The Dice Game

In the great hall at Hastinapura, the Kauravas and the Pandavas sat across from each other, cousins joined by blood and divided by jealousy. The eldest of the Kauravas, Duryodhana, had grown sick with envy. The Pandavas had built their own palace at Indraprastha, bright with crystal floors and lakes that looked like solid stone, and Duryodhana had visited them there and stumbled and been laughed at. He had gone home with humiliation in his heart and complained to his uncle, the wily Shakuni: "I cannot eat. I cannot sleep. The Pandavas have everything. I have nothing while they live."

Shakuni said, "I am a master of dice. Yudhishthira, the eldest Pandava, is a man of dharma. He cannot refuse a challenge. Let your father invite them to a friendly game. I will throw the dice for you. Whatever Yudhishthira stakes will come to you."

The blind king Dhritarashtra, weak and indulgent, sent the invitation. Yudhishthira and his four brothers and their wife Draupadi came to Hastinapura, suspecting nothing. The hall was decked. The dignitaries assembled. The dice were brought.

Yudhishthira knew the game was crooked even as it began. Shakuni's hand was famous. But the rules of dharma, as Yudhishthira understood them, said that a kshatriya who is challenged at dice must not refuse. So he sat across from Shakuni, who threw on Duryodhana's behalf, and the play began.

He staked his pearls and lost them. He staked his gold and lost it. He staked his chariots and his horses and lost them. He staked the wealth of his kingdom, his elephants, his cattle, his slaves, and lost them all. He staked his army and lost it. Each time the dice fell against him. Each time Shakuni laughed and said, "I have won."

The wise men in the hall began to whisper that this was no longer a game. Vidura, the king's brother and a man of integrity, stood up and said, "Stop this. The Pandavas are being destroyed. Send them home and let them keep their kingdom. The Kauravas are gambling away the future of this house." Duryodhana smiled and waved him off. Shakuni rolled the dice again.

Yudhishthira staked his kingdom of Indraprastha. He lost it. He staked the lives of his brothers Sahadeva, Nakula, Arjuna, and Bhima, one after another. He lost them all. Bhima sat with his fists clenched, his face dark; Arjuna lowered his eyes; the twins did not speak. They were now slaves of Duryodhana.

Shakuni said: "You have one thing left to stake. Yourself."

Yudhishthira staked himself. He lost.

Shakuni said: "There is one more thing. Stake Draupadi."

The hall went silent. Vidura cried out, "This is wrong. A man who has lost himself has no power left to stake another." But Yudhishthira, drunk on the dice, dazed by losing, said, "I stake Draupadi." Shakuni rolled. The dice fell against him. "I have won."

Duryodhana laughed. He turned to his younger brother Dushasana: "Go and bring her here. She is our slave now. Let her sweep our floors."

Dushasana went to the inner apartments where Draupadi was. She had been bathing. She was dressed in a single garment and her hair was loose. Dushasana caught her by the hair and dragged her down the corridor and into the hall. She struggled. "I am of royal blood. I am a queen. Do not touch me. I am a married woman in my time of seclusion. This is sacrilege." Dushasana laughed. He pulled her into the assembly by her hair, and she fell at the feet of the seated nobles.

She rose, with her hair undone, and faced the assembly. "Tell me one thing. Did my husband stake himself before he staked me, or did he stake me first? If he had already lost himself and become a slave, what right had he to stake another? Answer me, you wise men. Answer me, Bhishma, who taught us all. Answer me, Drona. Answer me, Vidura. Tell me, was I rightfully won?"

The elders dropped their eyes. Bhishma the great-uncle, who could have spoken, said only, "Dharma is subtle. I cannot answer you, daughter."

Duryodhana, hearing this, slapped his thigh, an obscene gesture, and said: "Come, slave woman. Sit on my lap."

His brother Dushasana laid hold of Draupadi's sari and began to pull. He pulled and pulled to strip her bare in front of her own husbands and the assembly. Draupadi closed her eyes and prayed: "Krishna, friend, where are you? You who promise to come to those who call. I have nothing left but you."

The miracle came. As Dushasana pulled, the cloth would not end. He pulled and pulled, and another length unwound, and another, and another. He pulled until he was exhausted and a great heap of cloth lay around him on the hall floor, and Draupadi was still clothed. The hall watched in horror.

Bhima rose. He could not contain himself. He raised his arms and swore an oath, in a voice the whole court heard: "I, Bhima, swear in front of all of you, here in this hall, that I will tear open the breast of Dushasana with these hands, and I will drink his blood. And the thigh that Duryodhana slapped, the thigh he showed to my queen, I will break with my mace. If I do not do this in the war that must come, may my fathers and grandfathers refuse to receive me in the next world."

Then a jackal cried in the courtyard, and birds gave evil omens, and the blind king Dhritarashtra grew afraid. He called Draupadi and said: "Daughter, ask me three things." Draupadi asked first that Yudhishthira be freed from slavery. He freed him. She asked that her other husbands be freed. He freed them. He offered her a third boon. She said, "I will not ask. A kshatriya woman should ask only twice. The rest is my husbands' to win back." The king sent the Pandavas home with their weapons and their queen.

But Duryodhana would not let them go. He pressed his father, and the dice were brought out one more time. The new condition was that the loser would go into exile in the forest for twelve years, and a thirteenth year unrecognized, and only after that could come back to claim his kingdom. Yudhishthira played and lost. The Pandavas went home, gave away their kingdom, and walked out of Hastinapura in the simple cloth of forest-dwellers, with Draupadi beside them. As they left, Draupadi turned and looked back at the hall, and at Dushasana standing in the gateway, and she said quietly: "I will not braid my hair. I will leave it loose, the way you dragged me. I will not braid my hair until the day I wash it in Dushasana's blood."

Twelve years and a year more they would be gone. And then the war.