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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Vana
Draupadī and Yudhiṣṭhira on Forbearance
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Early in the exile, while the brothers sat with Draupadī, she spoke to Yudhiṣṭhira with grief and fury. She asked how Duryodhana could have sent his virtuous elder brother into the woods in deerskin and still not feel his heart break, noting that only four people at court had not wept at the Pāṇḍavas' leaving: Duryodhana, Karṇa, Śakuni and Duḥśāsana. She set the old life against the new: Yudhiṣṭhira once on an ivory throne, anointed with sandal and dressed in white silk, with thousands of Brahmins fed on golden plates; now he slept on kuśa grass and lived on what the forest gave.
She named the strength that lay unused. Bhīma could destroy the Kauravas alone and held back only for his brother's promise. Arjuna could loose five hundred arrows at once. Nakula was the finest swordsman and Sahadeva a brave warrior. She herself was the sister of Dhṛṣṭadyumna and the daughter-in-law of Pāṇḍu. Why, she asked, did Yudhiṣṭhira's anger never rise? The saying was that no Kṣatriya is without anger, and in him she saw the proverb refuted. To her this was no virtue. She also told a story of the Asura Prahlāda and his grandson Bali, who asked which was better, forgiveness or might. Prahlāda replied that neither is always right. A man who always forgives is despised by servants and strangers, loses his goods, and even his wife is not safe. A man who always strikes loses his friends and is feared like a snake in the house. The wise use each at its season, and she insisted that this was the season for might.
Yudhiṣṭhira's reply is one of the most quoted speeches of the Vana Parva. Anger, he said, is the destroyer: in its grip a man may sin, insult his elders, kill the innocent and honour the guilty, and lose his own soul. It clouds judgment and is mistaken by fools for energy. If every injury were repaid, sons would kill fathers and wives their husbands, and the world would end in sin. A weak man who lashes out at the strong only hastens his ruin, so the weak must hold their anger, and the wise forgive even when strong.
He recited the verses of Kaśyapa that praise forgiveness as truth, sacrifice and the force that holds the universe together, and he pointed to the elders who counselled peace: Bhīṣma, Droṇa, Vidura, Kṛpa, Saṃjaya, Vyāsa. If Dhṛtarāṣṭra fell to temptation and refused to give back the kingdom, the king would destroy himself. For his own part, forgiveness and gentleness were the eternal virtue of self-possessed people, and he would hold to it. Draupadī was not silenced, though; she went on to question whether virtue pays at all, and Bhīma soon took up her side.
Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya
Who: Draupadī, Yudhiṣṭhira, Prahlāda, Bali, Bhīma
Bound to
The Yaksha's questions at the lake mirror
Draupadī and Satyabhāmā: How a Wife Wins Her Husband mirror
Jayadratha Abducts Draupadī mirror
Places: Dvaitavana
Where this comes from
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section XXVII (Draupadī challenges Yudhiṣṭhira)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section XXVIII (Draupadī and the Prahlāda–Bali dialogue)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section XXIX (Yudhiṣṭhira on anger and forgiveness)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section XXX (Draupadī questions virtue and Providence)