As the Pandavas exit Hastinapura after their humiliation, public sentiment turns on their side. Crowds converge around the five brothers and their wife (or wives? At this point, it is not clear if the brothers’ individual wives, like Subhadra, are also there), proclaiming their desire to follow them. Seeing the anger and despondency in the people, Yudhistira demands they return under the dominion of the Kuru family and allow themselves to be governed by the powers in Hastinapura. The crowds relent, though not without a show of great sorrow. The Pandavas can do nothing but march on.
They then spend the night below a banyan tree on the banks of the Ganga. In the morning, alm-seeking brahmanas appear before them. When Yudhistira clarifies his position, that he has lost everything and can offer nothing to the brahmanas, the latter announce that they only want to accompany the family in their forest life. But Yudhistira knows that food will be a problem, especially because the brahmanas don’t cook themselves and may rely on the family for nourishment. Even though the brahmanas promise to fend for themselves, the constant reminder of inferiority that their proximity entails pains the erstwhile king. Thus faced with another problem that appears to him like a deadlock he cannot resolve, Yudhistira collapses to the ground and begins to cry.
This is, without doubt, the lowest that the Pandavas shall fall in the epic. Shounaka, a learned Brahman, then approaches Yudhistira, conveying a lesson that can even be regarded as a capsule from the Bhagwad Gita — that attachment to the material world is a cause of suffering, and that the Pandavas shouldn’t grieve their losses. He advises Yudhistira to perform austerities in the name of Surya (the sun-god) and practice yoga. Similar advice is given by Dhoumya, the priest of the Pandavas.
Yudhistira’s austerities yield an immediate boon, as Surya appears before him and promises to offer four kinds of food — fruit, roots, meat, and vegetables - for 12 years. In addition, Surya offers some riches, though no detail is provided. It can be safe to conclude, though, that the Pandavas’ 12 years in the jungle are not going to be years of scrounging and subsistence. Even before they truly begin their exile, the basic necessities seem to have been provided for — those, too, by a god.
The Pandava troupe then goes westwards, to a forest named Kamyaka not far from Kurukshetra. Meanwhile, in Hastinapura, the relationship between Dhritarashtra and Vidura sees a temporary schism. Vidura advises the king to make peace and to ask his sons to apologise to the Pandavas. Dhritarashtra, angered by this advice, once again shouts at Vidura and asks him to go wherever he pleases. Vidura takes the reprimand seriously this time, and leaves on a chariot to join the Pandavas in the jungle. Soon after, though, Dhritarashtra sends Sanjaya to get Vidura back, and the eventual reunion between the ‘brothers’ is rather embarrassingly emotional.
Tanuj Solanki
Twitter@tanujsolanki
The writer is reading the unabridged Mahabharata