Draupadi Grieves and Incites Yudhishthira to Anger
Seated in the forest with her husbands, Draupadi watches them suffer in silence while Duryodhana celebrates in the city. She turns to Yudhishthira and begins to speak — not to console, but to question why a king who can destroy his enemies feels no anger at seeing his brothers and his wife reduced to rags and mud.
One evening in the forest, the five Pandavas sat together with Draupadi, talking among themselves. They were afflicted with grief and sorrow — exiles in deerskins, stripped of everything they had once commanded.
Draupadi looked at them. Then she spoke to Yudhishthira.
"There is no sorrow over us in the mind of that evil, cruel and evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra," she said. "When you were banished to the forest with me and your brothers, attired in deerskins, the evil-hearted one felt no torment. His heart is made of iron — that is how he could address harsh words to his superior, who is supreme among those who follow dharma."
She told him what she had seen on the day they left. Among all the Kurus, only four had not shed tears: Duryodhana, Karna, the evil-souled Shakuni, and the cruel Duhshasana. Everyone else — even those who had not lifted a finger to stop the dice game — had wept.
Then she began to compare what was with what had been.
"On seeing your bed now and remembering your earlier one, I sorrow for you. You are used to comforts and do not deserve this misery. Thinking of that jewelled seat, inlaid with ivory, in the middle of that sabha and seeing this one made of kusha grass, I am consumed with grief. I have seen you in the sabha, surrounded by kings. On no longer seeing that, how can there be peace in my heart?"
She remembered him anointed with sandalwood paste, radiant as the sun. Now he was anointed with mud. She remembered him dressed in white and expensive silk. Now he wore tattered rags. She remembered food for thousands of brahmanas served on gold plates — food for ascetics and the homeless, given freely from his house. Now she could not see any of it.
"O king! O lord with all the qualities! Now that I can no longer see that, how can there be peace in my heart?"
She turned to his brothers.
Young cooks with polished earrings used to prepare the best of food for them. Now they survived on the fare of the forest. Bhimasena — who could have killed all the Kurus but honoured Yudhishthira's promise and tolerated everything — now performed every task himself, immersed in thought. Arjuna, who on a single chariot had defeated gods, men and serpents, who had forced all the lords of the earth to bow down at Yudhishthira's sacrifice — Arjuna sat in the forest, silent. Nakula, tall and dark and young, who wielded the best of shields in battle. Sahadeva, Madri's handsome and brave son.
"On seeing them in the forest thus," she said, "how can your anger not increase?"
And then she spoke of herself.
"I have been born in the lineage of Drupada. I am the daughter-in-law of the great-souled Pandu. On seeing me in the forest thus, how can your anger not increase?"
She drew the conclusion plainly: "It is certain that there is no anger left in you. Despite seeing your brothers and me, your mind is not miserable."
But the sacred texts, she said, teach that there is no kshatriya in the world without anger. In Yudhishthira she saw something contrary to kshatriyas.
"A kshatriya who does not display his energy when the time is right is always despised by all beings. Therefore, under no circumstances should you show forgiveness towards your enemies. There is no doubt that you are capable of destroying all of them through your energy. But it is also true that a kshatriya who is not pacified when the time of forgiving arrives, is not loved by all beings and is destroyed here, and in the hereafter." Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 325