The story

The Kauravas went to steal cows and found Arjuna.

Duryodhana's spies had searched every forest, mountain and city for the Pandavas and found nothing. They brought back one piece of news: the Matsya general Kichaka had been killed by gandharvas. Little of the thirteenth year remained, Duryodhana said, and if the Pandavas were found before it ended, they would have to go back to the forest. Susharma, king of the Trigartas, had been raided again and again by Kichaka, and Kichaka was dead. He proposed a raid on Virata's herds, and Karna supported him. The Trigartas would strike first, from the south-east; the Kurus would strike the next day from the other side.

At the end of the thirteenth year, Susharma drove off Virata's cattle. Virata armed his household, including the dice-player, the cook, the groom and the cowherd. Men built like these, he said, would surely fight. In a night battle, Susharma captured Virata alive. Yudhishthira told Bhima to free him. Bhima looked at a tree and prepared to pull it up. Yudhishthira stopped him: take a weapon an ordinary man would use, or they will know you are Bhima. With a man's weapons, Bhima freed the king and took Susharma prisoner.

Meanwhile the Kurus, Bhishma, Drona, Karna and Duryodhana among them, drove sixty thousand cattle away from the undefended north. The only man left in the city was Virata's young son Uttara, also called Bhuminjaya. Among the women, he boasted that he would defeat Bhishma, Drona and Karna, if only he had a charioteer. Draupadi told him that Brihannala had once driven Arjuna's chariot. Uttara's sister, the princess Uttara, brought her dance teacher. The princesses asked him to bring back fine cloth for their dolls.

The prince saw the Kuru army and lost his nerve. He jumped from the chariot and ran. Arjuna jumped down after him, his long braid flying and his red clothes flapping. The Kuru warriors watched and wondered: part man, part woman, and built exactly like Arjuna. After a hundred paces he caught the prince by the hair. Uttara offered him gold, jewels and elephants to let him go. Arjuna put him back on the chariot to hold the reins.

He drove to the shami tree and sent the prince up it. Uttara objected that a corpse was tied there. Arjuna said there were only bows. Uttara asked where the owners of these weapons were. Arjuna told him: Kanka was Yudhishthira, Ballava was Bhima, the groom and the cowherd were Nakula and Sahadeva, and Sairandhri was Draupadi. He himself was Arjuna, and he explained his ten names. He is Bibhatsu because he never does a loathsome thing in battle. And why the eunuch's dress? He was not a eunuch, he said. He was keeping a year's vow of celibacy at his elder brother's command, and the vow was now complete. That is the whole explanation the Critical Edition gives. Urvashi's curse, which later tellings use here, is not in it.

Arjuna raised his monkey banner and blew his conch. The horses dropped to their knees, and in the Kuru camp the quarrelling began. Drona read the omens and said that this was Arjuna. Karna boasted. Kripa and Ashvatthama mocked him for boasting before a single cow had been won. Duryodhana said that if this was Arjuna, the Pandavas had been discovered early and owed another twelve years. Bhishma settled the question with a calculation. Every fifth year, he said, two extra months are added. Over thirteen years the excess was five months and twelve nights. The Pandavas had kept every condition exactly, and Arjuna had come out knowing the term was over. Duryodhana replied only that he would not give back the kingdom.

Arjuna's first arrows were a greeting. Two fell at Drona's feet and two flew past his ears. Drona read it as a salute and an enquiry after his health. Then he chased Duryodhana, turned the herd, and fought the Kuru champions one by one. He killed Karna's brother and drove Karna from the field. He wore down Kripa, Drona and Ashvatthama in turn, and drove even Bhishma from the field. When they all came at him together, he stunned them with a weapon of bewilderment. Remembering the princess's request, he sent the prince to take their upper cloths: white from Drona and Kripa, yellow from Karna, blue from Ashvatthama and Duryodhana. Bhishma, he warned, would not be stunned. When the Kurus woke, Bhishma told Duryodhana that Arjuna would not do a cruel thing for the sake of the three worlds, and that this was why they were all still alive. Go home, he said.

At home Virata boasted of his son over a game of dice. Kanka said that with Brihannala driving, the prince was bound to win. Virata struck him in the face with a die. Yudhishthira caught the blood from his nose in his hands, and Draupadi caught the rest in a golden bowl. He had Brihannala kept out of the room. Arjuna had vowed to kill anyone who drew his brother's blood outside battle. Then the prince arrived and told his father the truth: a son of the gods had won the battle.

On the third day the five brothers, bathed and dressed in white, took the royal seats in Virata's hall. Arjuna named each of them. The ashamed king offered his daughter Uttara to Arjuna. Arjuna refused her as a wife. He had lived a year in her rooms as her teacher, and she had trusted him as a father, so he took her for his son Abhimanyu instead. The thirteenth year was over. The Pandavas moved to Upaplavya. Krishna came with Abhimanyu, Drupada came with his army, and the wedding was held.

The cattle raid looks ahead to Kurukshetra. Arjuna stands alone against every Kuru elder, wins, and kills none of the elders. The term is kept, and the grandsire of the Kurus has said so in front of their whole army.

Who appears, and what it argues

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Bhishma — The grand-uncle whose vow of celibacy was meant to secure the succession and instead left it disputed for three generations.
• Drona — The brahmin teacher of both sets of princes, who takes his fee in a king's humiliation and a hunter's thumb, then commands the Kaurava army.
• Karna — Kunti's first son, given away at birth and raised by a charioteer, who spends his life being told his skill does not outrank his upbringing.
• Duryodhana — The eldest Kaurava, who never disputes that the kingdom is contested and never concedes that this makes the Pandavas' claim equal to his.
• Abhimanyu — Arjuna's son, sent to open a formation he had said out loud he could enter and not leave, on the day the war stopped keeping its rules.
• Theme: The binding vow
• Theme: Kinship and enmity

Elsewhere in this parva

• Entering Virata's court — To survive the year of hiding, the gambler becomes a dice-player, the archer a eunuch dance-teacher and the queen a maid.
• 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.

Questions to explore

• Did the Pandavas really complete the thirteenth year before Arjuna was recognised?
• Why did Arjuna take the Kuru elders' clothes instead of their lives?
• Why did Arjuna refuse to marry Uttara and choose her for Abhimanyu instead?