Duryodhana Hides in the Dvaipāyana Lake

Classical

With all eleven of his akṣauhiṇīs dead, Duryodhana stands alone on the field, wounded and listening to the Pāṇḍavas roar their victory. He decides to withdraw. Mace in hand, he runs from the battlefield, reaches the lake called Dvaipāyana, and by his power of illusion makes its waters solid so that he can enter and lie hidden at the bottom.

Kṛpa, Aśvatthāman and Kṛtavarman have fled towards the same lake. In the evening they find him and tell him to get up and fight, for the enemy too is spent. Duryodhana says that all of them are tired and wounded, and that he will rest one night and fight tomorrow. Aśvatthāman swears by his religious merit that he will kill the Somakas that very night.

At that moment a group of hunters arrive for water. They deliver meat to Bhīma every day, and they have overheard the whole conversation. They know that the king is down in the lake. The Pāṇḍavas have meanwhile searched everywhere in vain, and Yudhiṣṭhira is anxious. The hunters hurry to the camp, make their way in past the guards, and tell Bhīma, who rewards them richly and brings the news to Yudhiṣṭhira.

The Pāṇḍavas, Kṛṣṇa, Dhṛṣṭadyumna, Śikhaṇḍī, Sātyaki and the sons of Draupadī all drive to the lake, with a noise that carries to the sky. Hearing it, Kṛpa, Aśvatthāman and Kṛtavarman take leave of the king and withdraw to rest under a banyan tree. The Pāṇḍavas arrive at a wide lake with cool clear water, within which their enemy lies with his mace.

Yudhiṣṭhira calls on him to come out. The conversation that follows, in which Duryodhana first declines and then accepts the challenge to a mace duel, leads to the final fight with Bhīma. It also gives Aśvatthāman, waiting under the banyan, his night of vengeance.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Duryodhana, Kṛpa, Aśvatthāman, Kṛtavarman, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma

Bound to

The Last Day: Śalya and Śakuni Fall origin

The Mace Duel: Duryodhana's Thighs Broken origin

Aśvatthāman's Night Massacre origin

Places: Dvaipāyana lake, Kurukṣetra

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (text as scanned on archive.org; mahabharataonline.com section pages could not be opened from the working environment) Salya Parva, Sections XXIX-XXXI

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