Krishna Identifies the Pandavas to Balarama
As chaos erupts at the svayamvara, Krishna observes the extraordinary prowess of the two Brahmin brothers. With superhuman intelligence, he pieces together their true identities as the Pandavas, believed dead, and shares his discovery with his brother Balarama.
While the kings raged and rushed, two observers watched with calm, knowing eyes. Krishna, also called Damodara, stood with his elder brother Balarama, known as Halayudha. They had come to the svayamvara not as suitors, but as witnesses.
Krishna's gaze was fixed on the two Brahmin brothers now at the center of the storm. He saw one with the gait of a mad bull, holding a great bow that was four cubits long. He saw the other, with impossible strength, uproot a full-grown tree as if it were a weed, ready to repulse an army of kings with his bare hands.
A smile touched Krishna's lips. He turned to Balarama. "O Sankarshana," he said. "The warrior with that bow must be Arjuna. If I am Vasudeva's son, there can be no doubt about this." He nodded toward the giant with the tree. "And that one is undoubtedly Vrikodara (Bhima). No other mortal on earth can perform such a feat today."
His mind, with its superhuman intelligence, connected the fragments. He recalled the other brother who had left earlier with Draupadi—a man with eyes like lotus petals, a slender frame, and the humble, powerful gait of a lion. "That must have been Dharmaraja (Yudhishthira)," Krishna said. The two youths who remained, each as radiant as the war-god Kartikeya, must be the twins, Nakula and Sahadeva, sons of the Ashvins.
The full picture snapped into place. "I had heard," Krishna said, recalling the rumors that had spread across the land, "that Pandu's sons and Pritha (Kunti) had escaped from the fire in the house of lac."
Balarama, his complexion like monsoon clouds, listened and his face lit up with happiness. "I am delighted," he said to his younger brother, "that our father's sister Pritha, with the foremost of the Kurus, has escaped." Their aunt Kunti was alive. Their cousins, the rightful heirs of Hastinapura, had not been burned to ashes. They had returned, disguised, and had just reclaimed their place on the stage of the world by winning the princess of Panchala.