The Great Indian Epics

by Unknown

At length the great sacrifice for imperial sway was successfully accomplished, and with the greatest imaginable splendour. After which the subject Rajahs were courteously dismissed to their respective principalities.

But the grandeur and wealth displayed on this occasion served to re-awaken or inflame the old jealousy of the Kauravas, particularly of Duryodhana, who had been the unwilling collector of the vast tribute poured into Yudhisthira’s treasury at Indraprasta. Despairing of injuring their rivals by open and fair means, the Kauravas determined to resort once more to artifice, having, as usual, discussed the pros and cons of the question from all points of view; for these old-time heroes of India were nothing if not argumentative.[74] They built a sumptuous reception-hall, “a crystal-arched palace,” full two miles square, decorated with gold and lapis lazuli, with a thousand columns and one hundred gates. Hither they invited a large number of royal friends, but the principal guests were the Pandavas, whom they challenged to a friendly gambling match. Yudhisthira well understood and clearly stated the objectionable features of gambling, and was fully aware that the game of chance he was challenged to take part in would not be fairly conducted. However, as a Kshatriya, he could not decline the match, and so sat down to play against Shakuni, Queen Gandhari’s brother, a skilful and unscrupulous dice-player, who was backed by Duryodhana.

In a succession of games Yudhisthira lost all his money and jewels, all his cattle, jewelled chariots, war-elephants, slaves and slave-girls, and then the whole of the kingdom of the Pandavas. Driven to despair, the luckless gambler would persist in continuing to play while there remained anything at all to stake. But his success was no better than before, and he staked and lost his brothers, one by one, then himself and, lastly, the joint-wife of the Pandavas, the famous Draupadi.

An exciting and most sensational scene followed. To complete the humiliation of their rivals, the successful gamesters ordered Draupadi to be conducted into the gaming hall. She astutely objected that, as Yudhisthira had first staked and lost himself, and thus entered a servile condition before he played for her, he was not legally competent to dispose of her person; but her protest was unheeded. Being dressed at the time in a single robe of cloth, a simple saree apparently, she refused to appear in that attire before the assembled chiefs. But Dhusashana, with brutal unceremoniousness, dragged her into the great hall by the hair of her head, treating her, in the presence of her husbands, with the familiar license which they were accustomed to indulge in when dealing with their female slaves. Dhusashana even went so far as to attempt to strip beautiful Draupadi in the presence of the assembly. In her trouble she prayed aloud to Krishna for help, invoking him as the lover of the gopis (milkmaids), the dweller in Dwarka, the soul of the universe, the Creator of all things. And Krishna, hearing her prayer, miraculously multiplied her garments as fast as they were removed. Yet notwithstanding these manifestations of divine protection, Duryodhana, not to be behind in affronting his rivals, indecently bared his left thigh and showed it to the modest Draupadi, who, as she said, had never since the occasion of her swayamvara been beheld by an assembly like this. These gross indignities, it may be well imagined, must have driven the Pandavas frantic. Why then did they not dare to interpose? Because they were bound by the acts of their elder brother; and submission to authority seems ever to have been the highest virtue of these Hindu heroes! Only Bhima, with an impetuosity which was not to be restrained even by respect for his elder brother, took a solemn oath before the assembly that, for the deeds that they had done that day, he would break the thigh of Duryodhana and drink the blood of Dhusashana, or forfeit his hopes of heaven. Both these vows he accomplished in the great war to be subsequently referred to.

While this sensational scene was being enacted, a jackal howled in the homa-chamber of King Dhritarashtra. Terrified by this omen of dire evil, the old king began to reprove Duryodhana for his conduct; and, addressing Draupadi, in respectful and affectionate terms, desired her to ask of him any boon she pleased. Without hesitation she demanded at once that Yudhisthira should be freed from slavery. A second boon being offered her, she solicited the freedom of her other husbands; but when she was given the option of a third boon she declined to accept the favour, saying: “O king, these my husbands, freed from the wretched state of bondage, will be able to achieve prosperity by their own virtuous acts.” However, Dhritarashtra dismissed the Pandavas in honour to their own city, desiring them to think no more of the unpleasant episode of the gambling match.

The crestfallen visitors hastened to take advantage of the blind king’s permission to depart, and they set out at once on their homeward journey, revolving in their minds many a scheme of future vengeance. The Kauravas, however, felt, and justly too, that after what had passed that day the matter could not be thus easily settled. They knew their outraged cousins would burn to wipe out the insults they had received, and so they entreated the blind old king, their father, to recall the Pandavas and induce them to play a final game, upon the issue of which one party or the other should go into voluntary exile. The Pandavas were brought back to try the fortune of the dice once more, and it was arranged that the losing side should go into exile, spending twelve years in the forests and one additional year in any city they might find convenient; and that if the exiles were discovered, during the time of their concealment in the city, they would have to go through another exile of thirteen years. The game upon which so much hung was duly played, with the result that the Pandavas had to exchange the splendour and luxury of the palace for the simple life and scanty fare of the forest, with which they had already become acquainted in their earlier wanderings.

When Dhusashana saw that Sakuni had won the game, he danced about for joy, and cried out: “Now is established the Raj of Duryodhana!” But Bhima said: “Be not elated with joy, but remember my words. The day will come when I shall drink your blood, or never attain to regions of blessedness!” The Pandavas seeing that they had lost their wager, threw off their garments, put on deerskins, and prepared to depart into the forest with their joint-wife, their mother Kunti, and their priest Dhaumya; but Vidura representing to Yudhisthira that Kunti was, by reason of her years, unfitted to bear the hardships of exile, proposed that she should be left to his care, and this kindly offer was readily accepted. From the assembly the sons of Pandu went out, hanging down their heads with shame, and covering their faces with their garments. Only Bhima, always more impulsive than his brothers, threw out his long, mighty arms, and glared at the Kauravas furiously, while Draupadi spread her long black hair over her face and wept bitterly. The blind old king regarded the departure of his nephews with grave misgivings, for he felt that inevitable destruction awaited him and his at the hands of the Pandavas. All this, he well knew, was the work of his son Duryodhana, constrained by destiny, since “the whole universe moveth at the will of the Creator under the controlling influence of fate:” and, as Sanjaya said, in allusion to Duryodhana, “the gods first deprive that man of his reason unto whom they send defeat and disgrace.”

Surely it is only a Hindu bard who could imagine such sudden and complete reverses of fortune and such tame, almost abject, acquiescence in the circumstances of the hour, on the part of such redoubtable heroes as the sons of Pandu! Nor is it comprehensible why exile to the forest should always entail the hermit garb and utter destitution.

That King Yudhisthira felt his altered position bitterly is evident from the words he addressed to the Brahmans who accompanied him and his brothers out of the city. “Robbed,” he says, “of our prosperity and kingdom, robbed of everything, we are about to enter the deep woods in sorrow: depending for our food on fruits and roots and the produce of the chase. The forest too is full of dangers and abounds with reptiles and beasts of prey.” However his anticipations were worse than the reality. By the advice of a Brahman the exiled monarch made an appeal to the sun for help, addressing him in such terms as these. “Thou art, O sun, the eye of the universe! Thou art the soul of all corporeal existences! Thou art the origin of all things.... Thou art called Indra, thou art Vishnu, thou art Brahma, thou art Prajapati! Thou art fire and thou art the subtle mind! and thou art the lord and the eternal Brahma.”[75] In response to this appeal the sun-god appeared to the king, and presented him with a copper cooking-vessel, which proved to be an inexhaustible source of fruits and roots, meat and vegetables to the exiles during their twelve years of enforced sojourn in the woods.[76]

Their forest wanderings were productive of many stirring adventures, the narrative of which occupies a large portion of the original poem, but we can find space to notice only a few of these.