Durdhara

Queen Durdhara was wife of Chandragupta Maurya. Due to lack of textual material regarding her historians have different perspective regarding her life. One view suggest that she was princess of a kingdom that was situated in North-Western India. Another view suggest that she was Macedonian and her real greek name was Diodora.

Durdhara - Wife of Chandra Gupt Maurya

Reference in Jain Literature

As per the Jain literature Queen Durdhara was first wife of Chandragupta Maurya. The Jain text mention that Durdhara fell in love at first sight with Chandragupta Maurya. Chandragupta Maurya saved the princess from a prince who was having “corrupted intentions”. She also helped Chandragupta to establish tie with various small kingdom to collectively defeat Alexander’s Officers.

Reference in Indica

Megasthenes was sent to Pataliputra (Capital of Magadha) to record the details of Maurya Empire. He was the special envoy of king Seluceus. In the book Megasthenes mentioned a Macedonian princess called Diodora, which was the greek name of Durdhara. Some historians argue that Durdhara was actually not Indian, but the daughter of Selucus. After long battle Selucus decided to marry his daughter Diodora to king Chandragupta to establish peaceful ties with his empire.

This evidence becomes more prominent when it was discovered that Selucus, who was a Greek, married an Iranian girl Apama. So it could be a possibility that future Mauryan rulers shared Greek , Iranian and Indian blood.

Death of Queen Durdhara

Chanakya, who was the teacher of Chandragupta Maurya, use to feed him with a little bit of poison daily so that Chandragupta becomes immune of any poison attack. Once for the sake of affection Queen Durdhara (who was nine months pregnant at that time) also shared food with the king. Chandragupta was unaware that his food was poisoned. When Chanakya saw Queen eating poisoned food he immideately ripped Queen’s stomach and took out the new-born. Till that time poison had reached the head of baby forming a blue spot (Bindu) on his head. The Queen died at the spot.