Duryodhana Confesses His Envy and Humiliation at Indraprastha
Pressed by his father, Duryodhana confesses that his misery comes from seeing Yudhishthira's supreme prosperity. He recounts, in raw detail, the humiliations he suffered at the Pandava palace: mistaking crystal for water, falling into a pond, and hitting his head on a door, all while their laughter echoed around him.
Duryodhana replied. “I am an evil man that I eat and dress, despite what I see. It has been said that a man who does not feel envy is a wretch.” He laid it bare for his father. “O Indra among kings, this ordinary prosperity does not please me. I am miserable on seeing the blazing prosperity of Kunti’s son.”
The entire earth was subject to Yudhishthira’s suzerainty. Tribes like the Chaitrakis, Koukuras, Karaskaras and Lohajanghas lived in Yudhishthira’s abode like prostrate slaves. The Himalayas, the oceans, the gem-producing shores — all were inferior to Yudhishthira’s abode. “Since I was the eldest and foremost,” Duryodhana said, “Yudhishthira offered me homage and appointed me to the task of receiving the gems.” The riches brought there were supreme and invaluable; one could not see the near end, nor the far one. “My hands were too tired to receive all those riches. When those who had brought riches from distant places had left, I was still tired.”
Then he described the humiliations, one after another, each a fresh burn.
The asura Maya had constructed a platform of crystal. On seeing the place full of lotuses, Duryodhana took it to be water. He drew up his clothes. Vrikodara (Bhima) laughed at him, thinking him devoid of riches and deluded by the superior wealth of the enemy. “O descendant of the Bharata lineage, had I possessed the ability, I would have killed Vrikodara there. The derision of a rival burns me.”
He saw another pond full of lotuses. Thinking it was also made of crystal, he fell into the water. At this, Krishna (Draupadi) and Partha (Arjuna) laughed out loudly, and so did Droupadi and the other women. “This pained my heart.” His garments wet, servants gave him others on the king’s orders. “This too made me more miserable.”
Then came the final trick. In trying to go out through what looked like a door, but wasn’t a door, he hit his head against a crystal slab and got hurt. From a distance, the twins Nakula and Sahadeva were amused. In great sorrow, they held him in their arms. Sahadeva then repeatedly told him, as if amazed, “O king, this is the door. Pass this way.”
“I saw jewels there, whose names I had not even heard of earlier,” Duryodhana confessed. “That is the reason why my heart is burning.”