Introducing Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva
Draupadi Harana Chapter 270-273
Introduction
The chapters of Draupadi Harana parva can be accessed by tag https://crackpot.substack.com/t/jayadratha
As It Rhymes
1.
Vaishampayana said,
The soldiers let out ghastly screams when they saw Arjuna and Bhima team.
2.
Jayadratha saw the Pandavas’ flags through his spyglass from the front of the column.
Jayadratha said, ‘Yajnaseni,
3.
Your beautiful hair bewilders my eyes.
Tell me which of the five flies sits under each flag that flies.’
4.
Draupadi said,
‘I know you know who is who.
But let me school a fool.
All five are capable and unbreakable.
They will chase you through every season for different reasons.
5.
Hear their name and motivation before your death.
Dharmaraja is the leader the others follow.
6.
Two drums under his flagstaff drum a marching beat when his chariot rolls.
Conquest and dharma are his twin goals.
7.
In battle he roars like Jamba as enemies run.
My husband Yudhisthira is Dharma’s son.
8.
His enemies disappear when he gets near.
Best leave your weapons and get in gear to disappear.
To allow a miscreant loose is more than Dharmaraja’s sense of justice will swallow.
9-10.
The hunk stationed on the chariot of chariots with arms like shala trunks and shoulder slopes like plateaus.
He bites his lip with brows raised in mountain peaks.
My husband named Vrikodara with wrath havoc he wreaks.
11.
Capable of ripping off enemy appendage like bird beaks and wings.
They call him Bhimasena because he does terrible things.
Bhima bends the earth to its ends to settle enmity.
12.
The bowman yonder is my husband Dhananjaya.
The ace showman who is Yudhishthira’s yeoman.
13.
Arjuna goes for dharma at warp speed.
Arjuna does not feel fear nor greed.
Arjuna does not let a dis deed go to seed.
14.
He frees the oppressed.
He follows duty and donates wealth.
He gives enemies distress.
He is my husband Nakula.
15.
His swords flash like lightning.
Sahadeva can fight like an Aditya on the wing.
16.
Whose steady gaze is like a moonbeam sunray.
His fires blaze for days.
17.
My husband Sahadeva whose name means ‘with divine praise.’
Ask him to wait, he will stay.
18.
A giant crocodile capsizes your ship with its back.
Pandu’s sons will kill you all with their attack.
19.
Get down and pray.
Pandavas will leave bone scorched earth today.’
20.
The five Pandavas war chariots thundered like downhill boulders.
The Pandavas showered arrows in a broadside attack on Jayadratha’s backside soldiers.
Thus the Battle of Kamyaka began.
Notes
[1] Vaishampayana, ibid.
[2] Yajnaseni is Draupadi.
[7] Jamba is the name a bear chief that plays a supporting role in the Ramayana.
[9] Vrikodara is Bhima.
[12] Savyasachi is Arjuna. Savyasachi means ambidextrous, as Arjuna is as good with any weapon in either hand.
[15] Aditya is the sun, the Adityas are forms of the sun and the sons of Daksha’s daughter Aditi. The twelve Adityas include the deities Surya, Indra, Vishnu, Varuna.
[16] Sahadeva keeps the Pandavas sacred fires lit.
[17] Chariot warriors challenge one on another on the field of battle by asking them to ‘wait’.
[18] Pandu’s sons are the Pandavas
[20] Duryodhana’s soldiers gave the Pandavas Duryodhana’s best gear as a give to the Pandavas to win their favor and supply the Pandavas in a rescue attempt in goshayatra, after Duryodhana and several of his brothers were captured in the fight with the musicians.
The unconventional marriage arrangement between Draupadi and the five Pandavas is explained in Dyuta parva - and in this chapter. The necessity of sticking together to survive predators like Jayadratha precluded exclusivity.
translation notes
names and interesting vocabulary highlighted in red.
dhvaja - flagpole
ratha - chariot
lobha - greed
khanga - sword
chandra - moon
arka - sun
makara - crocodile
Thus Ends the As It Rhymes Translation of Jayadratha.
The action continues in the Battle of Kamyaka.
Draupadi’s Coups
Draupadi far right. The other Pandavas, left to right, Arjuna, Bhima, Yudhishthira, Sahadeva and Nakula. Paavas and Draupadi in Gupta Deogarh D | PDF | Sculpture
Challenges and defeats the Kaurava army of kings and princes at Svayamvara. Draupadi disarms and defeats Karna first, slicing down his bow with stinging words. Draupadi's challenge to the warriors is her choice of a Brahman as husband. That choice violates the rules of the kshatriya event. The warriors react to the challenge by trying to kill Draupadi and her family, the Panchalas. Draupadi's lead by example to challenge the Kauravas shakes the Pandavas from their fear - who emerge from anonymous life and fight back against Duryodhana rather than run and hide.
Fights the Kaurava prince Duhshasana to a draw in a physical fight at Sabha after the dice game. Subsequently Draupadi defeats Duryodhana by refusing to become a slave, as Duhshasana demands by dragging her by the hair and ripping at her clothes. Draupadi then wins the fight by maintaining her status as a married, free woman and the freedom of her enslaved husbands. Yudhishthira bet Draupadi last, after losing himself and his brothers as stakes.
https://crackpot.substack.com/t/dyuta
Fights off Jayadratha in a physical fight and orders his capture from the battlefield.
Fights off the feared General Kichaka in a physical fight and orchestrates his death in a fight. Also fights off the gang of Kichaka's followers that try to kill her and leads their killing in defense.
https://crackpot.substack.com/t/virataOrders the capture and disarming of Ashvatthama after Ashvatthama murders them all her brothers and sons in a nighttime attack on their sleeping camp.
Every warrior uses their mind to fight, Draupadi uses her mind most of all.
Although in every instance it is not Draupadi that does the conclusive fighting, it is her ignition and resistance that sends in motion.
This is not at all a stretch or a plot point attempt to revise the story. Antiquity artistic expression recognizes Draupadi as an equal warrior spirit to the other Pandavas as a six headed hydra.
The sculptural depiction of Draupadi with the Pandavas demonstrates - Draupadi occupies the right most position. The sculptor gave Draupadi a similar posturing and physical scale an up-turned athleticism on par with her husbands, so having counted coup this characterization of Draupadi is not a new idea.
Some comparisons to other epic female heroes of note. Sita of the Ramayana is a damsel in distress cypher. Helen of Troy, by contrast, went with whatever man whom sought her that was victorious in battle at the moment and stayed out of the fight. Draupadi goes the other direction, fighting, cursing and clawing at the men that pursue her. Though Draupadi wields no physical weapons, the text references her as an avatar of Kali. So Draupadi may be considered similar in some regard to martial women like Joan of Arc.
In Draupadi’s physical fights against men, Draupadi is always at a similar physical disadvantage as Bhima with the python in Ajagara. Still, time and again Draupadi fights back and resists enough to buy time and triumphs.
Draupadi's other virtue is loyalty. Men offer Draupadi a way out of the hard times she suffers with her husbands and her near subjugation at their hands by the dice game. Yet through that Draupadi sticks with the Pandavas, refusing easier way outs that would all come at the cost of decimating her status as a free woman. Draupadi refuses to become Karna’s or Kichaka's or Jayadratha's palace trophy wife. Well kept, but similarly closed down to subservient status by the dominant male of the house like many other wives in the epic.
The Pandavas treat Draupadi well and with respect. Draupadi has as much say as the other Pandavas to Yudhisthira when times for counsel come. I know of no plot points that put Draupadi in a subservient political status with respect to her husbands, though other references about as pertains to other women such as high-status Queen Gandhari down to ‘slave’ nautch or courtesan women that many Kuru palace warriors enjoy without consideration.
Translation Complete.(?)
Dedicated to the next generation of day-dream kids. May it be a hit to spit and a hoot to imagine. May the rest of the west catch on to the hit of Arjuna chargin’.