Women of the Mahabharata as Custodians of Indian Knowledge Systems: Ethics, Governance, and Social Wisdom

Abstract

The women of the Mahabharata as custodians of Indian Knowledge Systems, with particular attention to ethics, governance, social responsibility, and the interpretation of dharma. Through figures such as Draupadi, Kunti, Gandhari, Savitri, and Vidura’s female interlocutors, the epic presents women not as passive recipients of tradition but as active moral thinkers, political advisers, and preservers of social wisdom. Their speeches, choices, protests, and sacrifices illuminate questions of justice, duty, power, family, war, and social order. The study argues that these women contribute significantly to the ethical and political imagination of the Mahabharata by challenging authority, redefining duty, and exposing the consequences of unjust governance. Their experiences also reveal tensions between patriarchal norms and women’s agency. Re-reading these characters through a gender-sensitive framework demonstrates their continuing relevance to contemporary debates on leadership, justice, social harmony, and the transmission of Indian intellectual traditions across generations in changing social contexts.