Before the Gita · the family
The Kuru family tree
Shantanu to Abhimanyu, five generations, from the Mahabharata’s own Adi Parva — including the three places where the line does not pass from a father to his son, which is where the war comes from.
How are the Pandavas and the Kauravas related?
They are first cousins. Dhritarashtra and Pandu were brothers; Dhritarashtra’s hundred sons are the Kauravas and Pandu’s five are the Pandavas, and after Pandu’s death the five were raised in Dhritarashtra’s house alongside the hundred. The complication is that neither set descends from King Shantanu by blood: Dhritarashtra and Pandu were fathered by the sage Vyasa on Vichitravirya’s widows under the custom of niyoga, and Pandu’s own five sons were born to Kunti and Madri by a boon. Three times in three generations the line fails to pass from a king to his own eldest son — once by renunciation, and twice because the sons were not the king’s at all — and the war is a dispute about who inherits from a man neither side is descended from.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · Mahabharata, Adi Parva
Generation 1
The king and his two marriages
Shantanu, king of Hastinapura. Everything that follows turns on his second marriage.
Shantanuशन्तनु
King of Hastinapura, of the Kuru line descended from Bharata — the ancestor whose name supplies the epithet भारत that the Gita uses twenty-two times. He marries twice.
Gangaगङ्गा
Shantanu’s first wife, and the mother of Devavrata, who becomes Bhishma. She leaves.
Satyavatiसत्यवती
A ferryman’s daughter, Shantanu’s second wife, and the hinge of the whole succession. She already has a son, Vyasa, born before the marriage. Her father’s condition for the marriage — that her children should inherit — is what forces Bhishma’s vow.
Parasharaपराशर
A sage, and Vyasa’s father. Outside the royal line entirely.
Generation 2
The generation that produced no heirs
One son renounces, two die young and childless, and a fourth — born before the marriage — is outside the line altogether.
Bhishma (Devavrata)भीष्म
Child of Shantanu and Ganga
The rightful heir, who renounces the throne and vows lifelong celibacy so that Satyavati’s children may inherit without a rival. He outlives everyone who benefits from the vow and is still bound by it at Kurukshetra.
With Duryodhana
Vyasaव्यास
Child of Satyavati and Parashara
Satyavati’s son by Parashara, born before her marriage to Shantanu, and so a half-brother to her royal sons. He is the author of the Mahabharata, he fathers the next generation of the Kuru house, and he gives Sanjaya the sight by which the Gita is reported — 18.75 says so. Three separate roles in one man, and the Gita names him at 10.13 and 10.37.
Chitrangadaचित्राङ्गद
Child of Shantanu and Satyavati
Satyavati’s elder son by Shantanu. He becomes king and is killed young, childless.
Vichitraviryaविचित्रवीर्य
Child of Shantanu and Satyavati
The younger son, made king, married to Ambika and Ambalika — whom Bhishma won for him by force at their svayamvara. He too dies young and childless. With him the male blood line of Shantanu ends.
Ambikaअम्बिका
Vichitravirya’s widow, and Dhritarashtra’s mother.
Ambalikaअम्बालिका
Vichitravirya’s widow, and Pandu’s mother.
Generation 3
The three brothers, and who married whom
Fathered by Vyasa, heirs of Vichitravirya. The blind elder, the younger king, and the wise one who could never rule.
Dhritarashtraधृतराष्ट्र
Child of Vyasa and Ambika
The elder, born blind, and passed over for the throne on that account. He is Vyasa’s son by Ambika under the levirate arrangement, and Vichitravirya’s son in law. He asks the question the Gita answers.
Panduपाण्डु
Child of Vyasa and Ambalika
The younger, made king in place of his blind elder brother. A curse prevents him from fathering children, and he dies before the quarrel begins. Every one of his five sons is his by law and by Kunti’s and Madri’s boons, not by blood.
Viduraविदुर
Child of Vyasa
Vyasa’s third son, born of a serving-woman, and therefore never a candidate for the throne although he is the wisest of the three. He becomes the counsellor of the house and argues against the war. He is not named anywhere in the Bhagavad Gita.
Gandhariगान्धारी
Princess of Gandhara, married to Dhritarashtra, mother of the hundred. On learning her husband was blind she bound her own eyes for life.
Shakuniशकुनि
Gandhari’s brother, and so Duryodhana’s maternal uncle. He throws the dice in the game that sends the Pandavas into exile. Not named in the Gita.
With Duryodhana
Kunti (Pritha)कुन्ती
Born Pritha, sister of Vasudeva and therefore Krishna’s aunt; given in adoption to Kuntibhoja, from whom she takes the name Kunti. Pandu’s first wife. Mother of Karna before her marriage and of Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna within it. The Gita names Arjuna by her name sixty-seven times — sixty-two of them Krishna addressing him.
Madriमाद्री
Pandu’s second wife, princess of Madra, and mother of the twins. After Pandu’s death Kunti raises her sons with her own.
Vasudevaवसुदेव
Kunti’s brother and Krishna’s father — the link that makes Krishna and Arjuna first cousins. The Gita calls Krishna वासुदेव, son of Vasudeva, in four verses.
Drupadaद्रुपद
King of Panchala, once Drona’s friend, later his enemy. Father of Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi, both born from a sacrifice performed after the quarrel.
With the Pandavas
Dronaद्रोण
Teacher of arms to both branches. Married to Kripi, Kripa’s sister; father of Ashvatthama. He is on Duryodhana’s side because the house he serves is Hastinapura.
With Duryodhana
Kripaकृप
The princes’ first teacher, before Drona, and the kulaguru — the teacher of the house rather than of one side. Kripi’s brother, Ashvatthama’s uncle.
With Duryodhana
Generation 4
The cousins who face each other
The two branches, raised under one roof, and the teachers, kinsmen and allies who had to choose between them.
Duryodhanaदुर्योधन
Child of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari
Eldest of the hundred, and the claimant through his father, the elder brother who was passed over. He speaks nine verses, 1.3 to 1.11 — the first words anyone says in the Gita after Dhritarashtra’s question.
With Duryodhana
Duhshasanaदुःशासन
Child of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari
Second of the hundred, and the one who dragged Draupadi into the assembly hall. Not named in the Gita.
With Duryodhana
Vikarnaविकर्ण
Child of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari
One of the hundred, and the only one who objected aloud in the assembly hall. He is named at 1.8, in his brother’s army.
With Duryodhana
Duhshalaदुःशला
Child of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari
The only daughter among the hundred, married to Jayadratha — who is named at 11.34 among the already dead.
Karnaकर्ण
Child of Kunti (Pritha)
Kunti’s firstborn, before her marriage, set adrift and raised by Adhiratha the charioteer. He is therefore the eldest of the Pandavas by birth. Krishna told him so before the war and Kunti told him herself; the brothers he is standing against do not know. He fights for Duryodhana, who gave him a kingdom when no one else would give him standing.
With Duryodhana
Yudhishthiraयुधिष्ठिर
Child of Pandu and Kunti (Pritha)
Eldest of the five, and the claimant on the Pandava side. The Gita names him once, at 1.16, and never again.
With the Pandavas
Bhimaभीम
Child of Pandu and Kunti (Pritha)
Second of the five. At 1.10 Duryodhana measures his own army against Bhima’s protection of the other.
With the Pandavas
Arjunaअर्जुन
Child of Pandu and Kunti (Pritha)
Third of the five, and the man in the chariot. Married to Subhadra, Krishna’s sister, among others; father of Abhimanyu, who is on this field.
In the chariot
Nakulaनकुल
Child of Pandu and Madri
Madri’s son, raised by Kunti. Named at 1.16 with his twin.
With the Pandavas
Sahadevaसहदेव
Child of Pandu and Madri
Madri’s son, raised by Kunti. Youngest of the five.
With the Pandavas
Draupadiद्रौपदी
Child of Drupada
Drupada’s daughter, born from his sacrifice, and wife to all five brothers. Her humiliation after the dice game is the injury the war answers. The Gita names her only in the matronymic of her sons.
Dhrishtadyumnaधृष्टद्युम्न
Child of Drupada
Draupadi’s twin, born from the same sacrifice, for the purpose of killing Drona — who trained him. He commands the Pandava army, and Duryodhana points him out to Drona at 1.3.
With the Pandavas
Ashvatthamaअश्वत्थामा
Child of Drona
Drona’s son, Kripa’s nephew, raised in the same training ground as the princes he now faces. Named at 1.8.
With Duryodhana
Krishnaकृष्ण
Child of Vasudeva
Vasudeva’s son and therefore Kunti’s nephew and Arjuna’s first cousin; Subhadra’s brother and therefore Arjuna’s brother-in-law; Abhimanyu’s maternal uncle. He has undertaken to carry no weapon, and drives the chariot.
In the chariot
Subhadraसुभद्रा
Child of Vasudeva
Krishna’s sister and Arjuna’s wife. Abhimanyu’s mother, and the reason the Gita calls him सौभद्र.
Satyaki (Yuyudhana)सात्यकि
A Vrishni of Krishna’s own clan and his pupil in arms, fighting for the Pandavas while Krishna fights for no one. Named twice under two names, at 1.4 and 1.17.
With the Pandavas
Generation 5
The children on the field
The next generation, already grown enough to fight. Arjuna finds them at 1.26 when he looks at both armies and sees sons.
Abhimanyuअभिमन्यु
Child of Arjuna and Subhadra
Arjuna’s son and Krishna’s nephew — the only person on the field who is close kin to both men in the chariot. The Gita names him twice, at 1.6 and 1.18, both times as Subhadra’s son.
With the Pandavas
The sons of Draupadiद्रौपदेय
Child of Draupadi
Five sons, one by each brother, named twice as द्रौपदेयाः — by their mother, who is otherwise absent from the Gita. None of them survives the war.
With the Pandavas
Where the line breaks
Three times in three generations
Most family trees of this house are drawn with straight lines from fathers to sons, and the straight lines are wrong. Here is what actually happened, in order.
The heir renounces
Shantanu wants to marry Satyavati. Her father will agree only if her children inherit — which is impossible while Devavrata, the eldest son and rightful heir, is alive. So Devavrata renounces the throne, and then, because his own sons would one day have a claim, vows lifelong celibacy. The gods are said to have called him Bhishma, the terrible, for the terribleness of the oath.
What it cost. The one man with an undisputed claim is permanently removed from the succession, and the family is left dependent on Satyavati’s two sons. Both die young and childless. Bhishma is still alive to see the consequence, and is still bound: at 1.12 he is blowing his conch for Duryodhana.
The line is continued by another man
With Vichitravirya dead and childless, Satyavati calls her first son, Vyasa — born to her before her marriage — to father children on Vichitravirya’s widows under the levirate custom of niyoga. Ambika bears Dhritarashtra and Ambalika bears Pandu, and those two are Vichitravirya’s heirs in law and Vyasa’s sons in fact. A serving-woman bears Vidura, who is Vyasa’s son exactly as they are and heir to nobody.
What it cost. From this generation on, nobody in the Kuru house descends from Shantanu through his own sons. Vidura, the ablest of the three, is excluded from the throne by his mother’s status and becomes the counsellor who will argue against the war and be overruled. And the author of the Mahabharata is the grandfather of the cousins who fight it.
The sons are born by a boon
Pandu, king in his blind brother’s place, is cursed so that fathering a child would kill him. Kunti has a mantra given to her in girlhood by which she may call a deva; Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna are born by it, and Madri, using it once, bears the twins. All five are Pandu’s sons in law and in name. The same mantra, used once before her marriage, had already given Kunti a son she set adrift: Karna.
What it cost. The Pandavas’ claim rests on being Pandu’s sons, and they are Pandu’s sons by a legal fiction their cousins can see as clearly as they can. Duryodhana’s case is not simply greed: his father was the elder, and the men opposite are not his uncle’s children by blood. And the eldest of Kunti’s sons is standing in Duryodhana’s army, knowing what he is and unacknowledged by the brothers he faces.
And so, 1.1
Why the first verse says “mine”
Read the three breaks together and the first verse of the Gita changes. When Dhritarashtra says मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव — “my people and the sons of Pandu” — he is not merely being partial. He is stating the position his side actually holds: that his sons are the line and the others are Pandu’s, a separate thing. The Pandavas hold the opposite position with equal sincerity. Neither claim is settled by blood, because after Vyasa there is no blood claim left in this family for anyone to hold. The Gita does not resolve the succession, and neither does this page. What both do is make it possible to see that there was something to resolve.
Common questions
Was Karna really the eldest Pandava?
By birth, yes. The Mahabharata records that Kunti bore Karna before her marriage to Pandu, by the same mantra that later gave her Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna, and set him adrift. He was raised by Adhiratha, a charioteer, and fought for Duryodhana. Karna knew: Krishna told him before the war and Kunti told him herself. His brothers did not, and learned it only after the war. The Bhagavad Gita never mentions it.
Who was Vyasa to the Kuru family?
Grandfather to all of them, and the author of the poem they are in. He is Satyavati’s son by the sage Parashara, born before her marriage to Shantanu, and he fathered Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura on Vichitravirya’s widows and a serving-woman. The Gita names him at 10.13 and 10.37, and at 18.75 Sanjaya says he heard the whole dialogue by Vyasa’s grace.
Why couldn’t Vidura be king?
Because his mother was a serving-woman. He is Vyasa’s son exactly as Dhritarashtra and Pandu are, and the epic presents him as the wisest and most upright of the three, but the status of his mother excluded him from the succession. He argued against the war and was overruled. He is not named anywhere in the Bhagavad Gita.
How we reached Kurukshetra All twenty-two people Every name in the Gita