When Vidura arrived in Indraprastha, Kunti was delighted to see him. After exchanging pleasantries, she asked him about the purpose of his visit.
‘King Dhritarashtra has invited Yudhishthira to Hastinapur,’ he said, ‘to play a game of dice with Duryodhana.’
‘Are you sure this is not another plot they have hatched?’ Kunti asked. ‘Frankly speaking, I suspect some evil design behind this invitation.’
But Yudhishthira, who was also present, asked his mother not to entertain any suspicion about his uncle, Dhritarashtra. He told her how sage Vyasa had recently advised him not to distrust anyone, not even his enemies. Forgiveness, he had learnt from him, is the only way to build bridges between estranged hearts.
‘I see this invitation as a prelude to our family reunion, mother,’ Yudhishthira said. ‘How long should Hastinapur and Indraprastha remain alienated from each other?’
Vidura sensed that Yudhishthira was itching to play dice.
When the Pandavas arrived in Hastinapur, they were overwhelmed by the reception accorded to them. A banquet had been arranged in their honour and they were lodged in a special guest house in the palace, with a host of attendants at their beck and call.
The next morning, Duryodhana came to personally escort the Pandavas to the central hall, where the game was to be played.
It was a luxuriously decorated hall, with chairs all around. Prominent among those present were Bheeshma, Drona, Vidura, Kripacharya and Asvatthama.
An embroidered silk cloth was spread out in the middle of the hall for the game. To Vidura, however, it looked like a dead body, with its arms spread out and legs folded together. Then Sakuni gestured to both players to sit opposite each other, while he himself stood behind Duryodhana.
‘I hope you wouldn’t mind if I hold the stakes,’ said Duryodhana, ‘while my uncle throws the dice.’
‘That is a very unusual arrangement,’ Yudhishthira responded. ‘Since the game is to be played between the two of us, why should any third party enter into it?’
But the sight of the dice had already brought a sparkle in Yudhishthira’s eyes. Sensing his irrepressible eagerness, Sakuni interposed. ‘If you have any objection, we could still call off the game. What difference does it make who throws the dice when it has its own will to turn a six or a blank?’
‘All right, let us start,’ Yudhishthira said, staking all his gold and jewels. Shuffling the dice in his right hand, while his eyes blinked like a fox’s, Sakuni let it roll out on the chauser cloth. As it turned a six, Yudhishthira saw that he had lost the first round. But there were many more rounds to follow, he consoled himself.
He then wagered all his horses, elephants and cattle, and saw them also swallowed by the dice. He looked blankly all around, wondering what to wager next. But since he had gone too deep into the game, there was no question of his withdrawing from it.
‘I bet my younger brother Sahadeva, star-eyed and sky-complexioned.’ But he missed a heartbeat when the dice devoured him too.
‘Now I bet my brother Nakula, versatile in all the arts.’
But he too went down to Sakuni.
As a brief pause followed, Sakuni said, with a tinge of sarcasm, ‘I guess you had no qualms in staking your stepbrothers, Madri’s sons. So it was no big loss to you, I guess.’
This remark hurt Yudhishthira very deeply.
‘How dare you insinuate that Nakula and Sahadeva are not as dear to me as my own Arjuna and Bheema?’ Then, heaving a deep sigh, he wagered Arjuna whose Gandiva, he said, could shoot down even the moon.
This time, Sakuni kept shuffling the dice in his hand for quite a while to show that it was all fair play. But when the dice rolled out on the chauser cloth, it again glowered at Yudhishthira with six black dots. So Arjuna too had been lost to his adversary.
Now, galloping forth like an unbridled steed, Yudhishthira offered Bheema as his next stake. ‘The mightiest of us all, whose mace could strike terror even into the hearts of demons.’
But when Bheema went down too, moisture welled up in Yudhishthira’s eyes and his head drooped in utter distress.
‘Lest you say that I hold back my own self,’ he now said, ‘I stake myself, and also Indraprastha which I have nurtured into a dreamland.’
‘Maybe this time it will be your turn to win, O Yudhishthira,’ bantered Sakuni. ‘After all, it is destiny that controls the dice, not the players.’
Sakuni then kissed the dice and raised his right hand skyward, muttering: ‘O Narayana, guide me!’ He then gently threw the dice on the cloth, where it first rolled sideways and then settled down to a six.
‘I have nothing more to stake,’ muttered Yudhishthira, holding his head in his hands. ‘I am undone.’
‘No, a Kshatriya should never throw up his hands in despair,’ taunted Sakuni, with a wry smile on his lips. ‘You still carry a rare jewel in your hands – the milk-bathed Draupadi, whom Arjuna won at the svayamvara. It would be our last round and, who knows, destiny might swing in your favour this time.’
Now, in the grip of a frenzy, Yudhishthira decided to stake his wife as well, covering his eyes with both hands. But when he opened his eyes, another six stared him in the face.
‘Now that you have lost everything,’ said Duryodhana, ‘yourselves and even your clothes, I will let you retain only your upper garments.’
Tears started streaming down Yudhishthira’s cheeks. He had hardly gathered himself up on his feet when he heard Duryodhana fling at him his cruellest barb. ‘No, I would not take as my mistress a woman who is married to five husbands.’
‘And is such a woman any better than a vesya – a whore?’ intervened Radheya. ‘She insulted me at the svayamvara.’
At this, Arjuna leapt to his feet and shouted: ‘O Radheya, you will pay for your words. I vow to kill you on the battlefield, even as you plead for your life.’
‘I will wait for that moment,’ Radheya flashed back.
‘How dare you speak up before your masters, O Arjuna?’ said Duryodhana. ‘What about the insult your Draupadi hurled at my friend during the svayamvara? And didn’t she call me the blind son of a blind father? Although she will now be one of my maidservants, I could still let her have the honour of sitting on my thighs,’ he said, thumping his thighs.
‘Your thighs,’ shouted Bheema, springing to his feet like a lion. ‘Wait for the day when I’d smash your thighs to pulp with my mace.’
Ignoring Bheema’s threat, Duryodhana ordered his charioteer Prathikami to fetch Draupadi to the assembly hall. ‘For another svayamvara,’ he bantered.
All this time, the elders had sat around, frozen in silence. Vidura was the only one who spoke out, ‘O Duryodhana, you are provoking the gods, who will never forgive you for what you have said and done today. As for your uncle Sakuni, he will surely end up in naraka. That is where he belongs.’