Nala and Damayanti

Why it is told

"Is there any king on earth as unlucky as I am?"

Arjuna had gone to Indra's world to get divine weapons. His brothers and Draupadi waited for him in the Kamyaka forest. One day the sage Brihadashva came to visit, and Yudhishthira poured out his grief. He had lost his riches and his kingdom at dice to men skilled in cheating, and his wife had been dragged into the assembly hall. Had the sage ever seen or heard of a king more unlucky than him?

Brihadashva had. There was once a king, he said, who also lost everything at dice and lived in the forest with his wife. But that king had no horses, no chariots, no brothers and no friends with him. Yudhishthira had all of those. Then he told the story.

Who they were

A king of the Nishadhas and a princess of Vidarbha.

Nala, son of Virasena, was king of Nishadha. Note the h. Nishadha, with an h, was his kingdom. The Nishadas, without it, are a different people, the forest hunters. Nala was handsome, truthful and a fine archer. He was a master with horses. And he loved dice.

Damayanti was the daughter of King Bhima of Vidarbha. Bhima had been childless until a sage named Damana blessed him, and so his children were named after the sage: Damayanti and her three brothers, Dama, Danta and Damana. Her beauty was said to unsettle the gods themselves.

The swan

They fell in love before they had met.

People praised Nala in front of Damayanti, and Damayanti in front of Nala, until each longed for someone they had never seen. One day, in a grove near his palace, Nala caught a swan with golden wings. The swan spoke: "O king! Do not kill me. I will speak about you in Damayanti's presence, so that she never thinks of any other man but you."

Nala let it go. It flew to Vidarbha with the other swans. The one that Damayanti chased led her to a quiet spot and told her about Nala. "Speak this way to Nala," she said, and the swan did.

The gods' messenger

Four gods wanted her, and they sent Nala to ask.

Damayanti grew pale and thin with longing, so her father called a svayamvara, where she would choose her own husband. The sage Narada told Indra about it, and four gods set out for Vidarbha: Indra, Agni, Varuna and Yama. On the way they met Nala. They asked him to be their messenger, and he promised before he knew what they wanted.

Then they told him: go to Damayanti and tell her to choose one of us. Nala begged to be excused, since he wanted her himself, but he had given his word. Indra's power took him past the palace guards unseen. Damayanti listened, and refused. She loved Nala, she said. Let him and the gods come to the svayamvara together, and she would choose him in front of them all. Then no blame could fall on him.

Five Nalas

Only one of the five was sweating.

At the svayamvara, Damayanti saw five men who all looked exactly like Nala. The gods had taken his form. She could not tell them apart, so she prayed to them: if it was true that she had never strayed from Nala in thought or word, let them show her which one he was.

The gods showed their signs. Four of the five did not sweat or blink. Their garlands were fresh, and their feet did not touch the ground. The fifth man stood on the earth with his shadow beside him. He was sweating, he blinked, and his garland was wilting and dusty. She placed her garland around his shoulders.

The gods were pleased, and each gave Nala two boons. Among them, Agni and Varuna promised that fire and water would come whenever he wished. Keep that in mind.

Kali

He waited twelve years for one mistake.

On the way home the gods met Kali, who is not the goddess Kali, with his companion Dvapara, hurrying to the svayamvara. Kali heard he was too late and that a mortal had been chosen over the gods. He was furious. "I will take possession of Nala," he told Dvapara. "Help me by entering the dice."

For twelve years Kali waited in Nishadha for one mistake. One evening Nala said his prayers without first washing his feet, and Kali entered him. Then Kali went to Nala's brother Pushkara and told him to challenge Nala at dice. With Kali's help he would win.

The game went on for months. Nala lost his gold, his chariots and his clothes, and would not stop. The people came to the gate and he would not see them. Damayanti saw how it would end. She sent their twins, a son and a daughter, both named Indrasena, to her father's city with Nala's charioteer.

Half a garment

He left her sleeping in the forest.

Nala lost the kingdom. Pushkara offered one more throw, with Damayanti as the stake. Nala said nothing. He took off his ornaments and walked out wearing a single cloth. Damayanti followed him. Pushkara ordered that anyone who helped Nala would be killed, so the city turned them away.

Starving in the forest, Nala saw some birds with golden feathers and threw his cloth over them to catch them. The birds flew off with it. "We are the dice," they called down to him. Now he had nothing at all.

That night they slept in an empty rest house, sharing her one garment. Nala lay awake. Perhaps she would be better off without him, he thought. Perhaps she would go home to her father. He found a sword, cut her garment in half, and left. Then he came back. Then he left again, and came back again. Kali pulled him away and love pulled him back, "like a swing". At last Kali won, and he was gone.

Damayanti alone

She killed a man with a curse.

Damayanti woke, alone. As she searched the forest, a huge snake seized her. A hunter cut off its head and saved her, and then he tried to force himself on her. She cursed him, calling Nala by his kingdom's name: "If I have never thought of anyone other than Nishadha, then let this mean one … fall down dead." He fell like a tree burnt by fire.

She wandered on, asking a mountain and an ashoka tree if they had seen Nala. She met sages who promised she would find him. Then the sages vanished, hermitage and all. She joined a caravan of merchants, and wild elephants trampled it in the night. At last she reached the city of Chedi in rags. The king's mother took her in as a sairandhri, a lady's maid. Damayanti set her own conditions: she would not eat leftovers, would not wash anyone's feet, and would not speak to other men.

Her father had sent a Brahmana named Sudeva to search for her. Sudeva knew her by a birthmark like a lotus between her eyebrows. Then the queen mother wept: she was Damayanti's own aunt, her mother's sister. Damayanti went home to Vidarbha and her children.

Karkotaka

A snake's bite hid him from the world.

Nala, meanwhile, heard a voice calling his name from inside a forest fire. It was the naga Karkotaka, held there by a sage's curse. Nala carried him out of the flames. "Walk on, and count your steps," the snake said. At the tenth step he bit Nala.

Nala's body changed. He was deformed, with short arms, and no one would know him now.

The bite was a gift, Karkotaka explained. Kali was still inside Nala, and now Kali would burn with the venom. "Go from here and say that you are the suta Bahuka," he said. A suta is a charioteer. Karkotaka told him to go to Ayodhya. There King Rituparna would give Nala his skill with dice, in exchange for Nala's skill with horses. Then Karkotaka gave Nala two divine garments. Wearing them, Nala could take back his own form whenever he chose.

Bahuka

The best charioteer in Ayodhya, and its best cook.

Rituparna made Bahuka master of his stables. Every evening Bahuka recited the same verse. It asked where a lost woman was, and whether she still thought of the man who had left her.

Damayanti sent Brahmanas through every country with a message: "O gambler! O loved one! You are the one who sliced off half my garment. Where are you?" In Ayodhya, one man answered: a deformed charioteer, who wept as he spoke. She was sure. She sent word to Rituparna that she would hold a second svayamvara the next morning, at sunrise. Vidarbha was more than a hundred yojanas away. A yojana is an old measure of distance. Only Nala could drive that far in a single day.

The vibhitaka tree

Horses for dice, and Kali comes out.

Bahuka drove so fast that the chariot seemed to fly. On the way, Rituparna looked at a vibhitaka tree and said exactly how many leaves and fruits were on it. Bahuka stopped, cut it down and counted the fruit. The king was right. Rituparna knew "the heart of the dice", and he traded that knowledge for Bahuka's knowledge of horses.

The moment Nala learned the dice, Kali came out of his body, vomiting Karkotaka's venom. Nala wanted to curse him. Kali begged for mercy and made a promise: anyone who tells Nala's story will be safe from him. Then he hid in the vibhitaka tree, which is why that tree has a bad name.

The proof

Water came when he looked at the pot.

In Vidarbha, Damayanti knew the roar of the chariot. She sent her maid Keshini to watch the strange charioteer. Keshini came back amazed. Doorways rose so he would not have to stoop. An empty pot filled with water when he looked at it. A handful of straw caught fire in his hand, and the fire did not burn him. Fire and water came when he wanted them: the gifts of Agni and Varuna at the svayamvara.

Damayanti had Keshini bring her some meat he had cooked. She tasted it and knew it was Nala's cooking. She sent the children to him, and he wept over them. Then she called him to her and asked why he had left her. Nala asked in turn how she could think of choosing another husband. She swore she had not, and the wind spoke from the sky: "She has not committed any sin." Nala put on the snake's garments and became himself again. They were together again in the fourth year.

One more throw

He won his kingdom back, and forgave his brother.

Nala went home and challenged Pushkara again, with their lives as the stake. This time Nala won. Then he let Pushkara go. It had been Kali's doing, not Pushkara's, he said: "You are my brother. Live for a hundred years."

Brihadashva ended by turning to Yudhishthira. Nala had been alone, and still he won everything back. Yudhishthira had his brothers, his wife and his Brahmanas. Then the sage did one more thing. So that Yudhishthira need never fear a game of dice again, he taught him the heart of the dice.

Where this comes from

This site follows the Critical Edition, the text rebuilt at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

The story is in the Vana Parva, the third book, also called the Aranyaka Parva. Brihadashva arrives at the end of chapter 49 and tells the story in chapters 50 to 78. At its close he teaches Yudhishthira the heart of the dice.

Keep reading

Brihadashva tells this story inside a story. Vaishampayana tells it to King Janamejaya, and Ugrashrava repeats it to the sages. Read who narrated the Mahabharata. For another story a sage told the Pandavas as a warning, read about Sunda and Upasunda.