Pancha - Kanya: The Five Virgins of Indian Epics

Author: Pardip Bhattacharya
Publisher: Writers Workshop
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 131
ISBN/UPC (if available): 818157348X

Description

Kanya is also the sign of the planet Virgo.

The word Stri (female, woman) could easily have been used in place of kanya. (it is probably derived from sutri, “bearer of children”). But it was not. So how are much-married and in no way sexually innocent, panca-kanyas, Ahalya, Mandodari, Tara, Kunti and Draupadi, “virgins”?

Pardip Bhattacharya’s exploration is done with scholarship, sensitivity, and idealism and that uncommon quality called commonsense.

Contents

Publisher’s Note:
Professor P. Lal

Introduction by the Author

1. AHALYA

2. TARA

3. MANDODARI

4. KUNTI

5. DRAUPADI

6. CONCLUSION


Endnotes