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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Svargārohaṇa
Yudhiṣṭhira's Visit to Hell
Classical
After the dog has been admitted, Yudhiṣṭhira enters heaven in his own body and finds Duryodhana seated on a glorious seat, shining like the sun among the gods. He turns away in anger. For this man, he says, friends and kin were slaughtered and Draupadī was dragged into the hall, and he does not want to live in the same world. He wants to be where his brothers are.
Nārada tells him with a smile that in heaven enmities cease. Duryodhana has earned his place by dying bravely in battle, which is a warrior's sacrifice. Yudhiṣṭhira should greet him politely. Yudhiṣṭhira asks instead about his brothers, Karṇa, Dhṛṣṭadyumna, Sātyaki, the sons of Draupadī and others, and says that he cannot see them. If they are not here, he will not stay, because heaven is wherever his brothers are.
The gods give him a messenger to guide him. The path is dark, stinking and full of corpses. There are boiling rivers, trees with leaves like swords, red-hot sand and iron jars of boiling oil, and the torments of sinners. Yudhiṣṭhira asks how far they must go. The messenger says that he was told to go only this far, and that the king may return if he is tired.
Yudhiṣṭhira turns back, but cries come from all sides: stay, for when you come near a cool fragrant breeze blows and our pain eases. He asks who they are and hears 'I am Karṇa', 'I am Bhīma', 'I am Arjuna', 'I am Nakula', 'I am Sahadeva', 'I am Draupadī', 'we are the sons of Draupadī'. He wonders if it is a dream or a madness, and curses the gods and Dharma, asking why Karṇa and the others are here while Duryodhana is in glory.
He sends the messenger back with the message that he will stay in hell, for his presence comforts his brothers. The gods then come, with Indra and Dharma himself, and the darkness lifts, the river, the trees and the corpses vanish and a cool breeze blows. Indra says that it was an illusion, a test: every king must see hell, and Yudhiṣṭhira has passed. His brothers are in heaven.
Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya
Who: Yudhiṣṭhira, Duryodhana, Nārada, Indra, Dharma
Bound to
Yudhishthira, the dog and Dharma again origin
The Yaksha's questions at the lake mirror
The Fall of Karṇa: the Sinking Wheel mirror
Duryodhana's thigh: Maitreya's curse and the Danava armour mirror
Places: Svarga, Naraka
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) Svargarohana Parva, Sections I-III