The story

For one year, the most famous family in the land had to become nobody.

Twelve years in the forest were over. Dharma's boon at the yaksha's lake had promised that no one would recognise them in the thirteenth year, but the condition of the second game still applied. If anyone discovered them, they would go back to the forest for twelve more years. Yudhishthira returned the brahmana's fire-sticks, called his brothers together, and asked Arjuna to choose a kingdom where they could live unknown. Arjuna listed several. Yudhishthira chose Matsya, ruled by Virata, a strong, generous, righteous old king who would protect them without knowing that he was doing so.

Then each brother said who he would become, and the choices are the heart of the episode.

Yudhishthira said that he would be Kanka, a brahmana who could throw dice and would amuse the king at court. He would say that he had once been Yudhishthira's close friend. The man who lost everything at dice would hide inside the skill that had ruined him. Bhima would be Ballava, a cook who could also wrestle. He would throw any wrestler the king set against him, but he promised not to kill them. Nakula would be Granthika, a groom who knew how to train horses and treat their illnesses. Sahadeva would be Tantipala, a cattle-counter who knew which bulls brought luck.

Arjuna's choice was the strangest. The scars of the bowstring on his arms could not be hidden, so he would hide the man instead. He would declare himself a eunuch, wear earrings and bangles, braid his hair, and call himself Brihannala. He would teach the women of the palace to sing and dance and play instruments, and say that he had served in Draupadi's rooms. The constituted text gives no reason for this disguise except its usefulness. The curse of the apsaras Urvashi, which many retellings use to explain it, does not appear in the Critical Edition.

Yudhishthira stopped at Draupadi. She was a princess, he said, who knew nothing of a servant's work. She answered calmly. There were sairandhris in the world, unprotected women who worked in other people's houses, and she would be one of them. She knew how to dress hair. She would serve Queen Sudeshna, and the queen would protect her.

The family priest Dhaumya gave them a long lesson in how to live at a king's court without offending him. They sent their servants and empty chariots away to Drupada and to Dvaraka, with orders to say that the Pandavas had left them at Dvaitavana. Then the five brothers and Draupadi walked along the Yamuna into Matsya territory, pretending to be hunters. When Draupadi could walk no further, Arjuna carried her.

Outside the capital, near the cremation ground, there was a large shami tree on a hill, thick with leaves and difficult to climb. They could not enter the city armed. Each brother unstrung his bow, Arjuna the Gandiva first. They wrapped the bows together with their swords and quivers, and Nakula climbed up and tied the bundle firmly where the rain could not reach it. Then they tied a dead body to the tree, so that the smell would keep people away. If herdsmen asked, they would say it was their mother, a hundred and eighty years old, hung there by family custom. Yudhishthira also gave the five of them secret names for use in an emergency: Jaya, Jayanta, Vijaya, Jayatsena and Jayadbala.

They went in one at a time. Yudhishthira came first, with dice of gold and beryl tied in his cloth. Virata looked at him and decided that this was no brahmana but a king. He offered him Matsya itself. Yudhishthira asked only that anyone he beat at dice should pay what he owed. Bhima came carrying a ladle and a knife, and Virata did not believe that he was a cook either. He made him head of the kitchens.

Draupadi came into the city in a single dirty garment, with her hair gathered to one side. From her balcony, Queen Sudeshna saw her and said that no servant looked like that. Was she a goddess, a yakshi, an apsaras? The queen was afraid to take her in. The king would leave his wife for her, she said. Bringing her into the house would be like the crab, which carries its own death in its womb. Draupadi made her conditions plain. She had five gandharva husbands who guarded her, and any man who desired her would die that same night. She would not eat other people's leftovers or wash anyone's feet. Sudeshna agreed.

Sahadeva came in herdsman's clothes, speaking like a herdsman. Then came Arjuna, with bangles and long braided hair. Virata told him plainly that men built like him were not eunuchs and that he should take up arms. Arjuna asked to be given to the princess Uttara as her dance teacher. When the king had satisfied himself that Brihannala was not a man, he sent him to the young women's quarters. Nakula came last and was put in charge of the horses.

So the year began. Yudhishthira won at dice and secretly shared the money with his brothers. Bhima passed them food from the kitchens, Arjuna sold the women's old clothes for them, Sahadeva brought milk and butter, and Nakula shared his wages. In the fourth month, at a great festival, a giant wrestler named Jimuta challenged every fighter and nobody would face him. Virata ordered his cook into the ring. Bhima could not refuse without betraying himself. He lifted the man, whirled him round a hundred times, and killed him. After that, Virata made him fight tigers, lions and elephants for the entertainment of the women.

Nobody guessed. The thirteenth year is hidden in plain sight, in kitchens, stables and dance halls, among people who see the Pandavas every day. The disguises held for ten months. Then the queen's brother noticed the new maid.

Who appears, and what it argues

• Yudhishthira — The eldest Pandava, called the king of dharma, who gambles away his brothers, his wife and himself without anyone forcing his hand.
• Bhima — The strongest of the brothers, whose two vows in the assembly hall turn a property dispute into something that can only end in bodies.
• Arjuna — The archer the whole war is arranged around, who arrives at its opening unable to lift his bow because of who is standing on the other side.
• Nakula — The fourth Pandava, Madri's son, whom Yudhishthira chooses to bring back to life ahead of his own full brothers at the yaksha's lake.
• Sahadeva — The youngest Pandava, Madri's other son, who serves Virata as a cowherd and is the first of the brothers to fall on the road north.
• Draupadi — Won in a contest she had no say in, married to five men on a careless word, and the only person in the hall who asks a question of law.
• Theme: The binding vow
• Theme: Dice and dispossession

Elsewhere in this parva

• The death of Kichaka — Assaulted before a king for the second time in her life, Draupadi goes to Bhima at night, and Bhima waits in the dark dance hall.
• The cattle raid — The Kurus raid Virata's herds to flush out the Pandavas, and meet Arjuna alone, with a terrified prince holding his reins.

Questions to explore

• Why did each Pandava choose the disguise he took at Virata's court?
• Why did the Pandavas hide their weapons in a shami tree?
• Is Arjuna's life as Brihannala explained by Urvashi's curse in the Critical Edition?