Pandu

In the Mahabharata, the later of the two
great Hindu epics, the son of the sage
Vyasa and queen Ambalika. Pandu and
his brother Dhrtarashtra are born as the
result of a desperate attempt to preserve
the royal line of King Shantanu after
Shantanu’s son Vichitravirya dies without heirs. Upon Vichitravirya’s death, his
mother Satyavati calls upon her eldest
son, Vyasa, to sleep with Vichitravirya’s
wives, Ambika and her sister Ambalika,
in the hope that the women will conceive. According to tradition Vyasa is
very ugly, and each woman reacts involuntarily when Vyasa appears in her bed:
Ambika covers her eyes, causing her son
Dhrtarashtra to be born blind, and
Ambalika turns pale, causing her son
Pandu to be born with an unnaturally
pale complexion. Given Dhrtarashtra’s
blindness, Pandu is the best suited to
rule; he marries Kunti and Madri and
lives quite happily as the king.
This idyllic time abruptly ends one
day while he is hunting in the forest and
shoots a deer while it is mating. To his
horror, he discovers that the deer is the
sage Kindama, who has taken this form
for sport with his wife; with his dying
breath, the sage curses Pandu that he
will die the moment he touches his wife
in an amorous embrace. Since he has no
children, and the curse condemns him
to die without an heir, Pandu abdicates
the throne in favor of his brother
Dhrtarashtra and goes with his wives to
live as an ascetic in the Himalayas. At
this time Kunti tells him about the
mantra she has received years before
from the sage Durvasas, which gives the
woman who recites it the power to call
down any of the gods and to have by him
a son equal in power to himself. With
Pandu’s blessing Kunti and Madri bear
five heroic sons, the five Pandava brothers. They all live happily together until
one day when Pandu, swayed by the
intoxicating influence of spring, ignores
Madri’s warnings and embraces her. The
sage’s curse takes effect and Pandu falls
dead, although, through the power of
the mantra, his family line continues.