A word spoken in anger by a sage, a mother or a wronged woman, and the generations it takes to run its course
Where it is argued
The serpent sacrifice — The Mahabharata is first recited at a king's rite of revenge, while snakes fall into the fire for his father's death.
The death of Bhishma — After fifty-eight nights on arrows Bhishma waits for the northern sun, takes leave of Krishna and rises out of his own body
The child born dead — Abhimanyu's son is born lifeless from Ashvatthama's weapon, and Krishna stakes the truth of his whole life on one child
The horse sacrifice and the golden mongoose — Yudhishthira performs the richest rite in the epic, and a half-golden mongoose says one poor family's barley meal was worth more
The death of Karna — Karna's wheel sinks into the earth and he appeals to the rules of war, and Krishna answers with what Karna did in the dice hall
The iron pestle — Young Yadavas dress Krishna's son as a pregnant woman to mock three sages, and the sages say he will give birth to his people's end
The death of Krishna — A hunter named Old Age mistakes Krishna for a deer, and soon after Arjuna can barely string Gandiva against herdsmen with sticks
The women on the field — Dhritarashtra crushes an iron Bhima, Gandhari's glance scars Yudhishthira, and her grief ends in a curse on Krishna's whole clan.
The water offerings — At the Ganga, with the dead already burned, Kunti tells her sons that the enemy Arjuna killed was their eldest brother.
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
Who embodies it
Gandhari — The queen who covered her eyes for life to share her husband's blindness, lost a hundred sons, and cursed the god who let it happen.
Pandu — The king who won the throne his blind brother could not hold, shot a sage in the form of a deer, and was cursed never to touch his wives.
Shikhandi — Born a daughter, raised as a son, made a man by a yaksha's exchange, and the one warrior Bhishma would not raise his bow against.
Jayadratha — The king of the Sindhus who seized Draupadi in the forest, won a boon to hold back four Pandavas, and used it at the gap behind Abhimanyu.
Parikshit — Arjuna's grandson, killed in the womb by Ashvatthama's weapon and revived by Krishna, whose own death starts the telling of the epic.
