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Virata Parva · Episode 2 · Chapters 13–23
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.
For the second time in her life, Draupadi was assaulted in front of a king who did nothing.
Ten months of the hidden year had passed when Kichaka saw her. He was the commander of Virata's army and the brother of Queen Sudeshna. He asked his sister who the new maid was, and then went to Draupadi directly. Her beauty was wasted on service, he said. He would put away his wives, they would be her slaves, and he would be her slave too.
Draupadi refused him without fear. She was another man's wife, she said, and he should think about dharma. Her husbands were gandharvas who would kill him. Wanting her was like a child on its mother's lap reaching for the moon.
Kichaka went back to his sister and begged until she pitied him. Sudeshna made a plan that also served her own interest. On a festival day, Kichaka would have food and wine prepared, and she would send Sairandhri, the maid, to fetch wine from his house. Draupadi begged her to send another maid. Sudeshna insisted and put a covered golden cup into her hands. Draupadi went weeping. On the way she stood before the sun and made an oath of truth: as she knew no man except the Pandavas, so Kichaka should not have power over her. The sun sent an invisible rakshasa to guard her.
Kichaka caught her by the right hand. She threw him to the ground and ran to the assembly hall where Yudhishthira sat. Kichaka chased her, seized her by the hair, threw her down, and kicked her in front of the king. The invisible guardian struck him down like a felled tree.
Bhima was there. He ground his teeth and was ready to kill. Yudhishthira pressed Bhima's toe with his own to stop him. Discovery would cost them twelve more years.
Draupadi stood at the door of the hall and spoke to it. Again and again she said the same line: the proud wife of men whose enemies cannot sleep in peace has been kicked by a charioteer's son. Where were those heroes now? Why did they bear this like eunuchs? Virata, she said, was not acting like a king, and his courtiers did not know dharma. Virata's answer echoes Hastinapura. He had not seen the quarrel, he said, and he could not judge it without knowing the facts. The courtiers praised her and blamed Kichaka, which is more than the Kurus did. Yudhishthira, sweating with anger, told her to go back to the queen's rooms. Her gandharvas would act when the time came, he said, and she was interrupting the Matsyas at their dice. Her reply was bitter. Her husbands were too gentle, she said, and their eldest was a gambler.
That night she washed, left her bed, and went to the kitchens where Bhima slept. She woke him and asked how he could sleep like a dead man while her enemy lived. Yudhishthira, who once fed thousands of people every day, now served another king as his dice-player. Arjuna, who had once made the earth shake, was teaching girls to dance with his hair in braids. Sahadeva slept on calfskins among the cattle. She herself ground sandal paste for Virata, and was afraid of a queen. She showed Bhima her hands, rough and swollen. Bhima took them, held them to his face, and wept.
He asked her to be patient for a month and a half, until the year was complete. She answered that Kichaka would not stop. If he was still alive at sunrise, she would take poison rather than fall into his power. Bhima made a plan. The king had built a dance hall where the girls danced by day and which was empty at night. There was a strong bed in it. She was to arrange a meeting there.
In the morning Kichaka boasted to her again. Virata was king only in name, he said; he, Kichaka, ruled the Matsyas. Draupadi agreed to meet him, on condition that no friend or brother of his would know. They would meet at night in the dance hall, where the gandharvas would not see. Kichaka went home and spent the day dressing and scenting himself. The text compares him to a lamp flaring brightest just before it goes out.
Bhima went to the dark hall first and lay on the bed. Kichaka came in, found him there, and touched him, boasting that women always praised his looks. Bhima laughed, answered that Kichaka had never felt a touch like this one, and seized him by his scented hair. They fought in the dark like two bull elephants. Once Kichaka even threw Bhima to the ground. Then Bhima beat him down, crushed him, and forced his head, arms and legs into his body until he was only a ball of flesh. He showed it to Draupadi. She told the guards that her gandharvas had killed Kichaka. They came with torches and could not find his head or his limbs.
Kichaka's kinsmen wanted to burn Sairandhri on his funeral fire, and Virata allowed it. They tied her to the bier and carried her toward the cremation ground. She called out the secret names, Jaya, Jayanta, Vijaya, Jayatsena, Jayadbala. Bhima heard her, jumped the city wall, pulled up a tree, and killed all one hundred and five of them. The frightened king did not dare speak to her himself. He had the queen ask her to leave. She asked for thirteen more days.
The death of Kichaka finishes the argument that began in the dice hall. A woman is assaulted in an assembly, and the man in charge says he cannot judge. This time it is not the law that fails her but the vow of concealment. Bhima does not answer that with a question of law. He answers it in the dark. Gossip about the dead general travels fast, and it reaches Hastinapura.
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