and is also known for her loyalty to Ravana.
10. Kumbhakarna was the younger brother. He was a gigantic-sized Raksha. He had two consorts, Vajrajwala and Karkati.
11. Vibhishana was the youngest brother of Ravana. He later abandoned his brother and joined Rama’s army. He was married to Sarama, a rakshasi (demoness). Some versions of Ramayana state that after the death of Ravana, Vibhishana became the king and married Mandodari.
12. Shurpanakha, also called Meenakshi, was the sister of Ravana. She is described as an ugly woman with fish eyes and thick long brown hair. She married the prince of the Kalkeya clan, Vidyutjihva. In the Valmiki Ramayana, she took the form of a beautiful lady and tried to seduce Rama and Lakshmana. Angered by their rejection, she attacked Sita but was stopped by Lakshmana, who cut off her nose.
13. Indrajit was the eldest of the six sons of Ravana and is considered one of the most renowned warriors who defeated many gods in heaven and killed the entire half vanara race. He married Sulochana, the daughter of the King of the serpents, Shesha Naga.
14. Trijata was the daughter of Vibhishana. She was assigned to guard Sita. She is described as an old wise old rakshasi who was a loyal friend of Sita in her difficulty.
15. Tataka was a demoness who used to harass Rishis performing yajnas in the forest along with her sons, Maricha and Subahu. They were eventually killed by Rama and Lakshmana.
16. Shabari is an elderly woman mentioned in Ramayana. She is depicted as a sincere devotee of Rama and her name is also a metaphor for an interminable wait for God.
Mahabharata
1. Shantanu was a king of Hastinapura. He married Ganga and Satyavati. Ganga was a beautiful woman who bore him eight sons but she drowned seven of them to free them from their curse of being mortals. The eighth one not drowned on Shantanu’s request, and he came to be known as Bhishma, one of the most renowned warriors in the epic. Satyavati was an adopted daughter of the head of a fisherman. She bore Shantanu two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya.
2. Vichitravirya was the younger son of Satyavati. He married Ambika and Ambalika, daughters of the king of Kasi Kashya. Like his brother Chitrangada, he died childlessly. His two wives gave birth to two sons through sage Vyasa, as the surrogate father of their children.
3. Pandu was the king of Hastinapur, the son of Ambalika and Vyas. He married Kunti and Madri but he could not make love with them due to a curse by sage Kindama. Kunti invoked gods to give birth to two sons — Yudhishthira by Dharma; Bhima by Vayu, and Arjuna by Indra. Madri gave birth to two sons, Nakula and Sahadeva, through Ashvins, the twin god. Those five sons of Pandu were known as Pandavas.
4. Dhritarashtra was the blind king of Hastinapura and the son of Ambika and sage Vyas. He married Gandhari who became the mother of a hundred sons, called the Kauravas, and a daughter named Duhsala. She is depicted as a dedicated wife who decided to blindfold herself in order to be like her husband. Gandhari’s maid Sughada also bore Dhritarashtra a son named Yuyutsu.
5. Vidura was the son of Parishrami, the chief maid of Ambika and Ambalika, and sage Vyas. He was the prime minister of the Kuru Kingdom. He married Sulabha. She is portrayed as a great devotee of Lord Krishna. A poem by Rambhadracharya, called Kaka Vidura, has Vidura and Sulabha as primary characters.
6. Pandavas were the five sons of Pandu and his two wives. They all share one common wife named Draupadi. She is one of the central characters of Mahabharata popularly associated with the game of dice and her humiliation by Dushasana, one of the Kauravas, which led to the Kurukshetra war between Pandavas and Kauravas. She is also worshipped as a village goddess in the Sothern part of India and Sri Lanka. She bore five sons to Pandavas, one son from each. There were Prativindhya from Yudhishthira, Sutasoma from Bheema, Shrutakarma from Arjuna, Satanika from Nakula, and Shrutasena from Sahadeva. These brothers were known as Upapandavas.
Apart from having a common wife, all the five brothers independently married other women as mentioned below:
Yudhishtira was the eldest among the Pandavas. Devika, the daughter of the king of the Sivi Kingdom, was his second wife. They had a son named Yaudheya.
Bhima was the second among the Pandavas. His other two wives were Hidimbi and Valandhara. Hidimbi, also called Bhutanadevi, was the sister of Hidimba, a rakshasa who was killed by Bhima. She bore him a son named Ghatotkacha. Valandhara was the princess of the Kashi Kingdom. She also bore Bhima a son named Sarvaga.
Arjuna was the third among Pandavas and the central character in the Mahabharata. He had three spouses apart from Draupadi, they were Ulupi, Chitrangada, and Subhadra. Ulupi was a naga princess who married Arjuna when he was in exile, and she gave birth to a son named Iravan, a patron god of a transgender community called Thirunangai. Chitrangada was the daughter of King Chitravahana. She had a son named Babhruvahana. Subhadra was the daughter of Vasudeva and the sister of Krishna. She bore a son named Abhimanyu.
Nakula was the fourth Pandava. His second consort was Karenumati, the daughter of King Shishupala of the Chedi kingdom, and she begot him a son, Niramitra.
Sahadeva was the youngest of the Pandavas. He married his maternal cousin Vijaya. She was the daughter of King Dyutimata of the Madra kingdom.
7. Karna was the spiritual son of Kunti granted by Surya. He was born before the marriage of Kunti and out of fear of the people she abandoned him. The names of Karna’s wives are not mentioned in the Mahabharata but in some modern texts like “Karna, the son of Kunti: Stories from the Mahabharatha” by SA Krishnan and “Karna The Unsung Hero of the Mahabharata” by Umesh Kotru and Ashutosh Zutshi, mentions Vrushali and Supriya as his two wives. Different names including Vrushali, Supriya, Padmavati, Chandravali, Ponnuruvi, Uruvi, and Tulsa are mentioned in other texts.
8. Duhshala was the daughter of Gandhari. She was one of the three wives of Jayadratha, the king of Sindhu Kingdom.
9. Duryodhana was the eldest of the Kauravas. His wife is named Bhanumati in the later versions of the epic. She bore him a son Laxman Kumara and a daughter, Lakshmana.
10.Ghatotkacha was the half-demon son of Bhima and Hidimbi. He married Ahilavati, a snake-girl.
11. Abhimanyu was the son of Arjuna and Subhadra. He married Uttaraa, the daughter of King Virata, and his wife Sudeshna.
12. Virata was the king of the Matsya Kingdom. He was married to Sudeshna, who bore him a son Uttara and a daughter Uttaraa. Pandavas spent a year in their court during their exile and Draupadi lived there as the maid of queen Sudeshna.
13. Pururavas was the first king of the Aila dynasty and an ancestor of Kauravas and Pandavas. He is considered the son of Budha and Ila. He married Urvasi, considered the most beautiful of all the Apsaras.
14. Nahusha was a descendent of Pururavas who is considered to have married Ashokasundari, the daughter of Shiva and Parvati, who bore him Yayati and a hundred daughters. Yayati had two wives, Devayani and Sharmishtha.
15. Vasudeva was king of the Vrishni kingdom and the father of Krishna, Balarama, and Subhadra. Vasudeva married Devaki, Rohini, and several other women. Devaki bore eight sons out of whom six were killed by Kamsa, the tyrant ruler of the Vrishni kingdom, and the other two were Balarama (who transferred into the womb of Rohini) and Krishna. He had a daughter named Subhadra from Rohini. She is also one of the three deities worshipped in Odisha along with Krishna (as Jagannatha) and Balarama.
16. Balarama was the elder brother of Krishna, occasionally described as an incarnation of Shesha, the serpent of Vishnu. He was married to Revati, the daughter of King Kakudmi of the Kusasthali kingdom.
17. Yasodha, was the foster mother of Krishna and wife of Nanda, the head of cowherds of Gokul Mandal.
18. Damayanti is a female character found in Vana Parva of the Mahabharata. She was a princess of the Vidarbha Kingdom. She came to know about King Nala through a celestial swan. Nala was the king of the Nishadha Kingdom whom Damayanti married in a swayamvara organized by her father.
19. Drona was the royal preceptor to the Kauravas and Pandavas. He married Kripi, the sister of Kripacharya, an incarnation of Brahma.
20. Dushyanta is a king mentioned in Mahabharata and some other texts. He married Shakuntala who he encountered while walking through a forest with his troops. They had a son named Bharata, an ancestor of the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
21. Shakuni was the antagonist who influenced his nephews, particularly Duryodhana and plotted against the Pandavas many times. He married a woman named Arshi who bore him three sons Uluka, Vrikaasur, and Vriprachitti.
22. Savitri was a princess who married an exiled prince named Satyavan mentioned in Vana Parva of the Mahabharata. According to the story, after the death of Satyavan, she follows Yama and tries to convince him to return her husband.
Panchakanya
Panchakanya is a group of five female characters from Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, revered as ideal women and virtuous wives. They are Ahalya, Draupadi, Kunti, Tara, and Mandodari. Sita is sometimes included in the list. Each of them has suffered tragedy and is associated with more than one man within a marriage or consensual relationship.