Reading Notes: Mahabharata Part B

Reading Notes from The Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan

In this section of The Mahabharata, I was intrigued by Yudhistira's first gambling game in which he gambled away his riches, land, brothers, himself, and finally his wife. When Draupadi was summoned to the hall as a slave, she asked multiple times if Yudhistira had gambled himself or herself first, and upon learning that Yudhistira gambled himself before her, maintained that he had no right to gamble her away.

I'd like to tell a story of an avid gambler who treats his loving and devoted wife with meanness. She prays to Vishnu that she might be set free from a man who does not treat her as a husband should treat his wife. Vishnu answers her prayers by cursing her husband to lose over and over again during his next gambling game. The next day, her husband begins a gambling game only to lose his possessions, land, servants, and finally himself. Before he becomes a slave, he remembers that he has not yet gambled his wife and pleads for a chance to win everything back with one last bet. His wife insists that he has lost the right to gamble her away, and challenges her husband to a gambling match. If she wins, she owns herself and is no longer his wife, and if she loses, she will assent to his will.

(A man and woman gambling, it looks like the final battle between husband and wife. Who will win? Express Digest)