Maya builds the Sabhā for the Pāṇḍavas

Classical

When the Khāṇḍava forest burned, the Asura architect Maya ran from the fire and Arjuna spared him. Now he stood before Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa with joined hands and said he had been saved from the flames, and asked what he could do in return. Arjuna answered that Maya had already repaid him by offering, and told him to go in peace. Maya insisted: he was a great artist, the Viśvakarman of the Dānavas, and he wished to make something. Arjuna said he could not ask him to do anything for himself, but he would not frustrate Maya's wish: let him do something for Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa thought for a moment and asked Maya to build an assembly hall for Yudhiṣṭhira, so wonderful that no mortal could copy it by studying it, and one in which gods, Asuras and men could all see their own designs.

Maya was glad. He met Yudhiṣṭhira, was honoured by him, and told the Pāṇḍavas the story of the Dānava Vṛṣaparvan. After the right rites and a feast for thousands of Brahmins, he marked out a plot five thousand cubits square. He then told Arjuna he would go and fetch materials he had collected long ago near Mount Kailāsa, in the Mainaka hills, which he had left at the palace of the Dānava king Vṛṣaparvan. There were also a heavy gold-studded mace that Vṛṣaparvan had used to beat his foes, and a conch called Devadatta that had belonged to Varuṇa. The mace, he said, would be Bhīma's, as the Gāṇḍīva was Arjuna's, and the conch would be Arjuna's. He went to the lake Bindu, collected them, and brought crystal and jewels guarded by Yakṣas and Rākṣasas.

With these materials he built the palace: golden columns, walls of jewel and crystal, so bright that it seemed to outshine the sun, and said to surpass the hall of Indra and Brahmā's mansion. Eight thousand Kiṅkara Rākṣasas, fierce and able to fly, were set to guard it. In the grounds he made a tank with lotuses the colour of gems, golden fish and crystal steps. Visiting kings mistook the water for solid floor and fell in, or mistook solid floor for water. Maya finished the palace in fourteen months and told Yudhiṣṭhira it was done. He gave Bhīma the mace and Arjuna the conch, whose sound made all creatures tremble. The hall is the setting of the Rājasūya, of Nārada's questions, and of the humiliation of Duryodhana, which the epic gives as the spark of the dice game.

The Pāṇḍavas' greatest glory came from a gift to a fugitive; its greatest cost followed from the same gift. The hall is the place where a series of important scenes will happen: Nārada describes the halls of the gods to Yudhiṣṭhira; the Rājasūya's honours are given; Duryodhana is laughed at. The epic says Maya built the hall for human eyes and also for the eyes of gods and Asuras, which is exactly why it fools the visitors who enter it. It is also a reminder that the Pāṇḍavas' success depends on gifts from others, from Agni, who gave Arjuna the bow, from Kṛṣṇa, from Maya. The mace and conch he brought go to Bhīma and Arjuna, and each will be used at Kurukṣetra.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Maya, Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma

Bound to

Khāṇḍava-daha origin

Founding of Indraprastha origin

Narada's questions to Yudhishthira origin

Duryodhana is humiliated in Maya's palace origin

Places: Indraprastha, Mount Kailāsa, Lake Bindu, Mainaka

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (Roy edition, archive.org full text) Sabha Parva, Section I (Maya asks to repay Arjuna; Kṛṣṇa's request)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Sabha Parva, Section III (Maya fetches the mace and conch; builds the hall)

See it on the tree · All stories

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