Kuntibhojas

Kuntibhojas refers to a royal line and, most prominently, to the king who fostered the heroine Kunti in the Mahabharata. The figure is generally presented as a virtuous ruler of a kingdom in the northern Indian subcontinent and as the guardian or foster-father of Pritha (Kunti), the mother of the Pandavas.

In the epic, Kuntibhoja’s court is the setting for an episode that connects Kunti to the sage Durvasa. Durvasa visits and, impressed by Kunti’s conduct, grants her a sacred mantra that enables her to invoke any deity at will. This boon has lasting consequences: Kunti later bears Karna by the Sun God before her marriage to Pandu, and after marriage she bears Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna through divine fathers, while Madri uses the same or a related blessing to bear Nakula and Sahadeva.

Outside the Mahabharata, the name Kuntibhoja is found in various Puranic lists and lexicons as the name of a royal house. Texts differ on genealogies and territorial specifics, and the Kuntibhojas are sometimes described as a branch of the Shurasena or broader Yadava line, though precise historicity and geography are uncertain. The figure is primarily treated as a literary and mythological character within these sources.

Scholarly discussion generally treats Kuntibhoja as a literary figure tied to the Kunti narrative and to the Durvasa episode, rather than as a separately verifiable historical ruler. The name persists in epic and Purāṇic traditions and is cited in studies of early Indian royal lineages and cultic genealogy.

See also: Kunti, Durvasa, Karna, Pandavas, Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna.