Supernatural Heroines In Indian Epics: Origin And Life

Ramayana and Mahabharata, both being epics deal with the emergence of supernatural heroines as female protagonists around which the conflict of both plots are created.

The female protagonist of Ramayana, Sita, was born from the earth whereas the female protagonist of Mahabharata, Draupadi, was born out of the fire. These births are really important as their emergence from basic elements of nature reinforces their association with Goddess. According to the Vedas, the earth is the personified image of a mother whereas sky is the personified image of a father, thus these epic heroines have earth associations.

Sita was found in the earth during ploughing ceremony performed by Janaka, king of Videha, using a golden plough. Whereas another origin story of Sita depicts that Goddess Earth herself appeared with Sita and gave her to childless Janaka.

Mahabharata gives rather mystical birth to the female protagonist as Draupada, King of Panchala, invited Yaja and Upayaja so that they can perform a yagna in order to provide a child to the king. When the Yagna ended a portion was ready for the queen to be consumed but since the queen chose to be ignorant enough to miss this ceremony, the priests, out of anger, threw the portion in fire and two mysterious twins appeared out of the fire - Dhrishtadyumna ( boy) and Draupadi ( Girl).

Hair also plays great importance in personifying the Goddess manifestation of these two heroines. In tradition depictions, when a Goddess is in rags, anger and bloodthirst her hair is unbound whereas when they are in calm, the domestic setting they tie their hair and decorate them. Bound hair represents nurturing civilisation and unbound hair represents doom of civilization and eventually, the protagonist will return to nature, away from violence and abuse.

When Ravana abducted Sita, she drops all her jewellery to creates a tracking trail for Ram to find her. And when Hanuman visits her in Ashoka Vatika, she gives him her last piece of jewellery-Chudamani, a hairpin, as a symbol of her lost hope and she left her hair unbound signalling that she is ready to incarnate into Kali, if Ram does not arrives to kill Ravana.

On the other hand, when Draupadi was publicly humiliated by Kauravas, she swears not to tie her hair until she washes them from the blood of Kauravas.

These heroines though have a major difference between them and that is the preference of choices they make. Sita responds to all her choices silently, whether it be going into exile with Ram, or taking risk of crossing Laxman Rekha to feed the Sage, or her decision to turn down Hanuman's escape plan or at last renouncing her family and returning back to earth due to getting her integrity under question.

Whereas Draupadi was very vocal about her choices throughout as she displays agency of resistance while rejecting Karana, for her hand in marriage. She also challenged the rules of the game while her husbands were gambling and her refusal to tie her hair until she washes them off with Kaurava blood shows how rageful heroine she was.