Nala Returns to Nishadha and Challenges Pushkara
With Bhima’s permission and a small army, Nala returns to Nishadha and confronts his brother Pushkara. He offers a single stake: all his new wealth, Damayanti, and his life — against the kingdom. Pushkara, certain of victory, laughs and accepts the dice game.
Nala had lived in Bhima’s kingdom for a month, recovering his strength, gathering resources. Now he asked for permission to leave. Bhima granted it. Nala set out for Nishadha with a small number of attendants — a single radiant chariot, sixteen tusked elephants, fifty horses, and six hundred infantry. The earth trembled when the lord of the earth travelled speedily. He entered his former kingdom swiftly and wrathfully.
He went before Pushkara and spoke.
“O Pushkara! Let us play with dice again. I have acquired a lot of riches. Damayanti, and everything else that I have acquired, will be my stake. The kingdom will be yours. It is my certain resolution that the game of dice must occur again. O fortunate one! Let there be a single stake. Let us offer our lives as stakes. When the other’s possessions, kingdom and riches, have been won, it has been said that it is supreme dharma to have a counter-stake as the last one. If you do not wish to have a duel with dice, let there be a duel with chariots. O king! Let either you or I find peace. The aged have laid down the ordinance that an ancestral kingdom must be obtained back, through whatever means. O Pushkara! Choose one or the other, according to your intelligence. Choose the game of dice, or bend your bow in battle.”
Pushkara began to laugh. He was certain in his mind that he was going to win.
“O Nishadha! It is your good fortune that you have obtained riches for a counter-stake. It is your good fortune that Damayanti’s difficult times have now come to an end. O king! O uprooter of your enemies! It is your good fortune that you are still alive with your wife. I will win Vidarbha’s daughter, with all her ornaments and all these riches. She will then serve me, the way an apsara (celestial dancer) serves Shakra in heaven. O Nishadha! I have always remembered you and have been waiting for your return. I find no pleasure in gambling with those who are not my well-wishers. Having won the beautifully-hipped and unblemished Damayanti today, I will have accomplished my objective. She has always been in my heart.”
Nala heard the words of the mad and insolent one. He was angered and desired to slice off his head with his sword.
But he did not. He held himself. The dice game was set. Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 374