Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Virāṭa · 23 of 50
23. A year in hiding
Virāṭa (विराट)
The thirteenth year is a court, not a cave. They enter Virāṭa's city in disguises the previous years have been preparing. Yudhiṣṭhira is Kaṅka, a brahmin who plays at dice and tells stories, which is either a penance or a joke the poem is willing to make at his expense. Bhīma is Ballava, a cook who can also fight the kitchen's bulls. Arjuna, under Urvaśī's curse and under his own choice of when to spend it, is Bṛhannaḍā, a dance teacher in women's dress. Nakula keeps the horses. Sahadeva keeps the cows. Draupadī is Sairandhrī, a hairdresser and maid to the queen Sudeṣṇā, and she asks, as her condition of service, that no man be allowed to press her.
The condition will not be kept by the court. It is kept, for a while, by fear of her husbands. She tells Sudeṣṇā she has five, gandharvas, and she does not name them. The year is a study in being unrecognized by people who are looking for them. Duryodhana's spies do not find five princes. They find a cook, a dicing brahmin, a dancing master, two herdsmen, and a maid.
Virāṭa is a decent king with a weak court. He likes his cook and his dicing companion and does not ask why a dancing master of this quality has come to a provincial capital. The poem uses him. Ordinary royal life goes on, which is what hiding requires, until the queen's brother decides that a maid's condition of service does not apply to him.
नेपालीमा
तेह्रौँ वर्ष विराटको दरबारमा बित्यो। युधिष्ठिर पासा खेल्ने ब्राह्मण कङ्क भए। भीम पाचक बल्लव भए। अर्जुन नृत्य शिक्षक बृहन्नडा भए। नकुलले घोडा र सहदेवले गाई स्याहारे। द्रौपदी रानी सुदेष्णाकी सेविका सैरन्ध्री भइन्। उनले सेवाको सर्त राखिन्, कुनै पुरुषले उनलाई जबर्जस्ती नगरोस्। दरबारले त्यो सर्त पालेन। उनले सुदेष्णालाई आफ्ना पाँच गन्धर्व पति छन् भनिन्। केही समय पतिहरूको त्यही डरले सर्त टिक्यो। दुर्योधनका चरले पाँच राजकुमार फेला पारेनन्।