Week 6 Story: The Escape of The Devious Pandavas!!

Long ago, an evil plot to eliminate competition to the thrown was brewing among princes. King Dhritarashra, and Prince Duryodhana sought to kill Queen Kunti and her sons. However, Prince Vidura was clever, and he knew of the plot his half brother was plotting. To prevent the plot from coming to fruition, he visited his nephew Prince Yudhishthira and gave him a cryptic, dark message. Prince Yudhishthira, considered by many to have the wisdom of a sage, was able to interpret the message left to him by his uncle and gathered his family into the new palace which had just been built by the evil duo. Upon entering the palace, Yudhishthira noticed every last bit of furniture was soaked in oil and the ceilings were made of nothing more than wood. He told his mother that he believed they were in grave danger, and that they needed to plan an escape before they were burned inside the house. In secret, they hired a miner to come and build them a tunnel. They hid the miner and the tunnel from the corrupt and evil captain of the guard, Purochana.

Finally, when the miner told the family that the secret passage was complete, Yudhishthira thought to himself about what would happen if the house burned and there were no bodies to be found. Surely, his family would still be hunted by the evil duo. In order to fully protect his family, he went out to the streets and found an old beggar woman with as many kids as his mom had. He offered them a place to sleep from now on and told them that it was fully stocked on food, so they would never need to leave the palace. Thinking the gods had blessed her, the beggar readily moved her family into the palace. That night, Prince Yudhishthira and his family snuck out of the tunnel exited into the woods, where her other son Prince Bhima was waiting for them. After he welcomed his family to safety, his brother Yudhishthira told him of the family sleeping in the house. Afraid the guards will find out about the plan, Bhima snuck back through the tunnel, in order to take revenge on the guards for following the evil scheme. Sneaking through the palace as to not wake the beggar family, he snuck over to the guard house. Thinking himself to be ironic, Bhima set fire to the guard house with Captain Purochana and his second officers still inside. Pleased with his work he left town the way he came unaware of the cruel fate that awaited the beggars. As Bhima left the house, a strange wind picked up and blew cinders over to the palace. Igniting the oils, the house proceeded to catch flames and burned the palace to ashes in a matter of minutes, with the family inside.

The next day, when the guards looked in the palace’s ashes, they found the bodies of the beggar woman and her children. However, they believed it to be Queen Kunti and her sons, and word soon spread throughout the kingdom of the death of Queen Kunti and her sons. When news reached King Dhritarashtra and Prince Duryodhana, they believed that their plot had succeeded, and they rejoiced at their cleverness and held a marvelous banquet to celebrate their victory in the guise of a “memorial to celebrate the memory of the queen and her family”, so that their happiness would be seen as a happy remembrance of the departed, and nothing else.

The Escape of the Pandavas

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Author's Notes: In the original story, you are given a much more detailed background on Prince Vidura, however he himself was not the focal point of the tale so I decided to forgo telling the reader much about his story. In short, though his father was King, his mother was of common birth and therefore Vidura had no real claim to the throne ever. His relationship to the family was as noted that he was the uncle of Yudhishthira, however, the story does not mention if Kunti is his sister, or if he is brothers to one of the two bad guys in the story. This may have been brought up earlier in the books, however, it was not coming to my mind during the story itself and the story did not give any hints as refresher. In the original story, the beggar and her family were given food from the royal family and shelter from the cold, but it was not mentioned if them replacing them in the fire was planned  or not. I thought that part was rather suspicious though, so I decided to make it intentional so that it would make the entire royal family seem a little diabolical, not just the two main antagonists. Possibly and hopefully, this took away any sympathy the reader may have had for the family who was plotted against and shift the sympathy towards the innocent beggars.

Bibliography: Source. The Indian Heroes by C. A. Kincaid (1921).