Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Sabhā · 12 of 50
12. The hall of illusion
Sabhā (सभा)
Maya builds, and the hall is not only beautiful. It is a trick of floors. Water looks like stone. Stone looks like water. A door looks like a wall. Yudhiṣṭhira receives kings in it, and the kings are amazed, and the amazement is part of the danger. A room that makes guests misstep is a room that stores insults.
After the rājasūya, which the next sitting tells, Duryodhana stays on in the hall. He gathers his robe to cross a floor that is dry, and he steps into a pool that looked like a floor. Someone laughs. The tellings do not agree whose laugh it was. Draupadī's, in the version a household usually hears. Bhīma's, in another. The servants', in a third. This page does not choose. It records that he hears the laugh as a judgment on a blind father's son, and that he carries the sound home.
Śakuni, his mother's brother, is there to give the humiliation a plan. The plan is dice. Yudhiṣṭhira likes the game, and he believes a kṣatriya does not refuse a challenge. The hall has done what fire and exile could not. It has made Duryodhana certain that the cousins must be brought down in public.
नेपालीमा
मयले सभा बनाए, र त्यो सुन्दर मात्र थिएन। त्यो भुइँको छल थियो: पानी ढुङ्गाजस्तो देखिन्थ्यो, ढुङ्गा पानीजस्तो, ढोका पर्खालजस्तो। युधिष्ठिरले त्यसमा राजाहरूलाई स्वागत गरे, र राजाहरू चकित भए, र त्यो चकितता खतराको एउटा भाग थियो। अतिथिलाई चुकाउने कोठा अपमान जम्मा गर्ने कोठा हो। राजसूयपछि दुर्योधन सभामै बसे। सुख्खा भुइँ ठानेर उनले लुगा उचाले, र भुइँजस्तो देखिने पोखरीमा खसे। कसैले हाँस्यो। कथनहरू बाझिन्छन्: घरमा प्रायः सुनिने कथामा द्रौपदीको, अर्कोमा भीमको, तेस्रोमा सेवकहरूको हाँसो। यो पृष्ठले छान्दैन। उनले त्यो हाँसोलाई अन्धा बाबुको छोरामाथिको फैसलाका रूपमा सुने, र त्यो आवाज घरसम्म बोकेर लगे। उनका मामा शकुनिले त्यो अपमानलाई योजना दिन आए। योजना पासा हो। युधिष्ठिरलाई खेल मन पर्छ, र क्षत्रियले चुनौती इन्कार गर्दैन भन्ने उनी मान्छन्। आगो र वनवासले गर्न नसकेको काम सभाले गर्यो: दुर्योधनलाई चचेरा दाजुभाइ सार्वजनिक रूपमा झार्नैपर्छ भन्ने निश्चित बनायो।