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Jayadratha Abducts Draupadī

Classical

The Pāṇḍavas were in the Kāmyaka forest. One day they went in different directions to hunt for the Brahmins, leaving Draupadī at the hermitage with the sage Tṛṇabindu and their priest Dhaumya. Meanwhile Jayadratha, king of the Sindhu-Sauvīra country and son of Vṛddhakṣatra, was on his way to the Śālva country to find a bride, splendidly dressed, with a retinue of princes. His party halted in the woods, and he saw Draupadī standing at the door of the hermitage.

Her beauty seemed to light the forest, like lightning among dark clouds. Jayadratha wondered whether she was an apsaras or a goddess. His wonder became wicked desire. He told his companion Koṭika, son of Suratha, that if he could win her he would need no other wife, and sent him to ask whose wife she was. Koṭika approached her as a jackal creeps toward a tigress. He asked if she was a goddess, a yakṣī or a nāga's daughter, and named the princes in the party, with Jayadratha among them. Draupadī answered with proper courtesy. She said it was not fitting for a woman alone to speak to a stranger, but there was no one else to do it. She named herself as the daughter of Drupada, called Kṛṣṇā, with five husbands, who had gone hunting in the four directions. She invited the party to dismount and wait to be received by Yudhiṣṭhira, who is devoted to hospitality, and withdrew into the cottage.

Jayadratha was not interested in hospitality. He ordered her to climb into his chariot. She refused, and warned him: attacking the Pāṇḍavas was like waking a sleeping lion or treading on cobras' tails. Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa would follow her in one chariot, Bhīma would come with his mace, and she had never been unfaithful to her husbands even in thought. When his men moved to seize her she cried, 'Defile me not by your touch!' and called for Dhaumya. Jayadratha grabbed her garment; she shoved him down; he got up and forced her into the chariot. Dhaumya reminded him of the Kṣatriya rule that a man must defeat a woman's protectors before taking her, and followed on foot behind the army.

The brothers returned, and the pursuit began. On the chariot Draupadī, asked by Jayadratha to name the heroes approaching, described each: Yudhiṣṭhira with the drums Nanda and Upananda on his flag; Bhīma tall as a śāla tree; Arjuna the best of archers; Nakula the handsomest man on earth; Sahadeva the youngest and fiercest to wrongdoers. Jayadratha fled; Bhīma caught him by the hair, threw him down and beat him, and shaved his head with a crescent-shaped arrow, leaving five tufts. He would be spared only if he declared himself the Pāṇḍavas' slave. Yudhiṣṭhira smiled and ordered him freed, Draupadī agreed, and Jayadratha went to the Gaṅgā and did penance to Śiva, who gave him only a limited boon: he could check the four Pāṇḍavas, but not Arjuna, once in battle. The boon matters later in the war.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Draupadī, Jayadratha, Koṭika, Dhaumya, Bhīma, Arjuna, Yudhiṣṭhira

Bound to

Durvāsas' Untimely Visit and Kṛṣṇa's Morsel origin

Draupadī and Yudhiṣṭhira on Forbearance mirror

Kīcaka and Draupadī: Bhīma Kills Kīcaka mirror

The Pāṇḍavas Go Incognito: Arrival at Virāṭa's Court origin

Places: Kāmyaka forest, Sindhu, Gaṅgā

Where this comes from

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