Kṛṣṇa sets out as peace envoy: the Pāṇḍava councils

Classical

After Sañjaya had gone back to the Kurus, Yudhiṣṭhira turned to Kṛṣṇa and said that this was the moment when friends must show their friendship. He explained that Dhṛtarāṣṭra's message, carried by Sañjaya, was clearly a way to make peace without giving back the kingdom. The Pāṇḍavas had spent twelve years in the forest and a thirteenth in hiding, in good faith, and now the old king was listening to wicked advisers. They had asked for five villages and been refused. Yudhiṣṭhira said that victory brings its own regret, that survivors among the defeated collect their forces and take revenge, and that enmity is never ended by enmity. A peace obtained by humbling ourselves, he said, is better than a war of extermination.

Kṛṣṇa agreed to go to Hastināpura and speak for them. Then Bhīma, to everyone's surprise, spoke in favour of gentleness. Duryodhana was proud, bad-tempered and violent, he said, and should not be provoked or roughly addressed; Kṛṣṇa should speak mildly to him. Kṛṣṇa burst out laughing. He said it was as strange as mountains losing weight or fire turning cold. He teased Bhīma that he sat alone sighing and muttering, that he had sworn to crush Duryodhana with his mace, and that now, like a frightened man, he was pleading for peace. Bhīma, stung to the quick, answered that he loved war and that his strength was well known; he had spoken only from pity for the world. Kṛṣṇa admitted that he had been testing him, and said he was glad to see the old fire.

Arjuna said that peace might still be reached if it were properly proposed, but that Kṛṣṇa knew best. Nakula agreed that Kṛṣṇa should do whatever he thought right. Sahadeva added the opposite note: whatever the Kauravas offered, Kṛṣṇa should find a way to make war happen, since he could not forget Draupadī dragged into the hall. Sātyaki seconded Sahadeva. Each of the brothers, in other words, showed a different mood of the same family, the peace-loving eldest, the angry second, the troubled third, and the younger twin who could not forget.

Then Draupadī spoke. She reminded Kṛṣṇa how they had been cheated and that the Pāṇḍavas' message, five villages only, had been refused. She said she was Drupada's daughter and Dhṛṣṭadyumna's sister, queen of five heroes and mother of five great warriors, and yet she had been seized by the hair and dragged into the hall as a slave. She took her long dark tresses in her hand and said to Kṛṣṇa, bathed in tears, that in all his dealings he should remember how Duḥśāsana's hand had seized them. She had waited thirteen years like a smouldering fire, and she would know no peace until she saw Duḥśāsana's arm severed.

Kṛṣṇa comforted her and made her a promise. Soon she would see the women of the Bharata house weeping as she wept, because their husbands and sons would be slain. He would do all this together with Bhīma, Arjuna and the twins at Yudhiṣṭhira's command, in accordance with fate. The Himālayas might move and the sky might fall, but his words would not fail. He set out from Upaplavya with ten chariot-warriors, a thousand foot and a thousand horse. Omens went with him: thunder in a clear sky, rivers flowing backward, storms battering Hastināpura, while on his own road breezes were sweet, flowers fell, and brāhmaṇas honoured him with curds and honey.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Kṛṣṇa, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva, Draupadī, Sātyaki

Bound to

Sañjaya's embassy to the Pāṇḍavas, and the five villages origin

Kṛṣṇa in Hastināpura: Duryodhana's plot and the cosmic form origin

Terukkuttu: Draupadi's vow, Alli and Aravan on Tamil stages mirror

Places: Upaplavya, Hastināpura

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (read via archive.org copy of the sacred-texts text) Udyoga Parva, Sections LXXII–LXXXIV (councils LXXII–LXXXIII; the journey and omens LXXXIV)

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