Mahabharata – Draupadi vs Dice and Deceit – {Ep.273}

Today’s episode is a story from the Mahabharata. It’s a story about Draupadi in an epic showdown with the Kauravas who try to utterly humiliate her—only to face a divine twist, and promises of revenge!

Namaskar and welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re back into the main storyline of the Mahabharata. We’ve done dozens of episodes from the Mahabharata before. 

If you haven’t binged on those, please do check out the links in the show notes and on the site sfipodcast.com. Regardless, I’ll recap the story so far.

The Mahabharata is one of two major epics from India, the other is the Ramayana, which we have also covered here on this show.

The Mahabharata kicked off with Bhishma who was the crown prince of Hastinapur. Bhishma gave up the throne so that his father could play the geriatric romeo. The price Bhishma paid was a promise that he would never sit on the throne, and never have children, and always serve whoever did sit on the throne. A nuance of the phrasing meant that when the throne room maid once accidentally sat on the throne while cleaning it, Bhishma would have had to obey her. But luckily for the citizens of Hastinapur, the maid did not realize this. Anyway, she would have been too scared to command Bhishma. 

Bhishma did his best and stuck to his promise, even though tragedy after tragedy struck the family. Every King who ascended to the throne seemed to quickly slide off of it as well.

After much confusion and turmoil, Dhritarashtra became the King. Despite being blind, he was the only possible Emperor candidate of his generation. Dhritarashtra was now getting old too. So you might think it’s a good thing he had over a hundred children, each physically able to handle the responsibilities of ruling an empire. But the situation was not so simple. Duryodhan was younger than Yudhishthir, the eldest of 5 boys of the previous Emperor Pandu, and Yudhishtir was certainly considered a much more sensible candidate to succeed Dhritarashtra.

This public opinion forced the Emperor to name Yudhishthir his crown prince much to Duryodhan’s chagrin. Duryodhan responded by trying to barbecue his cousins and their mother.

Unknown to Duryodhan, and the almost 100 Kaurava brothers, the Pandavas escaped. Rather than confronting Duryodhan, they decided to go on a countryside jaunt, incognito. Along the way, Bhima, the second oldest Pandava, married a demoness and had a child with her.

Arjun outdid Bhima. He found a bride not only for himself, but for each of his brothers as well. Unfortunately there was really just one bride across all 5 brothers. A ridiculous mixup worthy of a modern-day sitcom.

Dhritarashtra, and all the other Kauravas realized that the Pandavas were still alive. They summoned the Pandavas back to Hastinapur. Duryodhan had already been made crown prince, and there was no chance of Yudhishthir getting his hands on the royal headgear again. So instead, Dhritarashtra, Duryodhan and Duryodhan’s uncle Shakuni, gave the Pandavas a piece of land as a compromise. The land was a very dense and inhospitable forest. 

Through hard work, a bit of help from Krishna, and Agni, the God of fire, Arjun cleared the forest, and transformed the land into a kingdom, with a spectacular palace. Neighbor’s envy, owner’s pride. Neighbor Duryodhan was envious of course, and sought to take over the palace for himself.

That plot involved a game of ludo. It was Pandavas vs Kauravs.

Who would have thought that such a harmless game would have a role to play in such an infamous day in all of Indian history? But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Let’s go to the Ludo chamber in Hastinapur.

Dhritarashtra was crunching his way through his fifth bag of popcorn. And anyone could have detected a father beaming with pride and joy. His son, the apple of his eye, his Duryodhan, had just demonstrated how awesome he was at Ludo! True, Duryodhan hadn’t even touched the dice. It was Shakuni doing all the playing. But Dhritarashtra was still immensely proud of Duryodhan. His son was the one in charge, the one to whom all the spoils went. Duryodhan had won all the wealth of the Kingdom of Indraprastha. He had also won King’s horses, and all the King’s men. Not won over, simply won. Because Yudhishthir had been careless enough to bet everything he could get his hands on, his gold, his silver, his mines, his farms, his Kingdom, his horses, his elephants, his servants, his army, his palace, and then his own brothers and then finally himself. With such poor judgment, it was fitting then that Yudhishtir should have become Duryodhan’s servant.

And then it happened. The court that was buzzing with grumblings suddenly stopped dead when Yudhishtir announced the next thing he had to offer was Queen Draupadi herself.

In that silence, you could have heard a pin drop. Even Dhritarashtra stopped crunching his popcorn, and gulped nervously. A buzz arose now. Cries and shouts, and some laughter. 

Shakuni wasn’t going to give anyone else a chance to intervene or object. He’d had the go ahead from Yudhishtir and he immediately rolled the dice. Dhritarashtra kept his ears pricked for the result. But the “Howzat??” from Duryodhan told the whole story.

There were celebrations of all kinds from the Kauravas. Dushasana slid towards the Pandavas fans area and tore off his t-shirt in celebration. He got a yellow card for that, but he didn’t really care.

“We did it!” Duryodhan announced. “Draupadi is ours,”

“Ridiculous!” interjected Vidhur. He was Dhritarashtra’s brother, and also an adviser in the court. “This makes no sense! This was not a fair fight” Vidhur announced.

That incensed Duryodhan. “Arrrey oy Uncleji. This was a completely fair game. We agreed to the rules, and we won everything fair and square. So stay out of it. No even better – stay in it if you want. Go fetch Draupadi. That is a command”

This disrespect was about to get worse. Vidhur somehow kept his cool and stayed on. But he did not go fetch Draupadi. Only the King could command him. Dhritarashtra was still the King, and still in charge of the court. Dhritarashtra could have totally intervened. But he was working through a particularly large mouthful of popcorn at that moment. And time, tide and evil intentions do not wait for a man to finish chewing.

“Go and summon Draupadi,” Duryodhan commanded the chamberlain.

The chamberlain, an old man close to retirement age, cursed himself for not calling in sick this morning. But he couldn’t disobey a direct order. So he walked over, creeping like a snail, unwillingly to Draupadi’s chambers, as Kalidasa might have described him. Kalidasa in case you don’t know, was a great Indian poet.

But anyway, back to Draupadi who was curled up with the latest edition of the Royal Gossip magazine. Her maid announced the Chamberlain’s arrival, just as Draupadi had reached the article promising to reveal the shocking details of Karna’s birth.

Draupadi reluctantly set aside the magazine and called him.

The chamberlain had made up his mind to break the news gently. And now he was standing here shuffling his feet.

“By all means take your time. Hanging around waiting for you to speak is a really thrilling experience, Chamberlain” she remarked dryly.

The Chamberlain found speech. “Yudhishtir has gambled away your ride home, your home, your husbands, himself and yourself, my lady. Duryodhan owns you now and commands you to go to him in the Ludo chamber”

“What, what, what?!!” Draupadi was shocked. This was a new low. Was this a prank? It wasn’t the first of April. Was this a reality show with camera crews that would leap out any moment and scream Bakra? But no, the Chamberlain was dead serious.

Draupadi had him repeat himself 3 more times before she fully understood how dire the situation was. And now Duryodhan was ordering her to appear before him. Like she was his servant. She was not going to make it easy. She sent the chamberlain back with a question.

“I don’t have time for this, what does she want to do – play 20 questions?” Duryodhan said

“No, we’re playing Ludo,” reminded Karna.

“Your highness, it’s not a question for you. It’s a question for Yudhishtir” the chamberlain clarified.

“Well, out with it man, what is it?” Dhritarashtra asked impatiently.

“Yudhishtir, she wants to know if you lost her before or after you lost yourself?”

Yudhishtir had lost her freedom at the very end, after he had lost his own freedom. You listeners know it. Yudhishthir knew it. And yet he couldn’t respond. Was it shame? Was it embarrassment? Was he simply dizzy from the trauma of this self-inflicted catastrophe? I don’t know. For once, I have to say that I’m not sure. I can freely travel anywhere in space and time. And this is one place that I have done my best to avoid. 

Duryodhan was getting frustrated by all these sidebars. “Dushasana, go get Draupadi. Drag her here if you have to,”

Not one of the Pandavas said anything. Dhritarashtra was silent. Ditto Bhishma. Ditto Vidhur, Dronacharya, and Kripacharya.

Dushasana stormed into Draupadi’s chamber, unannounced, and chased her through many chambers, and finally caught her. Draupadi resisted but it wasn’t very difficult for a well-trained warrior like Dushasana to overpower a Princess who had, well, lived like a princess, never needing to rely on her own abilities to defend herself.

Dushasana took Duryodhan’s advice quite literally. He dragged Draupadi to the Ludo room, by her hair. And the shameful thing was that no one said a word. Not the Pandavas, not the King, not any of the elders, as Draupadi was dragged into their presence by her brother-in-law. Dushasana, Duryodhan, Karna, and Shakuni on the other hand, had the expressions of children who had just been handed unlimited VIP passes to their favorite amusement park.

“Let’s make her sweep the floor!” Karna suggested.

“No, we can ask her to serve another maid! That’ll be the ultimate humiliation!” Shakuni offered.

Duryodhan had an extreme idea. He ordered Draupadi to come and sit on his thigh. Draupadi didn’t move. Not only because Dushasna was still clutching her hair, but because 

“It’s right here,” he told Draupadi, pointing at his thigh. “Are you expecting me to draw you a map?”

Draupadi was the only one who spoke up. And she addressed not this rowdy gang of Kauravas. But the King. This was Dhritarashtra assembly after all. His word was law. “If I’m to become a servant, I’ll follow the servant handbook of rules and regulations 18th edition. I’ll do all those vile things your sons are thinking up, if I must. But answer me one question, just one question. Is a wife the property of a husband? If the answer is no, I was never eligible to be wagered in this Ludo championship of yours. If a wife is merely the property of a husband, Yudhishthir lost the right to own any property the moment he lost himself. So how could I have been staked at all? I’ll accept your answer whatever it is”

Dhritarashtra stayed silent. He had no answer to that. Vidhur, Bhishma, Dronacharya, Kripacharya, no one else had an answer to this either. 

“You are the wise men of this court, how can you not know the answer?”

She tried again, and this time directed her question to people individually.

“You, Bhishma, you’re the eldest, the wisest, the most powerful member of this family. Are you just on the hook for protecting whoever sits on the throne? Do you have no obligation to protect anyone else in the family?”

Bhishma was silent.

“And you, Vidhur, you are the minister of ethics. You know every law in our land. What does your lawbook say about this?”

Still no response.

“Dronacharya, is this what you taught your students at your prestigious University? The Pandavas learned to gamble away all their possessions? And the Kauravas learned to treat women like this?”

She turned to face Kripacharya, which made him break into a sweat. But then changed her mind and addressed Dhritarashtra instead. Kripacharya wasn’t a main character, he hadn’t done much in the last few episodes.

“King Dhritarashtra, you are fortunate you’re not witnessing this scene live. Can I get an answer to my question? What right did anyone have to gamble me away?”

Dhritarashtra finally replied “you’re asking the wrong person, dear. Ask Yudhishthir, how could he have sunk so low?”

Draupadi had been saving up for this. “What right did you have, Yudhishthir? Did you ask for my permission before staking my freedom like this? And even if you argue that a husband has the right to do that, you’re not my exclusive husband. I have four other husbands. Did you ask Bheem, Arjun, Nakul and Sahadev if they consented to this?”

Yudhishthir did not have an answer. Bheem and Arjun had tried unsuccessfully during the game, to reign in Yudhishtir’s reckless decisions. But now Bheem actually tried to take matters into his own hands. By taking Yudhishtir’s hands and trying to burn them. He was only stopped by his other brothers.

This fighting amongst the Pandavas was making Shakuni happier and happier. Before this they had presented a united front, and that was their strength.

Duryodhan was happy with this too, but he had bigger things in mind. All this fuss, he thought, was just Draupadi trying to weasel out of her new status as a servant. She was talking of protecting the family honor, but what honor did she have. A slave had no honor, according to Duryodhan. And in an extreme moment of depravity, he ordered Dushana to disrobe her.

Despite Draupadi’s resistance, that is what Dushana proceeded to do. Only, he didn’t quite succeed. And the reason for that was neither a lack of education on that topic, and nor a clever choice of clothing by Draupadi. The only bit that helped Draupadi was divine intervention. She closed her eyes and prayed. To the one person whose presence in this court could have completely avoided all this. Krishna. He was away in a different Kingdom, but he heard her silent prayer. And before you ask – Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu, so that means he has superpowers. Including teleporting or streaming garments from thousands of kilometers away.

So though Dushasana pulled more and more of Draupadi’s sari, she never ran out of Sari. Dushasana didn’t give up, he kept tugging at it and pulling it and yet, Draupadi was still completely clothed. 30 minutes later, Dushana collapsed, exhausted beside a 20 foot tall mountain of saree. Draupadi was still completely clothed, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t deeply upset.

I don’t know what Yudhishtir was thinking. Maybe he saw the pile of saree, which would definitely be worth a pretty penny, and wondered if this was his way to get back into the game and win everything back. For everyone’s sake, I’m glad he didn’t act on such an impulse.

Bhima was the only Pandava who reacted. The very thigh that Duryodhan had directed Draupadi to come sit on? Well Bhima swore that he would rip apart that thigh, and beat Duryodhan to death with it. And as for Dushasana, Bhima promised to tear the hands that had dared to clutch Draupadi’s hair, and for good measure he was going to rip open Dushasana’s chest and drink his blood. And until he did so, he wouldn’t face his ancestors.

That seemed to galvanize some of the others in the assembly into speaking. Maybe because they knew that Bhima was easily strong enough to do exactly what he had just promised.

Vidhur strongly opposed the events of this day. This was the darkest hour for the country, he said. Nothing could erase this moment and their participation in this infamous episode. And what was more, his laws, his code of ethics indicated that Draupadi was right. He agreed Yudhishthir could never have staked her at all. It’s just a pity that his answer came too late.

Vikarna, who was one of Duryodhan’s brothers, blurred party lines by speaking up in Draupadi’s side. That should have made Duryodhan upset. But only one out of a hundred brothers dissented? That wasn’t a bad ratio. 

Vikarna went on to say how terrible this situation was. What had his brothers and cousins sunk to? The utter amount of disrespect shown to the daughter in law was unacceptable.

As if to agree with both of these opinions, there was a sudden noise as a number of jackals could be heard howling, as well as donkeys braying, and vultures screeching. Any one of them was an omen of destruction. And now with all of these being heard simultaneously, it set Dhritarashtra into panic mode.

“What happened today was a terrible thing. And I can’t change the past. Yudhishtir recklessly gambled away people as if there were mere objects in his collection. And Draupadi is the one who had to pay the price for it. 

Draupadi, ask what you want – you shall have it”

Draupadi asked for Yudhishtir’s freedom.

Seriously? The guy with the serious gambling problem that landed them in this mess in the first place, she was asking for his freedom? Why not Arjun? Or even Bheem? Well he’d given his word, so he had to make good on it.

Dhritarashtra went ahead and overrode Duryodhan and freed Yudhishtir on the spot. But it was not enough.

“Ask for something more Draupadi, that is not enough”

Draupadi asked for the other four pandavas to be freed.

Dhritarashtra freed them all. But he still wasn’t satisfied(or rather, the howling of the jackals and the screeching of the vultures hadn’t fully stopped), so he wanted to do more. He announced that everything Yudhishtir had lost today would go back to him. Duryodhan was gritting his fists and clenching his teeth. Or rather, the other way around.

Karna made the observation that while the Pandava brothers had been wallowing in varying states of self-pity, shame, anger, it was Draupadi who had taken the practical step of getting them out of the mess they were in. “Hats off to Draupadi” he proclaimed.

Which only further incensed Arjun. “I don’t want to hear her name from your lips, Karna. Not even praise. It’s no shock to anyone that you and I are headed for a showdown, and when we do, I’m going to respond”

He could take his brothers, his queen, and go back to his Indraprastha and rule that just as he had before. 

Duryodhan did not take all of this quietly. He had won fair and square and yet, now he was being cheated out of all his new possessions, as he put it. He couldn’t directly defy his father at that moment, after all Dhritarashtra was still the King. And yet, all this had only deepened his resolve. The Pandavas had to be completely humiliated and destroyed. We’ll see what he does about it, but that will be in a future episode.

I don’t actually know what they did with the mountain of saree in the courtroom. One hopes that they cut it all up and distributed it to the poorer members of society. Or maybe, Krishna made the pile disappear magically just as he had made it appear. After all, Krishna would not have liked leaving a mess in the great hastinapur assembly hall. Just as he would soon be involved in the bigger political mess that was the friction between the Kauravas and the Pandavas.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Previous Mahabharata Episodes:

https://sfipodcast.com/category/mahabharata

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a Saptarishi story. This one is about the creation of the river Godavari! 

Some of you have rightly pointed out that we’re getting pretty close to Episode 300. In fact today’s episode is number 298, though it looks like it’s 273. That’s because of all those bonus episodes I did in between. I’m truly grateful for all your love and all your support in making this podcast what it is. I’ll post an update about this big number as well as a few of my thoughts on the future of this show. Watch this space for more.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! Now with the latest update I can actually reply to the questions there, so I’ll reply to your comments directly there.

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The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!