Kunti (Sanskrit: कुन्ती, IAST: Kuntī), also known as Pritha (Sanskrit: पृथा, IAST: Pṛthā), is a prominent character in the Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem. A princess of the Vrishni dynasty, she becomes the wife of Pandu, king of the Kuru Kingdom, and is chiefly known as the mother of the five Pandavas—having given birth to the three eldest, Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna—and raising their younger stepbrothers, Nakula and Sahadeva, as her own.

Kunti is one of the few female figures in the epic whose early life is described in detail. Born to Shurasena, she is adopted by her childless uncle, Kuntibhoja, and during her adolescence, she receives a divine mantra from the sage Durvasa, which allows her to invoke any deity and bear a child by them. Out of curiosity, she uses the mantra to invoke the sun god Surya, resulting in the concealed birth of her first son, Karna. Due to the societal stigma surrounding childbirth outside of marriage, she abandons Karna shortly after his birth.

Kunti plays a significant role in the Kuru dynasty. After marrying Pandu, who is cursed to die instantly if he engages in intercourse, Kunti uses her boon to bear Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna by invoking the gods Dharma, Vayu, and Indra, in accordance with Pandu’s request to have children through the practice of niyoga. She later shares the boon with her co-wife Madri, who gives birth to Nakula and Sahadeva. Following Pandu’s death and Madri’s self-immolation, Kunti assumes responsibility for all five children and raises them in Hastinapura, the capital of the Kuru Kingdom. A misunderstanding on Kunti’s part results in the polyandrous marriage of Draupadi, the princess of Panchala, to all five Pandava brothers. Kunti then serves as the queen-mother of Indraprastha until the Pandavas are exiled. Prior to the Kurukshetra War, Kunti meets Karna, who had joined the opposing Kaurava side, and discloses his true parentage, urging him to join the Pandava side. Although Karna refuses to switch allegiance, he agrees to spare all of Kunti’s sons except Arjuna. Following the Pandavas’ victory, Kunti reveals Karna’s identity to them and later retires to the forest with other elders of the Kuru dynasty and eventually dies in a forest fire.

Within Hindu tradition, Kunti is venerated as one of the panchakanya ("five maidens"), embodying ideals of female chastity. Her name is believed to possess purifying qualities, capable of dispelling sin when recited. Kunti is lauded as the epitome of dutiful womanhood, noted for her intelligence, beauty, foresight and political acumen.

Kunti appears in the Mahabharata, one of the Sanskrit epics originating from the Indian subcontinent, which primarily narrates about conflict between two groups of cousins—the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Composed in Classical Sanskrit, the text is a composite work shaped through centuries of revisions, editing, and interpolations. The text is primarily composed between 300 BCE - 300 CE, with the oldest portions of the extant text likely date to around 400 BCE. Manuscripts of the Mahabharata exist in numerous versions, with substantial variations in the details of key characters and events. An exception is the section containing the Bhagavad Gita, which remains notably consistent across different manuscripts. Significant differences exist between the Northern and Southern recensions, with the Southern versions generally being more elaborate and extended. Scholars have undertaken the creation of a critical edition, primarily drawing from the "Bombay", "Poona", "Calcutta", and "South Indian" editions of the text. The most widely accepted version is that compiled by a team led by Vishnu Sukthankar at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, with copies preserved at Kyoto University, Cambridge University, and various institutions across India.

Quickly after her introduction in the Adi Parva—the first of the eighteen books of the Mahabharata—Kunti emerges as a foundational female figure whose narrative significance sets her apart from her contemporaries, playing a central role in shaping the future course of the epic. Early in the royal genealogies, as Bhishma arranges the marriages intended to restore the Kuru lineage, three women—Gandhari, Kunti, and Madri—are brought into focus. Scholar Alf Hiltebeitel points out that it is Kunti who quickly becomes the "rising star" of the narrative skein that spans chapters 103 to 119. Kunti is uniquely privileged in this section of the text. While Gandhari and Madri are introduced more briefly, an entire adhyaya (chapter 104) is devoted to Kunti’s childhood—making her the only woman marrying into a central royal line in either the Mahabharata or the Ramayana whose girlhood is explored in such depth. Quantitative evidence from this narrative arc underscores Kunti’s prominence: between chapters 103.9 and 119.12, the text allocates 195 verses to Kunti, compared to 85 for Madri and just 36 for Gandhari. According to James L. Fitzgerald, Kunti's main scenes in the Mahabharata all involve her premarital son Karna, and within the epic, which follows the story within a story style of narration, the account of Kunti's origin and Karna's birth has been narrated multiple times, with the most detailed one being found in the Vana Parva (3.287.1-3.292.1).

Pradeep Bhattacharya observes that Kunti’s pivotal decision in the later part of the Adi Parva—having her sons share Draupadi—not only influences the trajectory of the plot but also marks a transition in the epic’s focus from Kunti to Draupadi as the central female figure in the following books. Kunti remains largely in the background following the Adi Parva until the Udyoga Parva, the fifth book of the Mahabharata. Here, she re-emerges during Krishna’s peace mission, having multiple dialogues while blessing Yudhishthira and pursuing Karna, who has aligned himself with the Kauravas, to join the Pandava side. In last part of the eleventh book, Stri Parva, Kunti—who has remained the most reticent among the epic’s principal female figures after Kurukshetra war—finally speaks up to reveal Karna's true lineage to the Pandavas. She exits the main narrative in the Ashramavasika Parva, the fifteenth book.

The feminine epithet Kuntī (Sanskrit: कुन्ती) is a patronymic derivative, which the character acquired through her adoption by Kunti-bhoja. The epithet has its roots in the masculine noun Kunti (कुन्ति), which originally referred to a group of people. This ethnonym appears in classical Sanskrit texts such as the Kathaka Samhita, Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī (4.1.176), and the Mahabharata. The male variant of the epithet is also used to denote rulers or princes of this lineage.