Kīcaka and Draupadī: Bhīma Kills Kīcaka

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Kīcaka was Queen Sudeṣṇā's brother and the commander of Virāṭa's army, and the real strength of the Matsya state. He saw Draupadī, the new maid, and wanted her. She refused him and warned that her Gandharva husbands would kill him, but the queen, wishing to please her brother, sent Draupadī to his house on an errand. Kīcaka seized her. Draupadī ran into the royal hall, where Kīcaka caught up with her and kicked her in front of the king and Kaṅka. Bhīma, watching, bit his lips in rage, but Yudhiṣṭhira signalled him to stay still: the year was nearly over, and a revealed Bhīma would doom them all.

That night Draupadī, humiliated and unable to sleep, bathed and thought of Bhīma. She rose in the dark and went to him in the kitchen. She woke him as one wakes a sleeping lion and asked how he could sleep while the wretch who had wronged her still lived. Bhīma sat up and asked why she looked pale and thin. She told her story, and he said she should trust him alone, since he had rescued her from danger many times. Bhīma planned that Draupadī should agree to meet Kīcaka the next night in the dancing hall that Virāṭa had built, where there was a strong bed and nobody at night. Kīcaka came the next morning boasting that he held the real power among the Matsyas, and offered her wealth, servants and chariots. Draupadī said the meeting must be secret, because she feared her Gandharvas. He agreed to come alone to the dance hall after dark. Kīcaka spent the day on perfumes, garlands and ornaments, not knowing he was walking to his death.

In the dark Bhīma waited on the bed like a lion hiding. Kīcaka entered, boasting of the wealth and women he had to offer, and was mocked. The two seized each other by the hair; the fight was like elephants, tigers, or Vāli and Sugrīva. Bhīma threw him down and crushed his limbs and neck into his body until he was a shapeless mass. Then he showed the body to Draupadī by torchlight and said anyone who troubled her would end the same way. The guards found the corpse and concluded that a Gandharva had done it.

The Kīcakas, his kinsmen, wanted Draupadī burned on the pyre with him. Virāṭa feared them and agreed. They bound her and carried her to the cemetery, and she called on her five Gandharva husbands by name. Bhīma heard, changed his clothes, climbed over a wall, uprooted a tall dry tree and charged at the Sutas like Yama. They dropped Draupadī and ran, and he killed a hundred and five of them. Together with the commander, a hundred and six Kīcakas died. The people were astonished and silent. The Matsyas were left without their best general, a weakness that Duryodhana's allies noticed.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Kīcaka, Draupadī, Bhīma, Sudeṣṇā, Virāṭa, Yudhiṣṭhira

Bound to

Suśarmā of Trigarta Raids Virāṭa's Cattle origin

Jayadratha Abducts Draupadī mirror

The Pāṇḍavas Go Incognito: Arrival at Virāṭa's Court origin

Places: Virāṭanagara, Dancing hall, Cemetery

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Virata Parva, Section XVII (Draupadī goes to Bhīma at night)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Virata Parva, Section XXII (Kīcaka killed)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Virata Parva, Section XXIII as numbered on the site (page text labelled XXII: the Kīcakas' pyre and Bhīma's rescue)

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