Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Vana · 17 of 50
17. The inexhaustible pot
Vana (वन)
The forest years are not one adventure. They are a long residence among sages, with a household to feed and a wife who does not let the hall be forgotten. Draupadī argues. She tells Yudhiṣṭhira that patience in a king can be the same as cowardice, and that her hair was not unbound so that he could practice a virtue. He answers with the law of the stake and with his own nature, which really does prefer a slow justice to a quick anger. Neither speech cancels the other. The marriage lives inside that argument for years.
Food is a practical mercy. The sun gives Yudhiṣṭhira a vessel that stays full until Draupadī has eaten. Guests eat first, then the brothers, then she eats, and only then is the vessel done for the day. The order matters, because the poem is about to test it. Durvāsas, whose anger is a weapon, comes with a crowd of disciples after she has eaten and cleaned the pot. There is nothing left to serve. To refuse him is to be cursed. She calls Kṛṣṇa.
He comes, asks if there is anything at all, and eats a grain that had stuck to the side. The sages, still bathing in the river before their meal, feel as if they have already eaten, and they leave without coming to the door. The page records the rescue and does not turn it into a charm. What it is, inside the story, is a god attending a woman's impossible hospitality, in the years when her husbands' dharma has left her with nothing of her own. This episode, Durvāsas and the single grain, is in the vulgate. The critical edition sets it aside.
नेपालीमा
वनका वर्ष एउटै साहसिक कथा होइनन्। द्रौपदीले भनिन्, राजाको धैर्य कायरता पनि हुन सक्छ। युधिष्ठिरले बाजीको नियम भने। दुवै भाषण बाँकी रहन्छन्। सूर्यले युधिष्ठिरलाई एउटा भाँडो दिए, जुन द्रौपदीले नखाएसम्म भरिइरहन्थ्यो। द्रौपदीले खाएर भाँडो माझिसकेपछि दुर्वासस शिष्यहरूसँग आए। केही बाँकी थिएन। द्रौपदीले कृष्णलाई बोलाइन्। कृष्ण आउनुभयो, र भाँडाको छेउमा टाँसिएको एक दाना खानुभयो। नदीमा नुहाउँदै गरेका ऋषिहरू खाइसकेझैँ अघाए, र ढोकासम्म आएनन्। दुर्वासस र एक दानाको यो प्रसङ्ग प्रचलित पाठमा छ। आलोचनात्मक संस्करणले यसलाई अलग राख्छ।