Yudhishthira Laments to Markandeya About Misfortunes
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.
Janamejaya wanted to know what came next. After the abduction of Draupadi — after the Pandavas had hunted down Jayadratha, shaved his head, and brought her back — what did they do?
Vaishampayana told him.
They sat down with the sages. The forest was full of them — maharshis (great seers) who had gathered in the Kamyaka forest, drawn by the presence of the exiled Pandavas. Yudhishthira, Dharmaraja, the son of Dharma himself, sat among them. And in their midst, he began to speak.
He spoke to Markandeya — the ancient sage who had lived through the cycles of creation and destruction, who had seen the end of one age and the beginning of another, who had wandered the earth for thousands of years and knew things no living man could know.
Yudhishthira said: I think time is inevitable. Destiny, created by the gods, cannot be transgressed. No being can escape it.
Then he asked the question that was tearing at him.
Our wife is learned about dharma. She conducts herself according to dharma in every act. How could she have been touched this way — like a pure person falsely accused of theft? She has never committed an evil deed. She has never done anything that can be censured. Among brahmanas, she has always practised the greatest form of dharma.
And yet the foolish King Jayadratha abducted her by force.
Yes, they had punished him. They had shaved his head — the mark of a defeated man, a dishonored king. They had defeated him in battle along with all his companions. They had killed the Saindhava forces and brought Draupadi back.
But the act of abduction itself — while they were distracted, while they were hunting, while they were not watching — had sullied them. The dishonor had happened. It could not be undone.
Yudhishthira looked at his own life.
This life in the forest is full of misery. They sustained themselves through hunting — which meant that those who lived in the forest caused violence to the deer. The very act of survival was a wound. And this exile had been brought about by relatives who resorted to falsehood — by Shakuni's dice, by Duryodhana's scheming, by the game of dice that had stripped them of everything.
He asked Markandeya directly: Is there any other man who is more unfortunate than I? Have you seen, or heard of, any such one earlier?
The question hung in the air. Yudhishthira had spoken it aloud — the thing that had been pressing on him since the dice game, since the forest, since every new misfortune that arrived like a wave following another wave. He was the son of Dharma. He had always tried to walk the path of righteousness. And yet suffering kept finding him, and he could not understand why. Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 554