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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Sabhā

The second dice game and the exile pact

Classical

Dhṛtarāṣṭra released the Pāṇḍavas and gave back their wealth. Yudhiṣṭhira stood before him and said, "Command us, we obey." The blind king told him to go home and rule his kingdom, and not to hold Duryodhana's harsh words against him. He said he had allowed the game, in his own words, to see his friends and test the strengths and weaknesses of his children. Those with Yudhiṣṭhira as king and Vidura as counsellor had nothing to grieve about. The Pāṇḍavas left. Duryodhana, Karṇa and Śakuni, furious, went to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and Duryodhana argued that the Pāṇḍavas, insulted, would now destroy them. Gāndhārī came and urged the king to abandon Duryodhana, who was the cause of the family's destruction. Dhṛtarāṣṭra said: if destruction was fated, he could not prevent it. Let it be as his sons wished.

He consented to call the Pāṇḍavas back for one more game. A messenger found Yudhiṣṭhira, who had already travelled a long way, and told him that the hall was ready and the old king invited him to play. Yudhiṣṭhira said that fate governs all, that he knew the game would harm him, but he could not refuse the old king's summons. The text recalls that Rāma was lured by a golden deer, and says that men struck by calamity lose their judgment. He turned back with his brothers. Śakuni made the offer: since the old king had returned their wealth, only one stake was needed now. The loser, with his brothers, would go into the forest in deer-skins for twelve years and spend the thirteenth year in a town, unrecognised.

If discovered, he would go back for another twelve. At the end of the thirteenth year the winner would give up the kingdom he had won. The onlookers cried out that Duryodhana's friends should have warned him of the danger. But Yudhiṣṭhira, ashamed to refuse a challenge from his own order, and knowing the consequences, agreed. Śakuni threw the dice, said "Lo, I have won", and it was done. Yudhiṣṭhira bowed to Bhīṣma and Droṇa and took leave of the court. Vidura told Kuntī to stay with him, and told the Pāṇḍavas that a defeat won by unfair means need not pain them, praising each brother and Draupadī. Nārada and the priest Dhaumya would guide Yudhiṣṭhira now. The Pāṇḍavas left Hastināpura, to wander for thirteen years.

The stake of the second game, as much as the first, is what sets up the Vana Parva, the Virāṭa year, and in the end the war. The pact of the second game is clever: one stake, exile, and a thirteenth year in disguise on pain of starting again. It is the arrangement that turns an insult into a long plan. For the Pāṇḍavas it means twelve years in the forest, with meetings and boons and the pilgrimages of the Vana Parva, and a year at the court of Virāṭa. For the Kauravas it means thirteen years to prepare for war while the Pāṇḍavas are weak. The text stresses that Yudhiṣṭhira understood what he was doing, and that the court understood too, since the onlookers say Duryodhana's friends should have warned him. Both sides are sure that this is not the end.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Yudhiṣṭhira, Śakuni, Duryodhana, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Gāndhārī, Vidura, Draupadī, Kuntī

Bound to

Bhīma's oaths and Dhṛtarāṣṭra's boons to Draupadī origin

The Shami tree: weapons hidden as a corpse origin

Nala, Kali's possession and Karkotaka's disguise mirror

Gandhari's blindfold, and the gaze that almost made Duryodhana invulnerable mirror

Places: Hastināpura

Where this comes from

See it on the tree · All stories

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