Draupadī dragged to the hall: the disrobing

Classical

After winning Draupadī, Duryodhana told Vidura to bring her to sweep the rooms with the servants. Vidura refused: Yudhiṣṭhira had lost himself first, so he had no right to stake her. Duryodhana turned to the Sūta messenger, the Pratikāmin, and told him to bring her. Draupadī asked him to go back and ask Yudhiṣṭhira whether he had lost himself first or her. Yudhiṣṭhira sat as if stunned and did not answer. Duryodhana said, let her come and ask in the hall. Draupadī sent back word that dharma was supreme, and the elders must judge her case. When the Pratikāmin hesitated, afraid, Duryodhana sent Duḥśāsana. Draupadī was in her monthly period and wearing a single cloth. She ran to the women's quarters. Duḥśāsana ran after her, seized her by the hair, which had been sprinkled with holy water at the Rājasūya, and dragged her to the assembly.

She cried that her season had come and she was wearing one cloth. He said it did not matter; she was a slave. In the hall she spoke to the elders. She had been seen by kings once, at her svayaṃvara, she said, and now she was exposed in front of everyone. Was she won or not? Bhīṣma answered that dharma was subtle and he could not give a clear answer; he said the Kuru race would be ruined because it had been taken over by greed and folly, but he praised her for keeping to dharma. Droṇa and the others sat silent with bowed heads. Bhīma, unable to bear it, said he would burn Yudhiṣṭhira's hands, and Arjuna held him back. Duryodhana's brother Vikarṇa then spoke. He said Draupadī was not won, because Yudhiṣṭhira had lost himself first, she was the common wife of all five, and Śakuni had pressed him to stake her.

The hall applauded. Karṇa scolded Vikarṇa as a boy. He said a woman with many husbands was unchaste, and that to bring her in one cloth, or even to strip her, was no surprise. He told Duḥśāsana to take the clothes of the Pāṇḍavas and of Draupadī. The Pāṇḍavas took off their upper garments and sat down. Duḥśāsana seized Draupadī's cloth and began to pull. She called on Kṛṣṇa, naming him as lord of Dvārakā and refuge of the afflicted. The text says that Dharma, unseen, covered her with clothes of many colours; as one was pulled off, another appeared. Hundreds came off, and still she was covered. A great cry went up. The kings praised Draupadī and censured Duryodhana. At last Duḥśāsana sat down, tired and ashamed.

In many later tellings Kṛṣṇa himself supplies the cloth; in this text it is Dharma, the quality she had appealed to throughout. Draupadī's question, 'did he lose himself first or me?', is the legal heart of the episode, and it is never answered in the hall. Bhīṣma says the matter is subtle; Vikarṇa says she was not won; Karṇa says she was. This is why the scene has been read as a test of the Kurus and not only of her. Her role is to make the assembly say what dharma requires. The disrobing itself is short in the text and its meaning is debated. Dharma's covering of her is read as divine help, or as a symbol of her own moral strength. Later traditions, especially bhakti ones, place Kṛṣṇa at the centre of the miracle, but in the text she cries out to him, and it is Dharma who answers.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Draupadī, Duḥśāsana, Duryodhana, Vidura, Pratikāmin, Bhīṣma, Droṇa, Vikarṇa, Karṇa, Bhīma, Arjuna, Yudhiṣṭhira

Bound to

The game of dice: Yudhiṣṭhira stakes and loses everything origin

Draupadī's svayaṃvara: Arjuna wins the target mirror

Jambhul Akhyan: Draupadi's confession about Karna mirror

Terukkuttu: Draupadi's vow, Alli and Aravan on Tamil stages mirror

Bhīma's oaths and Dhṛtarāṣṭra's boons to Draupadī origin

Places: Hastināpura (the assembly hall)

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Sabha Parva, Section LXV (Duryodhana orders her brought; Vidura's rebuke)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Sabha Parva, Section LXVI (the summons; she is dragged in; Vikarṇa; the cloth)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (Roy edition, archive.org full text) Sabha Parva, Sections LXVII-LXIX (the dragging, Vikarṇa, the disrobing, Bhīṣma's reply)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Sabha Parva (page labelled Section LXIX; Duryodhana's challenge to the Pāṇḍavas)

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