Bhanumati: The Untold Story of Unity After the Mahabharata War

Somewhere's stone is somewhere's obstacle, Bhanumati added the clan'. This is not just a saying, but an important part of the end of Mahabharata. Actually, here we are talking about Bhanumati, who was the wife of Duryodhana. After Draupadi, during the Mahabharata period, Bhanumati was famous as the world beauty. Bhanumati was the daughter of King Chandravarma of Kamboj. Bhanumati Bala, besides being beautiful, was also extremely strong physically and mentally intelligent, who had heard a lot about Arjuna's bravery and his exploits. She gradually started liking Arjun and wanted to marry him, but she did not express her desire to her father. When his Swayamvar was composed, many city kings and princes were present in the Swayamvar, Duryodhan was also invited to the Swayamvar. Duryodhana attended the Swayamvar along with his friend Karna. After the ceremony began, Princess Bhanumathi entered the grounds, surrounded by her bodyguards, with a garland in her hand. During the swayavar, when she was introducing them to the kings and princes who had come from other places, she was actually looking for Arjun, but she could not see Arjun anywhere, because Arjun had not attended the swayavar. Unaware of this, Bhanumati started introducing herself to all the participants one by one and as she was being told about the names of the participants and their lineage, she was moving ahead in search of Arjun.

When Duryodhana's turn came, she went away after hearing Duryodhana's name and clan. Duryodhana considered this an insult and could not accept this rejection and became extremely angry. Impressed by the beauty of the princess, Duryodhana, in arrogance and anger, forcefully wore the garland given by the princess around his neck. Seeing this, the warriors and princes present there also became angry. Duryodhana challenges the warriors to defeat him and Karna and takes the princess by force in his chariot. Karna successfully fought with the remaining warriors to protect his friend. Karna easily defeated the pursuing kings and seeing Karna's fighting ability, other royal warriors abandoned him.Bhanumati was very angry about this and was not accepting Duryodhana as her husband, because she wanted to marry Arjun.

On reaching Hastinapur, Duryodhana gave the example of his grandfather Bhishma that how Bhishma had kidnapped three princesses of Kashi for his step brother Vichitravirya and got them married like this. Hearing this, Bhanumati accepted the account of her fate and agreed and married Duryodhana. After marriage, they both had twin children, the son was named Lakshman and the daughter was named Lakshmana. During the Mahabharata war, Abhimanyu, son of Arjun and Subhadra, killed Lakshmana. In the war, when Duryodhana died at the hands of Bhima, even after the war was over, there was discord between the Kaurava and Pandava clans. Then Bhanumati expressed her desire to marry Duryodhana's cousin Arjun, in fact in those times there was a tradition that after the death of her husband, the wife could remarry her brother, like Ravana's wife Mandodari married Vibhishana. It was done, and there was also a rule that if marriage is done between two parties then the enmity between them reduces. Similarly, Bhanumati also proposed marriage to Arjun, one of the main objectives behind her decision was that after this marriage the enmity between the brothers would end and their next generation would live in love with each other. Arjun accepted this proposal and married Bhanumati and made her his fifth wife. After that, there was a kinship between both the clans. It is said that Bhanumati ended the distance between Kauravas and Pandavas and from there this saying has emerged that how Bhanumati said that this is the connection between this and that, that is, there is some relation with somewhere. By uniting, the enmity between the two clans was ended