Janamejaya questioned Vysampayana concerning the sons of Kunti, who had forsaken palaces for the forest and endured every hardship; answer came that, after Śrī Kṛṣṇa departed for Dvārakā, they removed their abiding to Dvaitavana from Kamyakavana, traversing many wilds and mountains and noting each district’s peculiar temper as they went until they reached their new quarters, where a Brahmin-scholar from Hastinapur, skilled in tale and report, had lately encountered them and returned to tell of their lot.
Dhṛitarāṣṭra, inquiring of this Brahmin, learned that the Pandavas suffered from wind and rain, from burning suns and bitter cold; that grief lay heavy on them, and that Panchāli, who had once been wedded to brave and noble men, bewailed her fate. The blind king kept silence awhile, then with tremulous voice bewailed the calamity and laid blame on his son Duryodhana’s blind wickedness; for the conduct of the Pandavas was righteous and meritorious, yet they endured privations unbecoming their birth.
He spoke of Yudhiṣṭhira, whom he loved as eldest, steadfast in virtue and apart from wickedness, a light of the Kuru line, and wondered why he should be fated to such austerity; of Bhīma, erstwhile soft upon silken couches with halls and music, now sleeping upon cold stone with foxes’ cries and tigers’ roar about him; of the might of Vāyu’s son, whose sinews mock a thousand elephants and whose wrath, once loosed, none can stay; and of Arjuna, the peerless bowman, who though outwardly obedient to his brothers, must inwardly seethe like a coiled serpent at the affronts heaped upon them, his spirit fanned by insult and the memory of past penances, by gifts of divine arms he won and by the sanctity of his Gandīva, that celestial bow whose arrows are consecrated by heaven.
Dhṛtarāṣṭra declared that such souls, tested by fate, bore the fruit of former deeds: Arjuna’s marvels and the bow’s potency were tokens of past merits; Bhīma’s heart burned with a Yama-like resolve; Yudhiṣṭhira remained equable in counsel; together their destiny would yield retribution for wrongs, and the hour of reckoning for Duryodhana and his companions drew near, so vain now was regret.
\The king confessed that his own pride and the folly of kinship had let loose the doom of his house: Sakuni’s deceit at dice, the humiliation of Draupadī, and Duryodhana’s counsel had pricked at noble hearts like thorns, and the fire of vengeance smouldered, waiting only a spark. News of the Pandavas’ strengthening reached Duryodhana, and Sakuni mocked Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s fears as cowardice. In secrecy, Duryodhana, Karṇa, and Sakuni met and plotted to display their wealth and triumph in Dvaitavana, thereby tormenting the exiles. Karṇa urged that the splendour of Indraprastha and the homage of kings made Duryodhana’s glory manifest, and that by a bold pageant—an ostentatious hunting and display of riches—they might fling the Pandavas into despair; he taught Duryodhana a pernicious doctrine that the end of power is to make foes miserable rather than to do paragon good.
Fearing that Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s protest or Vidura’s sagacity might thwart them, they devised a cunning stratagem: a pretended danger to the cattle of Dvaitavana should summon the king and his chiefs to that place; a shepherd was rehearsed to plead for royal succour, and so under the guise of duty they would go.
When the matter was laid before Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Vidura and Bhīṣma warned that the Pandavas, though in penury, were lions in human garb, potent with ascetic strength and wary of insult; that provocation might kindle annihilating wrath and that none could face Arjuna returned from heaven with his celestial arms. Yet, by sophistry and solemn entreaty, Duryodhana and his counsellors won the king’s consent, though with caution to return speedily; thus the hunting-design was sanctioned, and from this contrivance—so fair in outward guise but foul in intent—darker consequences would grow, for the seeds of conspiracy, once sown, prepare their own harvest of ruin and show how nepotism and folly may open floodgates to a family’s destruction.
