Mahabharata - The Princes of Elephant City (Part A)

Long after the reign of King Bharata, there was a king in Hastinapura called Vichitravirya, who died and left two sons: Dhritarashtra, the older son, who is blind, and his brother Pandu, who becomes king. Pandu has five sons: Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna by his wife Kunti, and Nakula and Sahadeva by his wife Madri. These sons of Pandu, the Pandavas, are said to be the sons of gods. When Pandu dies, Dhritarashtra becomes king. King Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari have one hundred sons, and they grow up together with the five sons of Pandu. Duryodhana is the eldest of those one hundred sons, called the Kauravas (descendants of Kuru). Together, the Pandavas and the Kauravas are the Bharatas, the descendants of King Bharata.


Drona is the boys' teacher, and the Pandavas were his best pupils, arousing the jealousy of Duryodhana. Drona then leads his pupils in an attack on King Drupada of Panchala, his enemy, and Drupada prays to the gods for a way to avenge himself against the Bharatas. From the sacrificial fire a beautiful girl emerges: Draupadi.

Duryodhana, meanwhile, grows even more jealous when his father names Yudhishthira as his heir, and so Duryodhana plots to kill the Pandavas and their mother, Kunti. Duryodhana's agent Purochana arranges for their death in a fire, but Vidura (half-brother of Pandu and Dhritarashtra) warn the Pandavas, and they escape the fire by means of a hidden tunnel. Some drunken guests die in the fire, and the people suppose that their corpses are the remains of the Pandavas. Duryodhana rejoices at the news.

  All the suitors are eager to win Draupadi (also called Krishna, with a long "a" at the end: Krishnā, meaning "dark") as their bride. Her brother Dhrishtadyumna explains the rules of the archery contest. Karna, the secret child of Kunti and the sun-god Surya (thus half-brother to the Pandavas), looks like he might win, but because he has been raised as the son of a charioteer (who rescued the baby from the river where Kunti had set him adrift), Draupadi declares she will never marry him.

While in exile, the water-nymph Ulupi takes him to her underwater kingdom and they marry. Thanks to Ulupi's blessing, he is able to defeat a savage alligator who was herself a water-nymph, cursed to take the form of an alligator until freed by Arjuna. Arjuna rescues the water-nymph's sisters from their alligator forms. (Her name is Varga, and the other apsaras are named Saurabheyi and Samichi and Vudvuda and Lata.)

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