Draupadi and Markandeya

While living in exile along the Sarasvati, the Pandavas receive a visit from the ancient rishi Markandeya. When Yudhishthira notices the sage smiling, he asks why — and receives a discourse on dharma that spans the ages, from Rama to the elephants of the forest.

Draupadi has spoken words that sound like atheism — questioning whether dharma bears any fruit at all. Yudhishthira responds not with anger but with a sustained argument: dharma must be followed for its own sake, not for its rewards. He cites the great rishis she has seen with her own eyes, warns her that doubting dharma is its own kind of hell, and commands her to destroy her doubt like mist.

While Krishna and Yudhishthira converse, the ancient sage Markandeya arrives — aged through thousands of years of austerities. The Pandavas and brahmanas worship him, and Krishna asks him to narrate sacred accounts of the past. Narada also arrives, approves the proposal, and Markandeya asks for time to prepare.

Yudhishthira, shaken by the vision of cosmic destruction and renewal, asks the sage Markandeya what will become of the world when dharma collapses. Markandeya answers with a prophecy of inversion and decay — where lifespans shrink to sixteen years, children beget children, and the earth is overtaken by mleccha conduct — until a brahmana named Kalki is born in Sambhala to restore the age of truth.

Yudhishthira enters the hermitage and finds the seats and pots strewn around, the brahmanas dispersed. Markandeya and the others had been lamenting over Draupadi's abduction. But when the king returns with his wife and brothers, the brahmanas are delighted — order is restored, and Draupadi enters the hermitage with the twins at her side.

After rescuing Draupadi from Jayadratha's abduction, Yudhishthira sits among the sages and unburdens himself to Markandeya. He cannot understand how a woman who has always followed dharma could be touched by such dishonor — and he asks whether the sage has ever seen or heard of anyone more unfortunate than himself.

Yudhishthira sits in the forest, weighed down by exile and loss, when the ancient sage Markandeya finds him. Instead of empty comfort, Markandeya offers a series of comparisons — Rama’s endurance in the wilderness, Indra’s victories won through allies, and the Pandavas’ own recent rescue of Draupadi from Jayadratha — to argue that Yudhishthira has no reason to despair.

Yudhishthira, still raw from Draupadi's abduction by Jayadratha, turns to the ancient sage Markandeya. He does not ask about the war to come, or about dharma, or about the kingdom he lost. He asks: have you ever seen or heard of a woman as fortunate and devoted as Drupada's daughter?

Markandeya continues his narration to the Pandavas, describing the morning after Savitri's trials. The subjects of Shalva arrive to recall Dyumatsena — their enemy has been slain by his own minister, and they want him back as king. Dyumatsena, now with sight restored, departs for the city with his family, and Savitri later bears a hundred sons and has a hundred brothers.