In plain words
These are the Yakṣa's questions. "Dharmaja! For whom are you grieving?" asked the Yakṣa. "Who killed these dear brothers of mine? Who is the cause of their coming to this end?" asked Dharmaja. The Yakṣa said that he himself was the cause. Dharmaja asked him in turn why he had done this to them. "This is my way. Every person who comes to drink water from my pond, I put some questions to; if he answers them rightly, I give him the grace he deserves. You too, answer my questions rightly, and then try to enquire further," said the Yakṣa. Dharmaja answered every one of the questions the Yakṣa put. The reason: his heart was full of Dharma. Within this Dharma all sacred feelings come forth clearly. This was not learning he had been taught. Nor was it learning he had pieced together. It was learning that sprang from the heart. Then the Yakṣa, pleased with the answers Dharmaja gave: "Ah, Dharmaja! Ahead of you the great war of the Mahābhārata is coming. Choose whichever of them matters most to you! I will give him life," he said. Dharmaja's was a large heart. This is the true essence of all learning. He thought it over. "Yakṣa! Give me Nakula," he said. Then the Yakṣa was astonished. "What is coming is the great war of the Mahābhārata. Why have you chosen Nakula, the younger one, and not Bhīma or Arjuna, who are mighty heroes?" asked the Yakṣa. "Yakṣa! War is not what matters to me. Deaths are not what matter. Dharma is my support. Victory and defeat come naturally to man. Without hardship, humanness does not blossom at all. In all things the precept of Dharma is for me the chief Brahmasūtra. We three, Dharmaja, Bhīma and Arjuna, were born of my mother Kuntī Devī. Nakula and Sahadeva were born of my second mother, Mādrī. She loved us in so many ways. She gave her children to my mother, saying, 'Mother, I am placing them in your care,' and let them go. Today my mother is not here with me. I must see to it that I do not break the word I gave my mother.