Text 48
tato yudhiṣṭhiro gatvā
saha-kṛṣṇo gajāhvayam
pitaraṁ sāntvayām āsa
gāndhārīṁ ca tapasvinīm
tataḥ — thereafter; yudhiṣṭhiraḥ — Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira; gatvā — going there; saha — with; kṛṣṇaḥ — the Lord; gajāhvayam — in the capital named Gajāhvaya Hastināpura; pitaram — unto his uncle (Dhṛtarāṣṭra); sāntvayām āsa — consoled; gāndhārīm — the wife of Dhṛtarāṣṭra; ca — and; tapasvinīm — an ascetic lady.
Thereafter, Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira at once went to his capital, Hastināpura, accompanied by Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and there he consoled his uncle and aunt Gāndhārī, who was an ascetic.
Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī, the father and the mother of Duryodhana and his brothers, were the elder uncle and aunt of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. After the Battle of Kurukṣetra, the celebrated couple, having lost all their sons and grandsons, were under the care of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. They were passing their days in great agony over such a heavy loss of life and were practically living the life of ascetics. The death news of Bhīṣmadeva, uncle of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, was another great shock for the King and the Queen, and therefore they required solace from Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was conscious of his duty, and he at once hurried to the spot with Lord Kṛṣṇa and satisfied the bereaved Dhṛtarāṣṭra with kind words, from both himself and the Lord also.
Gāndhārī was a powerful ascetic, although she was living the life of a faithful wife and a kind mother. It is said that Gāndhārī also voluntarily blindfolded her eyes because of the blindness of her husband. A wife’s duty is to follow the husband cent-percent. And Gāndhārī was so true to her husband that she followed him even in his perpetual blindness. Therefore in her actions she was a great ascetic. Besides that, the shock she suffered because of the wholesale killing of her one hundred sons and her grandsons also was certainly too much for a woman. But she suffered all this just like an ascetic. Gāndhārī, although a woman, is no less than Bhīṣmadeva in character. They are both remarkable personalities in the Mahābhārata.