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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Ādi
Pañcendra
Classical
Arjuna had won Draupadi at Drupada's contest, and the five Pandavas had brought her home with their mother Kunti. The question that follows is one Drupada himself states bluntly. Yudhishthira told Drupada that the brothers were Kshatriyas, sons of Pandu, and Drupada was relieved and promised to help restore him to his throne. He suggested that Arjuna marry Draupadi. Yudhishthira answered that she must be the wife of all five, as their mother had ordered.
Drupada was shocked. One man may have many wives, he said, but a woman with many husbands has never been heard of, and it goes against custom and the Vedas. Dhrishtadyumna, Draupadi's brother, objected too: an elder brother should not approach his younger brother's wife. Yudhishthira said, "morality is subtle", that he and his brothers would follow the path earlier righteous people had taken, and that both his mother's command and his own heart approved. Kunti said she feared speaking untruthfully. Drupada, uneasy, asked the three of them to talk it over and report the next day. As they were deliberating, Vyasa arrived.
Vyasa promised to explain the matter's origin to Drupada alone, and they went into a private chamber. He began with a sacrifice in the Naimisha forest. Yama, the god of death, was busy there as the slayer of the sacrificial animals, and had stopped taking human lives. The population grew fast and the gods went to Brahma, who told them Yama's death-work would resume once the sacrifice ended.
Meanwhile Indra, following the Ganga to its source, found a radiant woman weeping into the river, and her tears turned into golden lotuses. She led him to Mount Himavat, where Shiva sat playing dice with a young woman. Indra boasted of his rule over the universe, and Shiva's glance left him paralysed. When the woman touched him, he collapsed. Shiva showed him a cave with four other Indras and cursed him to join them.
The five Indras begged to be born as humans. They asked the gods Dharma, Vayu, Indra and the Ashvins to father them through human mothers, and Indra made a portion of himself into a fifth Indra. The five were Vishwabhuk, Bhutadhaman, Sivi, Santi and Tejaswin. Shiva granted it, and made Sri, the goddess of grace, their common wife in the human world. Vishnu pulled out two hairs, one black and one white, and they entered the wombs of Devaki and Rohini and became Krishna and Balarama.
So the Pandavas are the five Indras of old, said Vyasa. Arjuna is a portion of Indra. Draupadi is Sri herself, born from the earth through the sacrificial rites. He told Drupada a second story, too. A Brahmin maiden who wanted a good husband prayed to Shiva and asked five times for one, so Shiva promised her five husbands in a future life. She is Draupadi.
Vyasa then gave Drupada divine sight, and the king saw the Pandavas in their celestial forms. He was pleased, and touched Vyasa's feet. In this reading, the marriage that looked like a breach of dharma is the working out of two older arrangements, and the epic places the origin of the five brothers not in Kunti's casual words but in a god's decision.
Told by Vyāsa → Drupada
Who: Draupadī
Where this comes from
- CE · Mahabharata, Critical Edition 1.189 1.189
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio.org SriPedia mirror) Adi Parva, Section CXLVII as labelled (Drupada's questions; Vyasa arrives)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CXLVIII (the debate before Vyasa's explanation)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CXLIX (Vyasa's explanation: the five Indras; the maiden's boon)