Gandhari's Grief and Curse

The Pandavas went with Krishna to meet the blind king Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra asked to embrace Bhima. Krishna sensed the anger in a king grieving for a hundred sons, so he pushed forward an iron statue in Bhima's place. Dhritarashtra crushed it to pieces in his arms. Then, full of regret, he wept.

Next was Gandhari, who had blindfolded her eyes for life out of devotion to her husband. She was about to curse the Pandavas when Vyasa reminded her that throughout the war she had told Duryodhana every day, 'Where there is dharma, there is victory.' Gandhari's anger cooled a little.

Yudhishthira folded his hands and said, 'Mother, I am the one who killed your sons. Curse me.' Gandhari's glance fell from under her blindfold on the tip of Yudhishthira's toe, and the nail turned black. Seeing this, Arjuna hid behind Krishna in fear. Slowly Gandhari comforted the Pandavas like a mother.

Then, with the divine sight given by Vyasa, Gandhari saw the whole battlefield: weeping widows, mothers searching for their sons, vultures and jackals. When she saw the bodies of her hundred sons, her endurance broke. She said to Krishna, 'You could have stopped this war if you had wished.'

Gandhari cursed him: 'Thirty-six years from today your own Yadu clan will destroy itself in fighting, and you will die an ordinary death alone in the forest.' Krishna smiled calmly and said, 'Mother, I knew this. The Yadavas must come to an end. You have made my task easier.'