Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Virāṭa · 25 of 50
25. The cattle, and the end of hiding
Virāṭa (विराट)
The Kurus come for Virāṭa's cattle, which is a raid and a probe. The king's son Uttara boasts and then, faced with Bhīṣma's banner, loses his nerve. Bṛhannaḍā, the dancing master, offers to drive his chariot, and the boy is glad to have a servant for the reins. They go out to the field. Arjuna takes the bow down from the tree where the weapons were hidden for the year, and the year is over, and the disguise comes off.
Uttara becomes the charioteer. Arjuna faces the teachers and the grandfather who do not yet quite believe what they are seeing, and he recovers the cattle. The page says the cattle were recovered. It does not describe the fighting. What matters for the story is the recognition. The thirteenth year has been completed without their being found in the way the stake required. Duryodhana will argue the calendar, and he will lose the argument. The exile is over.
There is a marriage to seal the year. Abhimanyu, Arjuna's son by Subhadrā, is married to Uttarā, Virāṭa's daughter. The boy who will die inside a circle, and the girl who will carry the child the night-raid cannot quite kill, are joined here, at a provincial court, in what feels for a moment like a future. Virāṭa's alliance is now the Pāṇḍavas' alliance. The next parva is the effort, a real one, to stop the war that everyone can already see.
नेपालीमा
कुरुहरू विराटका गाई लिन आए। राजकुमार उत्तर डराए। बृहन्नडाले रथ हाँके। वर्ष सकिएको थियो। अर्जुनले रुखमा लुकाएको धनु झिके। गाई फर्काइयो। यो पृष्ठले युद्धको तरिका लेख्दैन। तेह्रौँ वर्ष पूरा भयो। दुर्योधनले पात्रोमा विवाद उठायो, र हार्यो। अभिमन्युको विवाह उत्तरासँग भयो। वृत्तभित्र मर्ने केटो, र रातको छापाले पूरै मार्न नसक्ने बच्चा बोक्ने केटी, यहीँ जोडिए।