The story

Yudhishthira asked a visiting sage whether any king had ever been more unlucky than he was. The sage said yes, and told him about Nala.

Arjuna was away in Indra's heaven, Bhima was pressing for war, and Yudhishthira was counting his losses aloud: a kingdom taken at dice by cheats, a wife dragged into the assembly. The sage Brihadashva answered that one king had also been beaten at dice by trickery and went into the forest with no brothers and no friends, only his wife. Yudhishthira had brothers like gods around him.

Nala, king of the Nishadhas, was handsome, truthful, a master of horses, and fond of dice. Damayanti, princess of Vidarbha, was the most beautiful woman alive. They loved each other by report before they met. A swan with golden wings, caught by Nala and released, flew to her and praised him, and she sent it back to praise her to him.

When her father called a svayamvara, the bride's choice, four gods came too: Indra, Agni, Varuna and Yama. They made Nala promise to serve them before saying how, then sent him, invisible, into her guarded rooms to plead their suit. He did it honestly, against himself. She answered that she would choose him in front of the gods. At the ceremony she found five Nalas side by side. She called on the gods by the truth of her love to show themselves. Four did not sweat or blink, and their feet did not touch the ground. One cast a shadow, wore a wilting garland, and stood in the dust. She garlanded him, and the gods gave him eight gifts.

Kali, the spirit of the losing throw, arrived too late and swore to ruin Nala anyway, with Dvapara entering the dice to help. He waited twelve years for a flaw. One evening Nala sat down to his prayers without washing his feet, and Kali entered him. Nala's brother Pushkara challenged him to play, and he lost for months. He would not see his ministers or answer Damayanti, who sent their two children to her father with Nala's charioteer. When everything else was gone, Pushkara proposed Damayanti as the next stake. Nala said nothing and walked out of the city in one garment. She followed him in one of her own.

In the forest Nala threw his garment over some golden birds to catch them for food. They flew off with it, calling down that they were the dice. He began pointing out to Damayanti the roads that led to Vidarbha, and she understood what he meant to do. That night, in a rest-house, he found a sword, cut her garment in half while she slept, wrapped himself in his half, and left. He came back again and again, pulled one way by Kali and the other by love, before Kali won.

Damayanti woke alone. A python seized her, and a hunter cut her free and then tried to force her, and she cursed him dead by the strength of her faithfulness. She joined a merchant caravan that wild elephants trampled in the night, and reached Chedi, where the queen mother took her in as a maid. A brahmana sent by her father later knew her by a birthmark between her brows.

Nala, meanwhile, had walked into a forest fire to save a serpent king, Karkotaka, who bit him and twisted his body out of recognition, so that no one would know him and Kali would burn inside him with the venom. The serpent sent him to King Rituparna of Ayodhya as a charioteer called Bahuka, with a garment that would restore his form. Each evening Bahuka recited one verse, asking where she slept now, hungry and tired.

Damayanti found him with a riddle. Her messengers recited everywhere a question to the gambler who had cut her garment in half. In Ayodhya the charioteer answered that a good wife does not stay angry with a ruined husband whose clothes the birds had stolen. She knew. With her mother's help, she sent word to Rituparna that she would choose a second husband at sunrise the next day. Only Nala could drive that distance in a day.

He did. On the way Rituparna counted the fruit of a vibhitaka tree at a glance, and traded his science of dice for Bahuka's science of horses. The moment Nala learned the dice, Kali left his body, vomiting the serpent's venom, and took refuge in the tree.

At Vidarbha her maid watched the charioteer. Low doorways rose for him, empty pots filled at his glance, and grass caught fire in his hand. When she faced him, he blamed Kali for his desertion and asked how she could choose again. She swore her innocence. The Wind spoke from the sky and confirmed it. Nala put on the serpent's garment and became himself.

He went home with a small force and offered Pushkara dice or single combat, staking Damayanti and his new wealth against the kingdom. He won on a single wager, then forgave his brother, because Kali had done it and not Pushkara.

That was Brihadashva's point: Nala lost everything alone and recovered it. Then the sage did something practical. Yudhishthira feared being called to play again, so Brihadashva taught him the science of the dice. The tale is told to a gambler-king as a mirror, and it ends by arming him. When the year of disguise comes, Yudhishthira will enter King Virata's court as a master of dice.

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.
• Theme: Tales within the tale
• Theme: Dice and dispossession

Elsewhere in this parva

• Arjuna and the hunter — Arjuna starves himself for four months to meet Shiva, and the god comes as a hunter who beats him senseless before giving him his weapon.
• Bhima and the old monkey — Bhima goes to fetch a flower for Draupadi and cannot lift the tail of an old monkey lying across the path, who is his brother Hanuman.
• The cattle expedition — Duryodhana rides out to mock his cousins in exile, is captured by gandharvas, and is freed by the Pandavas, which he cannot forgive.
• The abduction of Draupadi — Jayadratha carries Draupadi off from the forest, leaves with five tufts of hair and a slave's oath, and goes to Shiva for revenge
• Savitri and Satyavan — A princess marries a man fated to die within the year, follows Death into the forest, and talks him out of her husband
• Karna's earrings — Warned in a dream by the Sun, Karna sees through Indra's disguise and still cuts off the armour that made him unkillable
• The yaksha's questions — Four brothers drink before answering and fall beside the lake, and the fifth is asked what a man must be before he may drink

Questions to explore

• Why does Brihadashva tell the Nala story to Yudhishthira, and what does it teach him?
• Was Nala to blame for abandoning Damayanti in the forest, or was it Kali?
• How does Damayanti recognise Nala when he is disguised as the charioteer Bahuka?