An upcoming film star allegedly raped his maidservant. His wife stands by him. A police inspector allegedly molested a young sportswoman.
An upcoming film star allegedly raped his maidservant. His wife stands by him. A police inspector allegedly molested a young sportswoman. His wife stands by him. Are these women the Mandodaris of modern times? The media has tried and judged the accused. They are, for the media, Ravan u2014 demon men who do not respect the rights of women. The court is undecided. They are probably Ravan. Or probably Ram.
Mandodari, queen of Lanka, is regarded as a Sati or a pious wife who stands by her husband no matter what.
She is one of the five great heroines or Pancha-kanya of Hindu mythology, the other four being Ahalya, Tara, Sita and Draupadi. All these women are in fractured relationships with their husbands. Ahalya is abandoned by Rishi Gautama for having an extra-marital affair; Tara marries her husband's younger brother, Sugriva, after Vali is killed; Sita is abandoned by Ram following street-gossip even though she is faithful and chaste; and Draupadi has five husbands who gamble her away. Mandodari deals stoically with the fact that her husband is a certified villain. Not much is known about her.
One story informs us that she was the daughter of an Asura-king called Maya and an Apsara called Hema. She is said to have hailed from a town called Mandor near Jodhpur. There is an ancient protected structure in Mandor which the local people call Ravan Jee Ki Chanwari which means the altar where the marriage was performed.
There is a folktale related to the birth of Mandodari. Ravan once made Shiva so happy that he offered the demon-king a boon. Shiva, being Bholenath, the guileless man, did not realise that Ravan's alleged devotion hid a dark personality. Ravan asked, "I want your wife to be mine." Shiva, as guileless as ever, did not realise the implication of this boon. "So be it," he said with his usual indifference, to the horror of Shiva-ganas, the servants of Shiva, who ran to Parvati and told them of what had transpired between her hermit-husband and the demon-king. Parvati was not angry with Shiva; she knew his personality. But she was very angry with Ravan; she knew his personality too. To teach Ravan a lesson she took a frog, Manduka, and transformed her into a very beautiful woman. Ravan saw this beautiful woman seated on Mount Kailas and assumed that she was Parvati. He took her to Lanka where she became known as Mandodari, the frog-woman, after she was observed demanding Ravan's attention during every rainy season when the bull-frogs croaked.
Another folktale interprets Mandodari's name differently as 'manda-udari', one with a bad womb. For it was foretold that any child by her would be the killer of her husband. One day, quite by accident, she drank a pot filled with the blood of rishis who had been beheaded by Ravana. This made her pregnant. In due course, she gave birth to a child, a girl. Fearing for the child's life and her husband's life, Mandodari put the baby in a box and dropped the box in the sea. The sea-god gave the box with the baby girl in it to the earth-goddess who gave her to Janaka. The girl was called Sita and when Ravana abducted her and had her brought to Lanka, Mandodari recognised her daughter by a birthmark on her body. She knew then that days of her husband were numbered. The prophecy would come true.
It is interesting to note that Mandodari does not abandon her husband who is tainted beyond doubt. Yet Ram abandons his wife who is tainted not in deed but by reputation. The contrast draws attention to the difference between traditional roles of a wife and a husband. But both Mandodari and Ram are faithful to their respective spouses. Mandodari does not look at another man and Ram never looks at another woman with eyes of desire.
The whole world rejects Ravan but Mandodari stands by him. Even when Ravan's actions lead to the death of her son, she stands by her husband. She knows that he has terrorised the world and abused women by his excesses, yet she stands by him. She appeals to her husband to change his ways but when he refuses she does not abandon him. She separates her judgment of him as a man from her duties as a wife. By standing by his side, she does not condone his actions nor encourage them. There is a dispassionate detachment between her opinions and her duties. Perhaps that is why she is considered worthy of worship.
One wonders how modern-day Mandodaris actually look at their husbands? Indeed one wonders if they consider themselves Mandodaris at all, for even if the media is convinced, the courts are still in doubt. For if their husbands are not Ravan in their eyes, but Ram, that would make them the suffering Sita who stands by her husband in exile in the forest.
