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Women in Mahabharata - Haimavati

She is noted in Mahabharata as Vishvamitra's first and closest wife.

Assuming she is the same woman as the unnamed 'Vishvamitra's Wife' in Harivamsha, her story goes that, once Vishvamitra abandoned her and her children on the outskirts of Ayodhya and went to do his tapasya somewhere else.

Then, wracked by hunger and desperate to keep her other children alive, she took her middle-born son, tying a noose around his neck [gala; and so he grew up to be called Galava], to a slave market to sell him. There, the people paraded this child in the market.

By Galava and her luck, the exiled, philanderer prince named Satyavrata was also roaming around aimlessly in the same market. When he realises that the child is Vishvamitra's son, he pays Haimavati's asking price out of his remaining wealth and frees Galava. In addition, he also agreed to take care of Haimavati and all of her other children until Vishvamitra returned.

However, Haimavati refused to live in the same place, so they came to an agreement where Satyavrata would kill a bunch of animals and hang their flesh up on a tree in front of Vishvamitra's ashram for Haimavati to take home once he was out of sight.

Satyavrata always resented Vashishtha, their family priest, for inciting his father, Trayyaruna, to exile him after his misbehaviour. Hence, one day, finding his chance, he slaughtered Vashishtha's favourite cow Payasvina and fed the meat to Vishvamitra's sons and also consumed it himself.

After finding out, Vaishishtha condemned Satyavrata to eternal damnation and renamed him Trishanku [Tri-shanku: three sins; 1. kidnapping a married woman, 2. killing a cow, 3. consuming that cow]. However, upon returning from his tapasya, grateful to Satyavrata, Vishvamitra promised to take him to heaven instead.

This Trishanku is the father of the famous Harishchandra.