The story

The first person Yudhishthira saw in heaven was Duryodhana.

He sat on a throne, shining like the sun, wrapped in a hero's glory, among the gods. Yudhishthira turned away at once and said aloud that he wanted no worlds shared with Duryodhana — the greedy, short-sighted man for whose sake the earth and all their friends had been destroyed, who had had Draupadi abused in the assembly before the elders. He would go where his brothers were.

Narada stopped him, half smiling. In heaven, he said, enmity ends. Duryodhana had reached the world of heroes by offering up his body in battle; he had been fearless in the face of great danger and had kept the warrior's dharma. Do not dwell on the dice, or on what was done to Draupadi. This is heaven, and there are no feuds here.

Yudhishthira could not, or not yet. If these eternal worlds belonged to Duryodhana, he asked, where were the others — his brothers, true to their word; Dhrishtadyumna, Satyaki, Abhimanyu, Draupadi's sons; all who had died for his sake? Karna troubled him most. He remembered his mother telling them at the water rites to offer water for Karna too. He remembered that Karna's feet were like his mother's, and that he had seen them and not understood. Without these men he would not stay. Where they are, he said, is my heaven. This is not.

The gods said: if that is what you want, go. A messenger of the gods was sent to show him the way.

The road went down into darkness. It was slick with hair for moss and muddy with flesh and blood, swarming with flies and gnats, strewn with corpses, reeking of sin. Crows and vultures with iron beaks flew at them, and needle-mouthed ghosts as big as mountains stood about. There was a river of boiling water, a forest whose leaves were swords, burning sand, iron jars of seething oil, a silk-cotton tree of thorns. At last Yudhishthira asked how much farther they had to go, and where his brothers were.

This far, said the messenger. I was told to turn back here. Yudhishthira, sick from the stench, turned to go.

Then voices called to him from every side. Stay a little, they said. When you came, a pure breeze came with you; while you stand here our torment does not touch us. He asked who they were. I am Karna, they answered. I am Bhima. I am Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva, Dhrishtadyumna. I am Draupadi. We are Draupadi's sons.

Yudhishthira wondered whether he was dreaming or losing his mind. What had these people done, true and generous as they were, to be here — and what had Duryodhana done to sit in glory like Indra? Then anger took hold of him, and he reproached the gods, and Dharma itself. He told the messenger to go back to his masters. Tell them I am not coming, he said. I am staying here, because while I am here my brothers are at ease.

He stood there a short while. Then the gods arrived, led by Indra, and Dharma came in person, and the darkness lifted. The river and the thorn tree and the torments were gone, and a cool, fragrant wind blew.

Indra explained. Every king must see hell. Good and bad deeds make two heaps: whoever enjoys the good first suffers afterwards, and whoever suffers first is happy afterwards. You dealt with Drona about his son by a trick, so by a trick you were shown hell. Your brothers and Draupadi were brought here the same way, and they are free. Karna has reached the highest state. Bathe in the river of heaven and your human nature will leave you.

Dharma, Yudhishthira's father, spoke last. This was the third test, he said: first at the lake in the Dvaitavana forest, then in the form of the dog, and now this, his choice to stay for his brothers' sake. Nothing could move him from his own nature. What he had seen was an illusion made by Indra.

So Yudhishthira bathed in the heavenly Ganga and left his human body there, and came out in a divine body, free of enmity and grief. And then he saw them. Krishna shone in his divine form, still recognisable by his old likeness, with Arjuna attending him. Karna stood among the twelve Adityas, the sun gods; Bhima among the Maruts, the storm gods; the twins with the Ashvins; Draupadi, garlanded with lotuses, outshining heaven itself. Indra told him who each had been. Draupadi was Shri, the goddess of fortune, who had taken human form for their sake. Karna was his elder brother, the Sun's son. Abhimanyu was with the Moon, Pandu with Kunti and Madri, Bhishma among the Vasus, Drona beside Brihaspati.

How long did they stay? Vaishampayana answers that every being must go when its deeds are spent, and each went back into what he had come from: Bhishma into the Vasus, Drona into Brihaspati, Karna into the Sun, Abhimanyu into the Moon, Dhritarashtra and Gandhari to the realm of Kubera, and Vidura and Yudhishthira into Dharma. Then Janamejaya's serpent sacrifice ends, and with it the telling that began there.

The last verses are the epic speaking of itself. On dharma, wealth, desire and release, what is here may be found elsewhere; what is not here is found nowhere. And there is Vyasa's cry, arms raised, that no one hears him: wealth and pleasure both come from dharma, so why is dharma not followed? Never give it up for desire or fear or greed, not even to save your life. Dharma is eternal; pleasure and pain are not.

The story turned on a question that no one in the dicing hall would answer. It ends with a man answering it with his whole self — choosing his family in hell over himself in heaven. The hell was an illusion. The choice was not.

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.
• Duryodhana — The eldest Kaurava, who never disputes that the kingdom is contested and never concedes that this makes the Pandavas' claim equal to his.
• 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.
• 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.
• Krishna — Cousin, envoy and charioteer — the one who shapes the war's course without ever lifting a weapon in it.
• 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.
• 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.
• Vidura — The half-brother kept from the throne by his mother's rank, who gives the correct advice at every turn and is overruled at every turn.
• Theme: Kinship and enmity
• Theme: The impossible choice
• Theme: Renunciation and release

Questions to explore

• Why is Duryodhana in heaven while the Pandavas seem to be in hell?
• Why did Yudhishthira have to see hell at all?
• What does the Mahabharata say at its very end about dharma?