Explore the pantheons

Krishna's birth mother, imprisoned by her brother Kamsa, who killed six of her newborns to cheat a prophecy. Her seventh and eighth children, Balarama and Krishna, escaped him.

Wife of the blind Dhritarashtra, who bound her own eyes for life in solidarity. When all hundred of her sons lay dead, her grief-curse struck Krishna himself: his clan too would destroy itself in thirty-six years. It did.

Dasharatha's favorite queen, who once saved his life in battle and held two unspent boons. Poisoned by her maid Manthara's counsel, she spent them to crown her son and exile Rama, and lived to be forgiven by the very stepson she wronged.

Eldest queen of Dasharatha and mother of Rama, whose quiet endurance of her co-wife's coup and her son's exile makes her the epic's figure of dignified sorrow.

Mother of the Pandavas, who could summon any god to father a child. Her secret firstborn, Karna, abandoned in a basket on the river, grew up to fight his own brothers.

Ravana's chief queen, wise and blameless, who begged him to return Sita. Counted among the five perfect women of tradition, married to its most infamous abductor.

Odysseus's queen, who held Ithaca against a houseful of suitors for twenty years, weaving a shroud by day and unraveling it by night. Her cunning matches her husband's: she tests even him, at the end, with the secret of their immovable bed.

Princess of Vidarbha and chief queen of Krishna, who wrote asking him to carry her off on the eve of her forced wedding. Regarded as an incarnation of Lakshmi.

Krishna's fiery queen who rode to war beside him against the demon Narakasura. Her pride, famously weighing Krishna against her wealth in the Tulabharam story, is the counterpoint to Rukmini's humility.

The fisher-girl whose price for marrying King Shantanu, that her sons inherit, cost Bhishma his throne and his line. Mother of Vyasa before her marriage; matriarch whose choices shape the entire epic.