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Twelve years of forest exile were behind them. Now the thirteenth year rose up in front of them, and it was the hardest promise of all to keep, for in this single year the Pandavas had to live in ajnatavasa, hidden and unrecognized. If, in this span, Duryodhana’s people identified them, the whole twelve years in the wilderness would have to be served again. Janamejaya asked how his great forefathers, harried by their dread of Duryodhana, managed to pass their days undiscovered in the city of Virata, and how Draupadi, stricken with sorrow, devoted to her lords, forever turning her heart toward the Deity, spent her days there unknown. Listen, O king, Vaishampayana says. This is the tale in which Yudhishthira, having won a boon from the god of Justice, entered the service of Virata, king of the Matsyas, with his brothers, all of them in disguise, and in which the powerful Kichaka, who cast a foul eye upon Draupadi, met his death at Bhima’s hands.
The Plan for the Year Unknown, and the Brothers’ Disguises
Yudhishthira, the son of the god of Justice, called his younger brothers together and told them plainly that they had spent twelve years driven from their kingdom, and that now the thirteenth, the year impossible to endure, had arrived. He turned to Arjuna and asked him to choose some place where they might live without being recognized by their enemies.
Arjuna answered that it was by the strength of Dharma’s boon that they would move among men undiscovered, and even so he named several pleasant and secluded regions where they might settle. Ringing the kingdom of the Kurus were many lands, beautiful and heavy with grain: Panchala, Chedi, Matsya, Surasena, Pattachchara, Dasarna, Navarashtra, Malla, Salva, Yugandhara, Saurashtra, Avanti, and the wide country of Kuntirashtra. He asked Yudhishthira which of these to choose, and where the year should be passed.
Yudhishthira said that what the Lord of all creatures had spoken would surely come true, and that after taking counsel together they should settle on some region that was pleasant, auspicious, and free of fear. The aged Virata, king of the Matsyas, was righteous, powerful, generous, loved by all, and kindly disposed toward the Pandavas. And so Yudhishthira decided that it was in Virata’s city, in Virata’s service, that this year would be spent. Then he asked his brothers in what shape each of them would present himself before the king of the Matsyas.
Arjuna asked what office Yudhishthira himself would take in Virata’s kingdom. You are gentle, he said, and generous, and modest, and righteous, and firm in your promises, so how will you bear yourself in such calamity, when a king must endure hardship like any ordinary man?
Yudhishthira replied that he would go under the name of Kanka, a Brahmana skilled at dice and fond of the game, and would become a courtier of that high-souled king. Moving lovely pawns of ivory, blue and yellow and red and white, across the board with throws of the black and red dice, he would entertain the king. And if the king asked, he would say that he had once been the close friend of Yudhishthira. Then he asked Bhima what work he would do.
Bhima said he would go before Virata as a cook named Vallabha. He was skilled in the culinary art, he said, and would prepare dishes for the king so fine that every accomplished cook before him would be put to shame. He would haul heavy loads of wood, he would master powerful elephants and bulls, and if any wrestler came against him he would defeat the man, though he would take no one’s life. He would bring each opponent down only in a way that left him alive. If asked, he would say that he had once been Yudhishthira’s wrestler and cook.
A key to reading this (terms): A Sairandhri is a serving-woman who lives and works in another’s house yet keeps her freedom of food and dress, meaning she is no one’s purchased slave. A Suta-putra is a man born into the Suta caste, whose traditional work is that of charioteer and bard. A yojana is a measure of distance, roughly the equivalent of eight to thirteen kilometers.
The Disguises of Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva, and Draupadi
Yudhishthira praised Arjuna: the warrior whose car was drawn by white horses, who bore the Gandiva, who had fed the fire in the forest of Khandava, who had dwelt five years in the world of Indra and there mastered the science of every celestial weapon. What office, he asked, would such a hero take up?
Arjuna answered that he would declare himself to be of the third sex, one born neither man nor woman, because the bowstring’s scars along his arms were hard to hide. He would cover both wrists with bangles, wear rings in his ears and conch-bracelets on his forearms, and let a single braid hang from his head. Under the name of Brihannala, living as a woman, he would keep the king and the women of the inner apartments content by reciting tales and by teaching them song, dance, and many kinds of instruments. If asked, he would say he had been a waiting-maid to Draupadi in Yudhishthira’s palace.
Yudhishthira asked Nakula, tender and beautiful of form, what he would do. Nakula said he would become the keeper of Virata’s horses under the name of Granthika, for he knew the whole art of tending and training horses, and in his hands even colts and mares grew docile.
Sahadeva said he would become the keeper of Virata’s cattle, for he was skilled in milking them, in mastering their temper, and in reading the auspicious marks of bulls. Under the name of Tantripala he would do the work well.
Then Yudhishthira spoke his worry over Draupadi, that she was their beloved wife, dearer to them than their own lives, to be cherished like a mother and honored like an elder sister. This daughter of Drupada, who had never known any hard labor, a delicate and youthful princess devoted to her lords, how would she live?
Draupadi answered that there was a class of women called Sairandhris who entered the service of others, though respectable women did not. She would present herself as a Sairandhri skilled in dressing hair, would serve the king’s wife Sudeshna, and if asked would say she had been Draupadi’s attendant in Yudhishthira’s house.
Yudhishthira warned her, saying that she was born into a noble family, chaste and ever devoted to virtuous vows, and that she must therefore conduct herself so that no man of wicked and sinful heart could take pleasure in looking upon her.
A key to reading this (lineage and names): The secret names by which the five brothers would call one another were Jaya, Jayanta, Vijaya, Jayatsena, and Jayadbala. Their service-names were Kanka (Yudhishthira), Vallabha (Bhima), Brihannala (Arjuna), Granthika (Nakula), Tantripala or Arishtanemi (Sahadeva), and Malini or Sairandhri (Draupadi).
The Priest’s Departure, and Dhaumya’s Counsel
Yudhishthira arranged that their priest, together with the charioteers and cooks, should go to Drupada’s house and keep the Agnihotra fires burning there, and that Indrasena and the others should take the empty chariots and go quickly to Dwaravati. Draupadi’s serving-maids were to go to the Panchalas, and all of them were to say only this, that they did not know where the Pandavas had gone after leaving them at the lake of Dwaitavana.
Then the Pandavas sought Dhaumya’s advice. Dhaumya told them that to dwell with a king was a hard thing, and he laid out the way to live within a royal house without fault. A king, he said, is a deity in embodied form, like a great fire sanctified with every mantra. One should go before him only after receiving leave at the gate. One should keep no contact with royal secrets, should covet no seat that another has an eye upon, and should never presume, as a favorite might, to ride the king’s own car, or use his couch, seat, vehicle, or elephant. One should not offer the king counsel unasked, but should pay homage in season and then sit in silence and respect, for kings take offense at babblers.
He said further that a man should form no friendship with the king’s wife, nor with those of the inner apartments, nor with those who have earned the king’s displeasure. Even the smallest task he should do with the king’s knowledge. However high an office a man attains, until he is asked or commanded he should consider himself as one born blind, out of regard for the king’s dignity. He should serve without anger, without pride, without carelessness. He should speak what is both profitable and pleasant, yet what is profitable and unpleasant he should still speak despite its sting. Before the king he should not fidget with his lips, arms, or thighs, should speak softly, and even at something absurd should not roar with laughter like a madman but only show a modest smile. The robes, ornaments, and cars the king bestows he should always use, for by this he wins favor. Living in this way, Dhaumya said, they should pass the year.
Yudhishthira thanked Dhaumya and said that, save for their mother Kunti and the deeply wise Vidura, no one else could have given such counsel. Dhaumya then performed the rites of departure according to the ordinance, kindled the fires, and with mantras offered oblations for the prosperity and success of the Pandavas, and the six of them set out, placing Yajnaseni in front.
The gist: For the thirteenth year of concealment the Pandavas chose the city of Virata, king of the Matsyas, and each of them settled on a disguise that matched his nature and his skill. Dhaumya taught them the fine art of serving a king, which was the practical armor for this year-long vow of living unseen.
Hiding the Weapons in the Shami Tree, and the Hymn to Durga
Girding swords at their waists, fitted with finger-guards of iguana skin and armed with weapons of every kind, those heroes moved toward the river Yamuna. Leaving the Panchalas on their right and the Dasarnas on their left, passing through Yakrilloma and Surasena, bearded and carrying swords, calling themselves hunters, they crossed into the territory of Matsya. Draupadi grew weary, and Arjuna lifted her and carried her, setting her down near the city.
Before entering the city Yudhishthira asked where they should leave their weapons, for if they went in armed the townsfolk would take fright, and the Gandiva was known to everyone, so people would recognize them at once. Arjuna pointed to a great shami tree standing near a cemetery, close to a rugged peak, its huge branches spread wide and hard to climb. He suggested they store the weapons in that very tree.
Then they slackened the strings of their bows, the Gandiva among them, whose twang was like the crash of thunder or the splitting of a mountain, and Yudhishthira loosed the string of the bow with which he had guarded the field of Kurukshetra. Nakula climbed the tree and bound all the bows, swords, quivers, and keen arrows to those branches where they would neither break nor be reached by the rain. Then they hung a corpse in the tree, so that people catching the stench of decay would say that a dead body was there and keep their distance. When shepherds and cowherds asked about it, they said it was the body of their mother, one hundred and eighty years old, which they had hung up in keeping with the custom of their forefathers.
As he walked toward the lovely city of Virata, Yudhishthira praised in his heart the divine Durga, supreme Goddess of the universe, born of the womb of Yasoda, graced by the boon of Narayana, appearing in the line of the cowherd Nanda, giver of prosperity, terror of Kansa, destroyer of Asuras. He saluted the Goddess who rose into the sky when Kansa dashed her against the stone, who is the sister of Vasudeva, who bears scimitar and shield, and who rescues the worshipper sunk in distress as one lifts a cow from the mire. He called her Jaya and Vijaya and asked her for victory in battle, and begged a boon in this hour of danger. He named her as Fame, as Prosperity, as Steadiness, as Success, as Wife, as Offspring, as Knowledge, as Intellect, and bowed to her as the slayer of Mahishasura.
Pleased with his praise, the Goddess showed herself and said that through her grace Yudhishthira would defeat and destroy the ranks of the Kauravas and win victory in battle, and would rule the whole Earth again. She said also that by her grace neither the spies of the Kurus nor the people of Matsya would be able to recognize them so long as they lived in Virata’s city. Having said this, the Goddess vanished on the spot.
A key to reading this (place): The shami is a thorny tree held sacred in the warrior tradition. That the Pandavas chose the shami to hide their weapons carries its own weight, since it was the custom to worship the shami before setting out on a campaign of conquest. Dwaitavana is the forest-lake from which the Pandavas had departed for their year of concealment.
Yudhishthira and Bhima Enter Virata’s Court
Tying up in his cloth dice made of gold and set with lapis lazuli, holding them beneath his arm, Yudhishthira was the first to appear, coming into the court while Virata sat among his men. Seeing him shine like the moon behind clouds or fire under ashes, Virata asked his counselors, his Brahmanas, his charioteers, and his Vaisyas who this man could be, so like a king, who had no slaves, no chariots, no elephants, and who yet shone like Indra himself.
Yudhishthira came before Virata and said that he was a Brahmana who had lost everything and had come seeking a living, and wished to remain under the king’s command. Well pleased, Virata welcomed him and asked from what king’s realm he came, and what his name, family, and knowledge were.
Yudhishthira said his name was Kanka, that he was a Brahmana of the family called Vaiyaghra, that he was skilled at casting dice, and that he had once been the friend of Yudhishthira. Virata said he would grant whatever boon Kanka wished, and that Kanka should rule the Matsyas, for he was like a god. Yudhishthira asked that he never be drawn into a quarrel over dice with some low person, and that no one defeated by him be allowed to keep the wealth he had won. Virata granted this, declared him a lord of the realm equal to himself, made him his friend, and told him that all doors would be open to him.
Then Bhima came in with the easy, playful gait of a lion, holding a cooking ladle and a spoon and an unstained black sword, dressed in black, shining like the sun. Virata asked who this handsome youth was, with shoulders broad as a lion’s, who looked like the king of the Gandharvas, or like Purandara himself. Bhima said that he was a cook named Vallabha, skilled at preparing dishes, and asked the king to set him over the kitchen. Virata said he could scarcely believe cooking was this man’s calling, for he had the bearing of a king. Bhima said he was a cook and a servant, and a wrestler besides, who would fight lions and elephants for the king’s amusement. Virata made him superintendent of the kitchen.
Draupadi in Sudeshna’s Service, and the Rest of the Brothers Arrive
Binding her black, soft, long hair, its ends curling, into a single knotted braid, throwing it over her right shoulder, hiding it beneath her cloth, Draupadi wandered here and there in the dress of a Sairandhri, wearing one piece of dark cloth, worn but costly. Sudeshna, daughter of the king of Kekaya and Virata’s beloved queen, saw her from the terrace and asked who she was and what she wanted. Draupadi said she was a Sairandhri and would serve whoever would keep her.
Sudeshna, marveling at her extraordinary beauty, wondered whether she might be a Yakshi, a goddess, a Gandharvi, or an Apsara, and asked her to say truly who she was. Draupadi answered that she was no goddess, no Gandharvi, no Yakshi, no Rakshasi, but a serving-woman of the Sairandhri class, who knew how to dress hair, to pound fragrant unguents, and to weave garlands of jasmine, lotus, blue lily, and champaka. She had once served Krishna’s beloved queen Satyabhama and the Pandavas’ wife Draupadi, and Draupadi had called her Malini.
Sudeshna said she would keep her on her very head, save for one fear, that the king himself might turn to her, drawn by a beauty no man could resist. Draupadi reassured her that neither Virata nor any other could have her, because her five young husbands, who were Gandharvas and the sons of a Gandharva king of great power, secretly guarded her always. Whoever tried to take her as an ordinary woman would meet death that very night. Her conditions were that she should never have to touch anyone’s leftover food and never have to wash another’s feet. Sudeshna accepted these terms and took her in.
Then Sahadeva came to Virata’s cowpen in a cowherd’s dress, speaking the cowherds’ dialect, and gave himself out as a Vaisya named Arishtanemi who had once tended the cattle of the Pandavas. He said he knew the past, present, and future of all the cattle living within ten yojanas, and could pick out the bulls of auspicious mark by the scent of whose urine even a barren cow might conceive. Virata handed over to him his hundred thousand kine.
Then a huge and strikingly handsome person came to the gate of the ramparts, decked in women’s ornaments, wearing large earrings and gold-plated conch-bracelets, walking with the gait of an elephant so that the earth seemed to tremble. Virata said this was surely someone strong as a god, that such a man could not be of the neuter sex, and offered him a place as his own son or as ruler over the Matsyas. Arjuna said that he sang and danced and played instruments, and asked to be set to teaching the princess Uttara to dance, and that his name was Brihannala. Virata had women examine him, and finding his condition permanent, sent him to the maidens’ quarters, where Arjuna began teaching song and music to Uttara, her friends, and her attendants.
Last of all came Nakula, presenting himself as a trainer of horses. He said he knew the temper of horses, the art of breaking them, and the treatment of their diseases, and that no animal in his charge ever grew weak or sick. People called him Granthika. Virata placed all his horses, his grooms, and his charioteers under him.
A sub-tale: Draupadi called her husbands Gandharvas, and this was more than a clever cover. In her conditions, that she touch no leftovers and wash no one’s feet, the old story shows a queen struggling to guard her dignity even inside the danger of concealment. That same tale of the Gandharvas would later stand as a warning to Kichaka, though he chose to ignore it.
The gist: One by one the six entered Virata’s court and service, and no one recognized them. Each became a favorite of the king, and Draupadi, living in Sudeshna’s inner apartments, won her terms for guarding her honor. On the surface it was the life of servants. Underneath, it was the vow-bound austerity of great warriors.
Keeping the Days, and Bhima’s Wrestling at the Festival of Brahma
Living thus in concealment, the Pandavas served Virata. Yudhishthira, as courtier, made himself dear to the king and to all, and being a master of the mysteries of dice he made the others play at his pleasure, then quietly shared out among his brothers, in fair proportion, the wealth he won. Bhima sold to Yudhishthira, for a price, the meat and viands he got from the king; Arjuna shared out the proceeds of the worn cloths he earned in the inner apartments; Sahadeva gave milk, curds, and butter; and Nakula shared the wealth he earned managing the horses. In her pitiable state Draupadi looked after all these brothers and kept herself unknown. In this way, hidden as though they had returned to their mother’s womb, they lived on in Virata’s capital.
When three months had passed, in the fourth month the festival in honor of the divine Brahma came to the country of the Matsyas, and to it came athletes by the thousand from every quarter, huge of body and mighty of arm, like the demons called Kalakhanjas. Among them was one who towered above the rest and challenged them all, and none dared face him. Then Virata set his cook against him. Unable to disobey the king’s command openly, Bhima made up his mind unwillingly, saluted the king, entered the wide arena, and summoned to combat that wrestler named Jimuta, who was like the Asura Vritra.
The two of them were vast as a pair of rutting elephants, each sixty years old. Between them a terrible wrestling-match broke out, like the fall of a thunderbolt on the breast of a mountain. They struck each other with their fists, hurled each other away, pressed each other to the ground, then rose and locked in each other’s arms, driving knee against knee and head against head, fighting without weapons, on the strength of their arms and their spirit alone, to the boundless delight of the crowd. At last the mighty Bhima caught the roaring wrestler in his arms, as a lion catches an elephant, lifted him up, whirled him around a hundred times until he lost his senses, and dashed him dead upon the ground.
When Jimuta was killed, Virata and his friends were filled with delight, and the king rewarded Vallabha with the liberality of Kuvera. Bhima killed many wrestlers and men of great strength, and pleased the king, and when no one was left to fight him, the king set him against lions, tigers, and elephants, and made him battle them in the harem for the pleasure of the ladies. Watching all this, Draupadi, who alone knew the suffering of these heroes, sighed without ceasing.
The gist: Through the days of keeping their vow, the Pandavas passed the time helping one another and quietly pooling their earnings. Bhima’s slaying of Jimuta at the festival of Brahma was the first public flash of his strength, and it pleased the king. For Draupadi, every such display was one more sting, a fresh reminder of how far these heroes had fallen.
The Kichaka-vadha Parva Begins, and Kichaka’s Wicked Gaze
Living in disguise, those heroes passed ten months in the city of Matsya. Though she herself deserved to be waited upon, the daughter of Yajnasena spent her days in great misery, serving Sudeshna. The year was nearly over when Kichaka, the powerful commander of Virata’s forces and the queen Sudeshna’s own brother, chanced to see the daughter of Drupada. Beholding that woman radiant as a daughter of the gods, treading the earth like a goddess, Kichaka was pierced by the shafts of Kama and burned to possess her.
Burning with the flame of desire, he went to his sister Sudeshna and, smiling, said that this beautiful woman, whom he had never seen before in Virata’s palace, maddened him like the fragrance of new wine. He asked who this lady of a goddess’s grace was and whose she was, and said that such a woman was unfit to serve Sudeshna, and ought instead to reign over Kichaka’s own palace, filled with gold ornaments, elephants, horses, and chariots.
Having taken counsel with Sudeshna, Kichaka went to Draupadi and, in a sweet voice, like a jackal in the forest addressing a lioness, asked who she was and whose, and whence she had come to Virata’s city. He praised her matchless beauty at length, likened her to Lakshmi, Bhuti, Hri, Sri, Kirti, Kanti, and Rati, and said that no man could look on her face and not be overpowered by desire. He said he would cast off all his old wives and make them her slaves, and would himself live as her slave, and he begged her to quench the fire of his longing and come to him.
Draupadi answered that she was a serving-woman of low birth, given to the mean work of dressing hair, and that in desiring such a one Kichaka only shamed himself. Besides, she was another man’s wedded wife, so his conduct was improper. She reminded him of the precept of morality, that a man should take delight only in his own wedded wife, and that sinful men in the grip of desire come either to grave disgrace or to dreadful ruin.
Kichaka, though he knew well the many evils of adultery, was so mastered by lust that he told Draupadi not to reject him, since he was under Manmatha’s power on her account, or she would repent it afterward. He said that he was the true lord of this whole kingdom, that its people lived in dependence on him, and that in energy, prowess, beauty, and enjoyment he had no rival. Draupadi scolded him, telling him not to act like a fool and throw away his life, for she was guarded by her five husbands, whose lords were Gandharvas, who would slay him in their wrath. She called him a foolish child standing on one shore of the ocean thinking to swim to the other, and asked whether he had not even the sense to look to his own good and save his own life.
A key to reading this (a concept): Manmatha and Kama are both names for the god of love, who is said to carry a bow of flowers. In the original text Kichaka’s declaration of desire runs long, but its substance is this: knowing both the wrong and its consequence, he was still blinded by lust. This is the moral intricacy of the Mahabharata, that the one who sins is not ignorant, but wanders knowingly from the path.
Sudeshna’s Deception, and Draupadi at Kichaka’s House
Rejected by the princess, wild with lust and stripped of all restraint, Kichaka told Sudeshna to find some means by which his Sairandhri would come into his arms, or he would die of longing. Moved by his mournful pleading, Sudeshna felt pity, and weighing both her brother’s purpose and Krishna’s distress, she told the Suta’s son to prepare food and wine for some festival, and said she would send the Sairandhri to him on the pretext of fetching wine, so that he could win her over in private.
Kichaka had wine fit for a king filtered and prepared, along with many kinds of delicious dishes. Then Sudeshna, as Kichaka had counseled, told the Sairandhri to rise and bring wine from Kichaka’s house, saying she was thirsty. Draupadi said she could not go to Kichaka’s chamber, for the queen herself knew how shameless he was, and she could not betray her husbands by leading a lustful life in his house. She recalled the condition she had set before entering the household, and said that Kichaka would insult her at sight, and that the queen should send some other maid.
Sudeshna said that since she was sending her, from the queen’s own house, Kichaka would do her no harm, and put into her hands a golden vessel with a cover. Filled with fear and weeping, Draupadi prayed for the protection of the gods and set out toward Kichaka’s house. In her heart she took refuge in truth, saying that just as she knew no man save her husbands, by the strength of that truth let Kichaka not overpower her, though she went into his very presence.
That helpless woman worshipped Surya for a moment. Surya, considering all that she asked, commanded a Rakshasa to guard her unseen, and from that time on the Rakshasa stayed beside that blameless woman in every circumstance. Seeing Krishna before him like a frightened doe, the Suta rose from his seat, and felt the joy of a man who, wishing to reach the far shore, obtains a boat.
Kichaka’s Assault, and Draupadi’s Humiliation in the Court
Kichaka welcomed her, saying that the night just past had brought him a blessed day, for today he had won this woman as the mistress of his house. He offered to bring her chains of gold, conchs, earrings, rubies, silk robes, and deerskins, and, showing her a fine bed, invited her to drink with him the wine made from the honey-flower.
Draupadi said the queen had sent her for wine, and that he should give it to her quickly, for the queen was very thirsty. Kichaka said that others would carry what the queen wanted, and with that he seized Draupadi’s right arm. Then Draupadi said that as she had never, even in her heart, been unfaithful to her husbands through any madness of the senses, by the strength of that truth she would see this wretch dragged down and lying powerless on the ground.
As Draupadi tried to run, Kichaka caught her by the end of her upper garment. Seized by force, trembling with rage and breathing hard, that beautiful woman dashed him to the ground, and the wretch fell like a tree cut off at the root. Then she ran toward the court where Yudhishthira sat, seeking protection. As she ran at full speed, Kichaka caught her by the hair, threw her down before the king, and kicked her. At that instant the Rakshasa appointed by Surya struck Kichaka with the force of the wind, and he fell senseless like an uprooted tree.
Seated there, Yudhishthira and Bhimasena watched with furious eyes this outrage on Krishna. Bhima gnashed his teeth in his longing to destroy Kichaka; his forehead ran with sweat and knotted into terrible lines; smoke seemed to pour from his eyes; and he was on the point of springing up in his rage. Then, fearing discovery, Yudhishthira pressed his thumbs and held Bhima back, and said, O cook, if you need trees for firewood, go outside and fell some.
Weeping, Draupadi came to the entrance of the court, saw her dejected lords, and, still keeping up her disguise for the sake of the vow, spoke with burning eyes to the king of the Matsyas. A Suta’s son, she said, had this day kicked the beloved wife of heroes whose enemy cannot sleep in peace even four kingdoms away, heroes devoted to truth, devoted to Brahmanas, who, were they not bound by duty, could destroy this entire world. Where, she asked, were those mighty heroes today, who had always given protection even to those who begged it, and why did they now suffer, like eunuchs, the insult of their dear and chaste wife? She rebuked Virata as well, saying that he acted like a robber rather than a king, since her humiliation had taken place in his very presence.
Virata said he had not seen the quarrel with his own eyes, and so, not knowing its true cause, he could not judge. When they learned the whole matter, the courtiers praised Krishna and condemned Kichaka. Yudhishthira’s forehead ran with the sweat of anger, and he told the princess, his beloved wife, to leave and go back to Sudeshna’s apartments. The wives of heroes bear hardship for their husbands’ sake, he said, and her Gandharva husbands, radiant as the sun, did not think this the moment to show their wrath, or they would have come. He said too that she was weeping like an actress and disrupting the play of dice in Matsya’s court.
Draupadi answered that those whose wedded wife she was were very kind, but that the eldest of them was addicted to dice, and so they all deserved to be oppressed. Then, with disheveled hair and eyes red with anger, she ran toward Sudeshna’s apartments. When Sudeshna asked what had happened, she said that when she went to fetch wine, Kichaka had struck her in the very presence of the king. Sudeshna said that, if she wished, she would have Kichaka killed, but Draupadi said that those he had wronged would kill him, and that it was plain he would go to the abode of Yama this very day.
The gist: Kichaka’s use of force on Draupadi and his kick in the royal court was the brink of the year of concealment, where duty and vow stood face to face. Yudhishthira’s holding Bhima back, and his harsh words to Draupadi, were forced on him by policy, and carried no cruelty in them. Here the Mahabharata leaves no one blameless, and Yudhishthira’s own addiction to dice comes out openly in Draupadi’s rebuke.
Draupadi Goes to Bhima and Pours Out Her Grief
Humiliated, Draupadi bathed, washed her body and clothes with water, and wept, wondering what to do and where to go. Then she remembered Bhima, and said to herself that none but Bhima could accomplish this task. Rising in the night, she went to the cooking quarters and asked Bhima how he could sleep while that enemy of hers, the commander of Virata’s forces, was still alive. She woke him as a lioness wakes a lion, wrapping herself about him as a creeper wraps a great sala tree.
Bhima sat up and asked why she had come in such haste, why her color was gone and her face wan and pale, and told her to tell him everything, whether pleasant or painful, for it was he who lifted her out of danger again and again. Draupadi said that for one who had Yudhishthira for a husband, no grief was spared. She reminded him how the Pratikamin had dragged her into the assembly, calling her a slave, how in the forest the lord of Sindhu, Jayadratha, had insulted her, and how now, before the king of the Matsyas, Kichaka had kicked her.
She condemned the eldest brother whose addiction to the disgraceful game had brought this sorrow upon her. She recalled the splendor of Yudhishthira at Indraprastha, where thousands of kings paid him homage, where thousands of serving-women fed his guests, where thousands of learned men and ascetics were maintained, and where that same Yudhishthira now lived as Kanka, casting dice in the court of Matsya.
She grieved over Bhima’s plight too, that such a hero was now called Vallabha, Virata’s cook, fighting elephants and lions while the women of the inner apartments laughed. She said that Kaikeyi, the princess of Kekaya, believed that the Sairandhri and Vallabha were lovers, and taunted her with it. She lamented Arjuna’s state, a warrior who on a single car had conquered gods and men, now Brihannala, dance-teacher to Virata’s daughter, wearing earrings and conch-bracelets and a braid, living among women. She grieved over Sahadeva, who tended cattle as a cowherd and slept at night on calf-skins, and over Nakula, who as a trainer of horses drove them before the king.
She spoke of her own condition too, that because of that gambler she lived as a Sairandhri under Sudeshna’s command, pounding unguents with her own hands, hands that had never been so hard and were now covered with corns. Saying this, she showed him her callused hands. She said that she, who had once pounded unguents for no one save Kunti, now ground sandalwood for others and lived in fear of Virata.
As she told her grief, Krishna wept quietly, and looking at Bhima she said that surely in some past life she must have committed a heavy offense against the gods, that though wretched she was still alive when she should have died. Then Bhima covered his face with his wife’s callused, delicate hands and began to weep, and taking her hands in his he shed many tears.
A sub-tale: In Draupadi’s long lament lies the Mahabharata’s chain of memory, which will not let this humiliation stand as a single event. The Pratikamin dragging her into the assembly, Jayadratha’s abduction of her in the forest, and now Kichaka’s kick are three links of one pain. And at the root of them all is Yudhishthira’s addiction to dice, which Draupadi names openly and refuses to conceal. This is the unsparing honesty of Vyasa’s tale.
Bhima’s Words of Comfort, and the Plan to Kill Kichaka
Bhima cursed the strength of his arms and Arjuna’s Gandiva, that Draupadi’s hands, once red, were now covered with corns. He said he would have made a slaughter in Virata’s court, but Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, had checked him with a glance, and when Kichaka kicked her he had resolved on the total destruction of the Matsyas, yet, reading Yudhishthira’s sign, had kept still. To be robbed of their kingdom, to have failed as yet to destroy the Kurus, to have failed to take the heads of Duryodhana, Karna, Shakuni, and Duhsasana, these were thorns lodged in his heart.
Bhima begged Draupadi not to sacrifice virtue, and to calm her anger, for if Yudhishthira heard such reproaches he would give up his life, and if Arjuna and the twins heard them they too would end their lives, and then he himself could not live on. He gave her the examples of the chaste and faithful wives who had followed their husbands: Sukanya, daughter of Saryati, who followed Chyavana; Indrasena, who followed her husband of a thousand years; Sita, daughter of Janaka, who followed Rama; Lopamudra, who followed Agastya; and Savitri, who followed Satyavan. He said she was as virtuous as these, and that she had only to pass a little more time, half a month, and with the completion of the thirteenth year she would be a queen again.
Draupadi said she did not blame Yudhishthira, that there was no use dwelling on the past, and that Bhima should move quickly to the work of the hour. She told him that Kichaka kept pressing her to become his wife, and that, unafraid of the Gandharvas, he boasted he would kill a hundred thousand of them in battle. She described his wickedness, that he was lustful, without virtue, a robber of others’ wealth, a favorite of both king and queen, and that if he saw her again he would outrage her, after which she would give up her life. She reminded Bhima that it was he who had saved her from Jatasura and, with his brothers, had defeated Jayadratha, and asked him now to kill this wretch too, and crush him like a pot dashed on a stone. She said that if tomorrow’s sun cast its rays upon Kichaka, she would drink poison and die, for she would never yield to him.
Saying this, Krishna hid her face in Bhima’s breast and wept. Bhima took her in his arms and consoled her with grave and weighty words, and wiped her tear-drenched face with his hands. Remembering Kichaka and licking his lips in wrath, Bhima said he would do exactly as she asked, and would kill Kichaka along with all his friends. He set out the plan: in the dancing-hall that the king of the Matsyas had built, where girls danced by day and returned home at night, there stood a fine wooden bed, and there he would show Kichaka the spirits of his dead ancestors. He told Draupadi to speak with Kichaka in such a way that no one else would see.
The Assignation in the Dancing-hall, and Bhima’s Ambush
When the night had passed, Kichaka came to Draupadi in the morning and said that he had thrown her down before the king and kicked her, and that she had found no protection, since Virata was king in name only, while he, as commander of the army, was the true lord of the Matsyas. He tempted her with a hundred nishkas, a hundred servants, and chariots yoked with mules. Draupadi answered that her one condition was that his friends and brothers must not learn of their union, for she feared those radiant Gandharvas, and on that condition she would come to him.
Kichaka agreed, and said he would come alone to the meeting-place, so that the Gandharvas, bright as the sun, should not know. Draupadi told him to come, when it grew dark, to the dancing-hall of the king of the Matsyas, where girls danced by day and went home at night, for the Gandharvas did not know that place.
To the lustful Kichaka half a day seemed as long as a month. Not knowing that Death itself had come in the form of the Sairandhri, he returned home in high delight and began to deck his body with unguents, garlands, and ornaments. The beauty of Kichaka, who was about to lose his beauty forever, seemed to brighten like the flame of a lamp about to go out.
Meanwhile Draupadi came to Bhima in the kitchen and told him that she had made Kichaka understand their meeting would be in the dancing-hall, and that he would come alone at night to that empty hall, so Bhima should take his life there. She said that Kichaka slighted the Gandharvas out of vanity, and asked Bhima to lift him up as Krishna had lifted the serpent Kaliya from the Yamuna, and to guard his own honor and that of his line.
Bhima said that this good news gave him the same joy he had felt when he killed Hidimba, and he swore by truth, by his brothers, and by morality that he would kill Kichaka as Indra, king of the gods, had killed Vritra. Draupadi asked him not to break the pledge he had already given, and so to kill Kichaka in secret. Bhima assured her that this very night, in the dark, unknown to others, he would crush Kichaka’s head as an elephant crushes a vela fruit.
Reaching the appointed place first, Bhima sat down in disguise and waited for Kichaka like a lion waiting for a deer. Kichaka, adorned as he pleased, came at the fixed hour to the dancing-hall, hoping to meet Panchali. Entering that chamber filled with deep darkness, the wretch came up to Bhima, who had arrived a little before and was waiting in a corner. As an insect moves toward a blazing fire, or a small creature toward a lion, so Kichaka, mastered by lust, came near that Bhima who burned at the memory of Krishna’s insult, came near, as it were, his own death.
The Killing of Kichaka
Coming to Bhima on the bed, filled with lust and joy, Kichaka said, smiling, that he had already given her much wealth, a hundred serving-women, fine robes, and a mansion with its own inner apartments, and that the women had begun to praise his beauty. Bhima answered that it was good he was handsome and praised himself, but that before this he had surely never known so pleasant a touch.
With that Bhima rose up all at once and, laughing, said that today Kichaka’s sister would see him dragged along the ground, like a mountainous elephant dragged by a lion, and that when he was slain the Sairandhri and her husbands would live in peace. Then Bhima seized Kichaka by his garlanded hair. Kichaka freed his hair and gripped Bhima’s arms, and between the two of them broke out a hand-to-hand struggle, like two elephants fighting for a mate in spring, or like the monkey heroes Vali and Sugriva.
Both were equally frenzied, both hungry for victory, and raising their arms like five-hooded serpents they closed with nail and tooth in fury. Against the force of the powerful Kichaka, Bhima did not yield a single step. Locked in each other’s embrace, dragging each other, they fought like two bulls. Each threw the other down and struck with his knees, and the crash of their arms rang like the splitting of bamboo.
Then Vrikodara threw Kichaka down by force inside the chamber and began to fling him about as a storm shakes a tree. Weakened by the onslaught, Kichaka trembled, yet still he dragged at Bhima with all his strength, and, driving his knees against him, brought Bhima to the ground. Bhima rose at once, like Yama with his mace in hand. At the dead of night, in that solitary place, the two grappled and roared their defiance, and their bellowing made even that solid building shake moment by moment.
Bhima slapped him on the chest, and Kichaka did not shift a single step, and then in a moment he grew weak under that blow, which the earth itself could not have borne. Seeing him fail, Bhima drew him hard against his breast and began to crush him. Breathing again and again in his fury, that conquering hero seized Kichaka by the hair and roared like a hungry tiger that has killed a great beast. Finding him utterly exhausted, Vrikodara bound him with his arms, as one binds a beast with a cord.
Then Bhima whirled the senseless Kichaka about for a long while, and he sounded like a broken trumpet. To ease Krishna’s wrath, Vrikodara grasped his throat in his arms and squeezed, and driving his knees into the waist of that wretch, whose every limb was already broken and whose eyelids had closed, he killed him like a beast. Seeing Kichaka lie still, Bhima rolled him on the ground and said that, having killed this wretch who had sought to defile his wife, this thorn in the Sairandhri’s side, he was freed of his debt to his brothers and had attained perfect peace.
Then, with eyes red with rage, Bhima attacked him again, and thrust his hands, feet, neck, and head into his own body so that he became a shapeless ball of flesh, as the wielder of the Pinaka had once reduced to shapelessness the deer into which the sacrifice had turned. Having crushed every limb and made him a ball of flesh, the mighty Bhimasena showed him to Krishna and told her to come and see what had become of that lustful wretch.
Lighting a torch and showing her Kichaka’s body, Bhima told Draupadi that whoever desired a virtuous woman like her would be killed just as this Kichaka had been. Having accomplished that hard task, so dear to Krishna, and having eased his wrath, Bhima took his leave of her and went quickly back to the kitchen. And Draupadi, having had Kichaka killed, was rid of her grief and felt the deepest joy. She told the keepers of the dancing-hall to come and see how Kichaka, who preyed on other men’s wives, lay slain by her Gandharva husbands.
Thousands of guards came there with torches in hand, and seeing the blood-soaked body of Kichaka, without hands or feet, they were filled with grief and amazement, and asked where his neck and his legs had gone. They concluded that some Gandharva had killed him.
A key to reading this (numbers and signs): Bhima crushed Kichaka limb by limb into a ball of flesh so that the death would seem the work of a Gandharva, and the vow of concealment would not be broken. This is why everyone took it for something beyond human, the work of a Gandharva. The nishka was a gold coin of that age, and the offer of a hundred nishkas may be understood as the equivalent of a great fortune today.
The Upakichakas’ Resolve, and the End of One Hundred and Five at Bhima’s Hands
Then all of Kichaka’s kinsmen came there, surrounded him, and began to wail, and seeing him with his limbs mangled, lying like a tortoise dragged onto dry ground from the water, they shuddered with fear. As they carried him out for his funeral rites, that Kichaka whose whole body was crushed like a Danava slain by Indra, they saw the blameless Krishna standing nearby, leaning against a pillar.
All the Kichakas, the ones called the Upakichakas, cried out that this unchaste woman, for whom Kichaka had lost his life, should be killed, or else burned along with him who had lusted after her, since it was their duty to do whatever pleased the dead son of the Suta. They asked Virata for leave to burn the Sairandhri together with Kichaka. Knowing well the power of the Sutas, Virata granted it.
Then the Kichakas seized the frightened and stunned Krishna, bound her, laid her on the bier, and set out toward the cremation ground. As she was carried off by force, the blameless Krishna called aloud for her husbands’ help, that Jaya, Jayanta, Vijaya, Jayatsena, and Jayadbala should hear her, for the Sutas were carrying her away, and that those radiant Gandharvas, the clatter of whose chariots and the twang of whose bows were like the roar of thunder, should hear her call.
Hearing these sorrowful words of Krishna, Bhima rose from his bed without a moment’s thought and said that he had heard the Sairandhri’s words, and that now she had nothing to fear from the Sutas. Then, swelling his body and carefully changing his disguise, he went out of the palace by a wrong door, climbed over the wall by the help of a tree, and ran toward the cremation ground where the Kichakas had gone.
Approaching the funeral pyre, he saw a great tree, tall as a palmyra, with huge boughs and a withered top. Uprooting that tree, ten vyamas long, like an elephant, and laying it, branches and trunk, on his shoulder, he rushed toward the Sutas like Yama with his mace in hand. By the force of his charge, banyans, peepals, and kinsukas fell and lay in heaps.
Seeing that Gandharva come at them like a furious lion, all the Sutas trembled with fear and lost their heads, and said to one another that the powerful Gandharva was coming in wrath with an uprooted tree in his hand, and that they should therefore set free the Sairandhri from whom this danger had arisen. Seeing the tree that Bhima had torn up, they released Draupadi and ran breathless toward the city. As they fled, Bhima, the mighty son of the Wind-god, sent those one hundred and five Sutas to the abode of Yama with that same tree, as the wielder of the thunderbolt slays the Danavas.
Freeing Draupadi from her bonds, Bhima comforted her and said that those who wronged her without cause were slain in just this way, that now she had nothing to fear, and that she should return to the city while he himself went to Virata’s kitchen by another route. Thus one hundred and five Upakichakas were slain, and their bodies lay on the ground like a great forest full of trees uprooted after a storm. Together with the general Kichaka, killed before, the slaughtered Sutas numbered one hundred and six. Seeing this astonishing feat, the men and women gathered there were filled with wonder, and the power of speech left every one of them.
The gist: The killing of Kichaka was the end not only of one criminal but the crisis of his whole clan, for the Upakichakas resolved to burn the innocent Draupadi on his very pyre, and Virata, in his fear of the Sutas’ power, gave his silent consent. With a single tree Bhima killed one hundred and five of them and saved Draupadi. The slain Sutas came to one hundred and six, and the feat was taken to be beyond human limits, the work of a Gandharva.
The City’s Fear, Draupadi’s Return, and a Secret Exchange
Seeing the Sutas slain, the townsfolk went to the king and told him that all the powerful sons of the Sutas had been killed by the Gandharvas, and lay like mountain peaks split by thunder, and that the freed Sairandhri was returning to the city. They said they feared that her return might put the whole kingdom in danger, for she was extraordinarily beautiful, the Gandharvas were very powerful, and men are by nature desirous. They begged the king to find some means so that the wrong done to the Sairandhri would not bring destruction on the realm.
Virata ordered that all the Kichakas be given funeral rites on a single blazing pyre, with gems and fragrant unguents in plenty. Frightened, the king told his queen Sudeshna that when the Sairandhri returned, she should tell her to go wherever she wished, for the king was afraid of the defeat the Gandharvas had dealt, and dared not say so to her face because she was under the Gandharvas’ protection, and so was sending word through a woman.
Krishna, freed by Bhimasena, washed her limbs and clothes in water and walked toward the city, like a doe frightened by a tiger. Seeing her, the townsfolk, afraid of the Gandharvas, fled in every direction, and some even shut their eyes. At the gate of the kitchen Panchali saw Bhimasena standing like a huge rutting elephant, and with eyes wide in wonder, in words only the two of them could understand, she said she bowed to the prince of Gandharvas who had rescued her. Bhima answered in the same coded words.
Then she saw Arjuna in the dancing-hall, teaching Virata’s daughters to dance. Coming out with Arjuna, all the girls came to Krishna and said that by good fortune she had come safely through her danger, and by good fortune those Sutas who had wronged her, innocent though she was, had been slain. Brihannala asked how she had been freed and how those sinners had been killed. The Sairandhri said that Brihannala, who passed her days in comfort in the girls’ apartments, had no reason to care about a Sairandhri’s fate. Brihannala answered that Brihannala too had sorrows all her own, and that when they were in distress, who that lived beside her would not feel it, though no one can wholly read another’s heart.
Then Draupadi went with the girls into the royal house, to Sudeshna. At the king’s command the queen told her to go quickly wherever she wished, for the king was afraid of this defeat at the Gandharvas’ hands. The Sairandhri begged that the king let her stay only thirteen days more, after which the Gandharvas would take her away and do good to Virata, so that the king and his friends would reap a great benefit.
A key to reading this (a concept): Draupadi’s request for thirteen more days is no accident, for only that much time remained before the thirteenth year of concealment would be complete. The tale of the Gandharvas kept working like armor, and under its cover the Pandavas could pass the final days in safety.
The gist: The killing of Kichaka spread the fear of the Gandharvas through the city, and the king wished to send Draupadi away, but by asking for only a few more days she held on until the end of the year of concealment. The secret exchange with Brihannala shows how well these heroes hid their pain even while living under one roof. Kichaka’s foul gaze had met its end, but the last and most delicate stretch of the Pandavas’ vow still lay ahead.
Source: the Mahabharata (Krishna-Dvaipayana Vyasa), Virata Parva; in the tradition of Gita Press, Gorakhpur.
Based on: the Mahabharata, Vedavyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)