For Satyavati, the end justified the means. Her life’s ambition became the assurance of succession of Shantanu’s lineage and inheritance of his fortune by her sons. But ironically, Bhishma, whose right to the throne was snatched away because of her, outlived her children in life and in fame. Her actions indirectly created a generation encompassed by greed, which ultimately led to its annihilation. Dhanalakshmi Ayyer concludes that ‘Satyavati’s story teaches the new generation women that determination and commitment are different from avarice and calculation. One should know where greed takes over from ambition.’ (Ayyer, 2006)6
The third instance that depicted her personality was how even after her marriage to Shantanu, she never revealed the truth about her illegitimate son Vyasa. His birth was the consequence of her encounter with Parashara. She was afraid that telling the truth might anger Shantanu and lead him to further suspect that their sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya, were also not his. Satyavati’s insecurity towards her sons’ rights as heirs was the reason behind the manipulation and machinations she used against Shantanu. She was afraid of losing the importance and acceptance that he gave her, as she had been deprived of it in her early years. The difficulties of growing up as a girl in the Vedic era cannot be ignored. On the threshold of adolescence, Satyavati dealt with foster parents, difficult sages, sexual awakening and loneliness. Yearning to be loved and treasured, and not willing to be treated as a lackey despite her royal descent, Satyavati set out to create her own destiny.
The fourth instance was when, to ensure that Bhishma does not control the entire administration in the absence of her sons, she did not send Vichitravirya and Chitrangada to a gurukul to pursue formal education as was necessary in those days for Kshatriya princes.7 That was the scale of her insecurity. She also refused to let Bhishma be her sons’ teacher. This was because she was afraid that he might take revenge by harming them and teaching them what they should not learn as princes: selflessness, spirituality and humility. Here again, Satyavati’s insecurity and envy towards Bhishma is evident.
After analyzing the first and second behavioural instances, it seems that Satyavati exhibited Machiavellian personality traits. The second and third instances show that Satyavati was also narcissistic in character. The third, fourth and the fifth instances further substantiate that she seemed to be neurotic in her behaviour.
Ayyer describes Satyavati as ‘the embodiment of the driving force of womanhood, with motherly ambition blinding her vision at every turn’ and adds that ‘in a way, Satyavati exemplifies what Rudyard Kipling succinctly put: “The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.”’ (Ayyer, 2006)8
Shantanu: A Guilt-ridden Father
Shantanu had his own merits and demerits. His acceptance of various controversial conditions imposed on him for marrying Ganga and then Satyavati is indicative of his disposition. Some of these tendencies are highlighted below.
The first instance that outlines Shantanu’s negative traits was when he fell in love with Ganga. He asked her to become his wife and the queen of Hastinapur, to which she gladly agreed. Ganguli translates the Sanskrit text in Mahabharata as:
Of faultless features, the damsel sending a thrill of pleasure into the heart by every word she uttered, said, ‘O king, I shall become thy wife and obey thy commands. But, O monarch, thou must not interfere with me in anything I do, be it agreeable or disagreeable. Nor shall thou ever address me unkindly. As long as thou shalt behave kindly I promise to live with thee. But I shall certainly leave thee the moment thou interferest with me or speakest to me an unkind word.
The king answered, ‘Be it so.’ And thereupon the damsel obtaining that excellent monarch, foremost in the Bharata race, as her husband became highly pleased. And king Shantanu also, obtaining her for his wife, enjoyed to the full the pleasure of her company. And adhering to his promise, he refrained from asking her anything. And the lord of earth, Shantanu, became exceedingly gratified with her conduct, beauty, magnanimity, and attention to his comforts. . . And she gratified the king by her attractiveness and affection, by her wiles and love, by her music and dance, and became herself gratified. And the monarch was so enraptured with his beautiful wife that months, seasons, and years rolled on without his being conscious of them.9
These lines depict Shantanu’s willingness to marry Ganga and his lust to have her by all means, even if it meant staking his whole kingdom. This shows how flawed he was, as a king and as a virtuous human being.
The second instance which throws light on his personality is when he lets Ganga drown their sons in the river as soon as they are born, without questioning her actions. Even though his expressions clearly showed how unhappy and frustrated he felt, he did not utter a single word. He finally lost his patience when Ganga tried to drown their eighth son, Devvrata (later known as Bhishma due to his terrible vow of celibacy). He stopped her from doing so and questioned her as to why she had done this to all their sons.
In his work, Ganguli describes it as:
And the king, while thus enjoying himself with his wife, had eight children born unto him who in beauty were like the very celestials themselves. But, O Bharata, those children, one after another, as soon as they were born, were thrown into the river by Ganga who said, ‘This is for thy good.’ And the children sank to rise no more. The king, however, could not be pleased with such conduct. But he spoke not a word about it lest his wife should leave him. But when the eighth child was born, and when his wife as before was about to throw it smilingly into the river, the king with a sorrowful countenance and desirous of saving it from destruction, addressed her and said, ‘Kill it not! Who art thou and whose? Why dost thou kill thy own children? Murderess of thy sons, the load of thy sins is great!’10
The third instance that shows his character traits is when he falls in love with Satyavati after Ganga leaves him. When he sees Satyavati for the first time, he wants to marry her. She asks him to seek her father’s permission first. Satyavati’s adoptive father puts forward a condition to Shantanu. He has to fulfill it in order to marry his daughter. In the guise of security for Satyavati and her future sons, it actually calls for injustice to Bhishma. Ganguli translates these lines in the Mahabharata as: ‘The fisherman said, “O king, what I ask of thee is this: the son born of this maiden shall be installed by thee on thy throne and none else shall thou make thy successor.”’11 He did not agree to this condition right away but he was so disheartened by it that he lost his zest for life and became a recluse. Seeing his father’s condition Bhishma tries to find out the reason behind his misery. As soon as he finds out, he reaches Satyavati’s home to seek her hand from her father on Shantanu’s behalf. When her father lays down the same condition as he laid down before Shantanu, Bhishma agrees to it. He further takes a vow of lifelong celibacy so that his heirs never claim a right over the throne of Hastinapur. Even though Shantanu is shocked to hear about Bhishma’s terrible vow and his relinquishment of the throne, he is happy from within to have Satyavati as his wife. He does not ask Bhishma to take back his vow but gives him a boon that he can only die at will. This shows how his carnal desires prevailed over his fatherly duties (by allowing the injustice meted out to Bhishma). Ganguli translates Vaisampayana’s words as:
And Shantanu also, hearing of the extraordinary achievements of his son, became highly gratified and bestowed upon the high-souled prince the boon of death at will, saying, ‘Death shall never come to thee as long as thou desirest to live. Truly death shall approach thee, O sinless one, having first obtained thy command.12
His character is also reflected in his helplessness to do anything that might make Satyavati unhappy. He fulfills every wish of hers, be it her wish to not send her sons to gurukul for formal education or not allowing Bhishma to become their sons’ teacher.
The above instances highlight signs of the presence of various negative personality traits such as narcissism and neuroticism.
Satyavati and Shantanu: A Dyad Analysis
Resea
rch on the impact of couple or inter-parental conflict on children has a long established history.13 For as long back as the 1930s, it has been recognized that discord between parents has a potentially debilitating effect on children’s psychological development.14 Conflict between parents is understood to affect the dynamic of the entire family.15 Disagreement in marriages will inevitably arise, but it is the way the parents choose to respond to discord that has a positive or negative impact on the child.16 Research has characterized negative marital conflict as comprised five factors: intensity, frequency, consistency, content and resolution. In this context negative marital conflict is consistent over time, characterized by child-centred content, high in intensity, frequently occurring and lacking in a visible resolution to the child. Negative conflict between parents is detrimental to their children’s social, emotional and cognitive developments. It can damage their relationship with their parents.17
Periodic conflict between couples is natural and something most children will be exposed to at some point in their lives without necessarily experiencing adverse effects. However, research indicates frequent, intense and poorly resolved couple conflict is very harmful for children.
Recent research has highlighted how children’s exposure to discordant, but non-violent conflict between parents also exerts negative effects on their development (Cummings and Davies, 2010, Rhoades, 2008).18 Research supports the proposal that practitioners and policymakers should move away from considering conflict between parents as a simple present or absent dichotomy (i.e. violent or not). It acknowledges that conflicted behaviour between parents exists across a continuum of expressed severity, ranging from hostile silence to physical violence.
Emery (1982) reviewed the connections between marital turmoil and behavioural problems in children.19 How one defined conflict, whether in intact or broken families, was a matter of controversy. Three theoretically relevant aspects of conflict are the form of the conflict (e.g. hitting, arguing and avoidance), the content of the conflict (e.g. sex, child rearing, money, etc.) and its duration. Both, the amount and type of inter-parental conflict to which the child is exposed to, seem to be important determinants of the effect on the child. Conflict that is openly hostile exposes the child to more, presumably problematic, parental interactions. As does conflict that lasts for a long period of time. Emery concluded, in part, that marital turmoil is more strongly related to maladaptive behaviour in boys than in girls. Girls are likely to be just as troubled by marital turmoil as boys. But they may demonstrate their feelings in a manner more appropriate to their sex role, by becoming withdrawn, for example. The age of a child did not appear to be an important determinant on the effects of marital turmoil. An especially warm relationship with at least one parent can mitigate, though not eliminate, the effects of marital turmoil on children. There was some evidence that changes in discipline as a result of divorce led children, boys especially, to be less compliant with parental commands than children in intact families. Emery summarized that parents involved in conflict with each other are probably poorer role models, more inconsistent with their discipline and placed more stress on their children.
Camara and Resnick (1989) studied a sample of eighty-two families, including divorced and two-parent families.20 The study used a composite of inter-parental conflict made up of seven ratings: the degree of positive affect expressed by the father towards the mother, the degree of positive affect expressed by the mother towards the father, the degree of negative affect expressed by the father towards the mother, the degree of negative affect expressed by the mother towards the father, the degree of hostility and anger in the home, the extent to which conversations between parents were stressful or tense, and the degree of both overt and subtle conflict in the relationship. Even three years after the separation of the parents, there were significant differences in social behaviour among groups. Children from divorced families showed the highest levels of aggression and behavioural problems and the lowest levels of pro-social behaviour and general self-esteem. However, the results for both divorced and non-divorced families regarding conflict resolution were similar. Parents who reported their spouses using verbal attack, avoidance or physical anger in resolving disagreements tended to have lower levels of cooperation and higher levels of conflict. The outcome of disagreements was more likely to result in an escalated conflict. Parents who were able to reach a compromise in resolving conflicts were more likely to cooperate on parental issues. Therefore, regardless of the level of conflict between the spouses, cooperation between the adults in their parental roles was associated with closer, warmer and more communicative relationships. This could be between children and their non-custodial parent in divorced families, and between children and their mothers in non-divorced families.
Morrison and Coiro (1999) examined two hypotheses. Do children of highly conflicted parents who divorce exhibit a decrease in behavioural problems, while children of low-conflict parents who divorce exhibit an increase in behavioural problems? And do children whose high-conflict families remain together show increased behavioural problems than those whose parent’s divorce? The authors used a sample of 727 children from data in the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). They used responses about the frequency that a spouse argued about nine topics, such as children, money, chores and responsibilities. They found that prior reports with high levels of marital conflict had a large and statistically significant adverse effect on children’s behavioural problems. Indeed, the adverse effect of frequent marital quarrels was greater than the deleterious effect of separation and divorce. However, there was no indication of a benefit to the children who left high-conflict families. Furthermore, the greatest increase in behavioural problems was observed among children whose parents remained married despite frequent quarrels and conflicts.
In the section below (and chapters thereafter), I present an analysis of the married life of Satyavati and Shantanu (and others in the lineage) using several instances presented in the Mahabharata. The marital dyad analysis should give us some idea whether the quality of the relationship between them had any effect on their children’s personality and behaviour.
The First Couple in the Lineage
There isn’t much literature describing the dynamic of Satyavati and Shantanu’s relationship because the latter died soon after their two sons were born. C.G. Jung, while outlining the characteristics of the maiden or ‘kanya’, describes her ‘as not altogether human in the usual sense; she is either of unknown or peculiar origin, or she looks strange or undergoes strange experiences’21 (Jung C., 1991) If at that time a woman was satisfied with her identity as a man’s personal property and nothing else, then she lacked individuality in the society and was projected as a symbol of his masculinity. However, it can also be concluded that the maiden took advantage of the ‘anima of man’ to further her own interests. Therefore, in spite of the categorization and marginalization, the maidens were comfortable accepting blame as well as appreciation.22 (Jung C., 1991) According to Pradeep Bhattacharya, the anima is characterized by ‘a secret knowledge, a hidden wisdom . . . something like a hidden purpose, a superior knowledge of life’s laws23 (Bhattacharya, 2004), which we can witness in a group of women in the epic. Just like Bhishma, Dhritarashtra, Pandu, the Kaunteyas, and Sugriva, Shantanu could never be disinterested in Satyavati and was always in awe of her.24 (Bhattacharya, Five Holy Virgins, Five Sacred Myths, Living by Their Own Norms 2017)
Men’s fascination for women is evident by the attention they pay in defending themselves against their natural affinity. They muse about women as a subgroup and devise rules about their behaviour towards them. The reverse is not recorded in the Mahabharata and we do not have women’s insights into the nature of men.25
In his work, Narendra Kohli describes the conversation that takes place between Satyavati and Shantanu after she first comes to live at the palace.26 The conversation points out the awkwardness that both of them felt about the marriage. Satyav
ati still seemed to be in love with sage Parashara, and hence was uncomfortable when Shantanu tried to reach out to her. Kohli present several other instances that indicate consistent lack of understanding and mutuality throughout their married life.
As I have mentioned earlier, she did not send Vichitravirya and Chitrangada to gurukul to pursue formal education due to her insecurities about Bhishma.27 Shantanu’s reluctance to allow this showed that there was lack of understanding and intellectual balance between husband and wife in the marriage. Shantanu knew it was difficult to argue with Satyavati and instill sense in her. She was happy with the fulfillment of her own self-interests. He also knew that he would not be able to live peacefully if Satyavati grew indifferent to him. When he tries to make her understand the importance of learning at a gurukul under a guru’s supervision, she discards his views stating that it is more important to gain knowledge than to understand the needs and emotions of the guru, and knowledge can be gained at home as well. She says that for her, it is more important that her sons realize that they are the masters and the guru is just a royal servant. According to her, this attitude would be beneficial for her sons as rulers. Even though it would make them arrogant and aggressive. As mentioned before, she also refused to let Bhishma be her sons’ teacher on the pretext that he might take revenge by harming them and teaching them qualities that they should not learn as princes, such as selflessness, spirituality and humbleness. Here again, Satyavati’s insecurity and envy towards Bhishma is evident.
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