Reading Diary B Week 5: The PDE Mahabharata

1. Prince Vidura dug a secret tunnel to escape the palace which was a trap to burn them alive. The Pandavas escaped this way, but there was a low caste woman and her children in the palace. People thought these were queen Kunti and the Pandavas, so everyone thought they were dead. Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra believed their plan had succeeded.

2. The Pandavas returned to the forest. Bhima carried all of them through the forest when they got tired. A rakshasa who was the sister of Hidimba went to collect them for her brother to eat, but she wanted Bhima for her own. She offered to take him away and then she offered to take all of them away, but Bhima declined. Hidimba and Bhima fought and Hidimbi stayed behind with the Pandavas and Kunti. Bhima killed Hidimba. Bhima and Hidimbi were married and they had a son named Ghatotkacha. After this, Hidimbi and Ghatotkacha left but promised to help whenever they were needed.

3. Baka is the ruler of Ekachakra and he demands a tax of a cart full of rice, two buffaloes, and a person from one of the houses each week or he will kill all of the people in the house from where the tribute was supposed to come. Kunti learns that it is her hosts turn to send someone and Kunti wishes her son, Bhima, was there. He appears and agrees to go with the cart. Bhima killed Baka. 

4. I liked the story when Nalayani asked for a husband five times and so Shankara said that she would be re-born as a noble woman and she would have five husbands because she asked five times. She asked that she be a virgin for each one. 

5. Draupadi was won by the Pandava brothers, but their mother, not knowing what the prize was, said that they must share it between themselves. Once she learned her mistake, she said they must find a way to share her. Draupadi was Nalayani re-born so this was how she got her five husbands. 

6. Duryodhana learned the Pandava brothers were still alive and that they had allied themselves with Drupada through marriage. 

7. The brothers made a pact that if one of them entered a room when another brother was sitting beside Draupadi, they were to be exiled for 12 years. Arjuna had to retrieve his weapons, so he entered the room when Yudhishthira was sitting with Draupadi so he was exiled. He met Ulupi during this time and she taught him to become invisible in water and they had a child together named Iravat.

8. He went to a river where there was a large alligator terrorizing and attacking people. He went into the water and dragged the alligator out and it turned into a nymph. She said her and her sisters had been cursed for trying to turn a holy man from the gods and they would only turn back when Arjuna dragged them ashore. He then went and dragged her sisters to shore and saved them.

9. Duryodhana could not tell the difference between water and land and closed doors and open doors so he made a fool of himself and was again jealous of the Pandava brothers.

10. Yudhishthira and Duryodhana play dice, but Duryodhana's uncle plays for him, and Yudhishthira gambles away all his money, his brothers, and himself. He then bet Draupadi and lost her too. 

Kunti, Draupadi, and the Pandavas
found on Wikimedia Commons