Madri
Mother of the Twins
Pandu's second wife, the princess of Madra, and the mother of the twins Nakula and Sahadeva through the Ashwini gods.
- Sanskrit/Telugu name: మాద్రి
- Also known as: Princess of Madra, Madri Devi
- Symbols: Twin stars, Himalayan flowers
Story
Madri was a princess of the Madra kingdom in the far northwest, famous for her beauty, and she became King Pandu's second wife. When the cursed king retreated to the forest, Madri went with him and Kunti without complaint, trading palace silks for a hermit's life in the mountains. When Kunti used her divine mantra to have three sons, she generously shared it with Madri — and Madri made a clever choice: she invoked the Ashwini Kumaras, the twin gods of healing, and received two beautiful boys at once, Nakula and Sahadeva. Life in the hermitage was peaceful until the terrible spring day when Pandu, forgetting the sage's curse, embraced her — and died in that instant. Madri blamed herself and chose to follow her husband into death, but first she placed her twins in Kunti's care, trusting her co-wife completely. Kunti kept that trust perfectly, raising all five boys with equal love, and in many tellings the friendship between these two very different queens is one of the quiet, beautiful things in an epic full of jealousy. Madri's story shows kids that families can be knitted together by trust just as strongly as by blood.
Fun fact
By calling the twin Ashwini gods with a single use of the mantra, Madri got two sons for the price of one invocation.