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The Hundred Daughters of Kushanabha and Ghritachi — Cursed Maidens of Kanyakubja
Kanyas of Kushanabha · the Hundred Sisters · wives of Brahmadatta
The hundred daughters of King Kushanabha and the apsara Ghritachi are a collective group of sisters recorded in the Balakanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, born to a king of the Amavasu branch of the Chandravamsha and the celestial nymph who was his consort. Their story is narrated by the sage Vishvamitra to Rama at Girivraja, as part of an account of Vishvamitra's own ancestry, since the hundred sisters' brother Gadhi was Vishvamitra's father. The sisters are best known for being cursed by the wind god Vayu after refusing his proposal of marriage, and for the subsequent restoration of their forms through their collective marriage to King Brahmadatta of Kampilya. Their episode also explains the renaming of their father's city as Kanyakubja, "the city of hunchbacked maidens."
✦ The Name
The sisters are not individually named in the Valmiki Ramayana; the text refers to them collectively as kanyashatam, "a hundred maidens" or "a hundred daughters." Their episode gives rise to the toponym Kanyakubja, formed from kanya, "maiden," and kubja, "hunchbacked," meaning "the city of the hunchbacked maidens." This name was applied to their father's capital, earlier known as Mahodaya, after Vayu's curse disfigured them there. Kanyakubja later became one of the most prominent city-names in early Indian geography, surviving into the historical period as the city of Kannauj.
✦ Lineage
- Father: Kushanabha, a rajarshi of the Amavasu dynasty within the Chandravamsha, son of King Kusha, and founder of the city of Mahodaya, later renamed Kanyakubja.
- Mother: Ghritachi, an apsara of great beauty and accomplishment, who bore Kushanabha his hundred daughters and is recorded elsewhere in the tradition as the mother of children by several other sages and divine beings.
- Brother: Gadhi, the son later born to Kushanabha after he performed the Putrakameshti sacrifice seeking a male heir; Gadhi became the father of the sage Vishvamitra.
- Collective husband: Brahmadatta, king of Kampilya, son of the sage Chuli and the gandharva woman Somada, who was herself the daughter of the apsara Urmila; Brahmadatta was born through Chuli's ascetic power rather than through ordinary union, in answer to Somada's wish for a son of his glory and righteousness while she remained unmarried.
✦ The Curse of Vayu
The Ramayana recounts that the hundred sisters, having grown into womanhood, were singing, dancing, and playing music together in the palace garden when the wind god Vayu beheld them and was overcome with desire. He proposed that they marry him, promising to grant them imperishable youth and freedom from the natural decay of mortal beauty. The sisters, asserting that they were bound to act only according to their father's will and not their own, refused his proposal collectively and rebuked him for approaching them without regard for their father's authority. Enraged at the refusal, Vayu entered the bodies of all hundred sisters at once and twisted their forms, making every one of them hunchbacked. Grief-stricken, the sisters returned to their father and told him what had befallen them; Kushanabha, rather than reproaching them, praised them for their patience and unity in enduring the affliction together.
✦ Marriage to Brahmadatta and Restoration
Seeking a remedy for his daughters' affliction, Kushanabha resolved to give all hundred of them in marriage to Brahmadatta, the king of Kampilya. Brahmadatta's own birth was itself unusual: the sage Chuli, pleased by the long and devoted service of the gandharva woman Somada during his austerities, granted her request for a son possessing his own glory and righteousness, and produced the boy through the power of his mind alone, without ordinary union. This son, Brahmadatta, grew to rule Kampilya with a splendour the text compares to that of Indra in heaven. When Kushanabha's proposal reached him, Brahmadatta accepted, and the marriage of all hundred sisters to him was conducted together in a single ceremony attended by priests and by Kushanabha's queens. As Brahmadatta took each sister's hand in turn during the marriage rites, the curse lifted from her, and each regained her former beauty. Somada herself, present as Brahmadatta's mother, rejoiced at her son's marriage and praised the propriety of his conduct.
✦ Connection to the Wider Genealogy
The hundred sisters belong to the Amavasu branch of the Chandravamsha through their father Kushanabha, himself the son of Kusha. Their marriage to Brahmadatta links the Amavasu line of Kanyakubja to the royal house of Kampilya, ruled by a son born through the ascetic power of the sage Chuli rather than through ordinary descent. The sisters' significance for the wider genealogy lies chiefly in their role as the occasion for their father's subsequent desire for a male heir: lacking a son after the marriage of his hundred daughters, Kushanabha performed the Putrakameshti sacrifice and was granted Gadhi, who in turn fathered the great sage Vishvamitra, one of the seven Saptarishi and the composer of the Gayatri Mantra. The episode of the hundred sisters thus forms the immediate narrative prelude, within Vishvamitra's own telling of his lineage to Rama, to the birth of his father Gadhi.
✦ References
- Valmiki Ramayana, Balakanda, Sarga 32 (verses 1.32.7–1.32.20): primary attestation of Kushanabha's parentage, his hundred daughters by Ghritachi, and Vayu's proposal and curse.
- Valmiki Ramayana, Balakanda, Sarga 33 (verses 1.33.1–1.33.26): primary attestation of Brahmadatta's birth to Chuli and Somada, his rule of Kampilya, his marriage to the hundred sisters, and the lifting of the curse.
- Vettam Mani, Puranic Encyclopaedia (1975), entry on Brahmadatta: summarises the episode and confirms Brahmadatta's parentage from Chuli and Somada, daughter of Urmila.
- Wisdomlib (Puranic glossary), entry on Brahmadatta: corroborates the episode's location in Balakanda Sargas 32 and 33 and the identification of Brahmadatta's parents.
- Wikipedia, entries on Kushanabha and Ghritachi: secondary summaries confirming the dynasty, the hundred daughters, the Putrakameshti sacrifice, and the birth of Gadhi.