Passage 7

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In plain words

So if this brāhmin alone has so much power, how will we destroy the Pāṇḍavas if they now come into this kingdom of King Virāṭa?” He went on thinking in many ways. Bṛhannala went off ahead to King Virāṭa's house. He told them to bring this fellow in the second chariot. By that third day, this time of living in hiding was over. These five took all the weapons from the śamī tree. Arjuna, Bhīma, Nakula, Sahadeva, all took up their own weapons. Then Draupadī too came back to her natural state. Dharmarāja sat down. The Pāṇḍavas stood and spoke to him with due humility. At this time they brought Duryodhana, bound, to Dharmarāja. All of Kṛṣṇa's doings are of this kind. He would go before the people of the town and strut, it seems. The very ones he had wanted to make a laughing stock, before them he himself became a laughing stock. Then, if Dharmaja says, “Untie his bonds and send him off,” this fellow escapes with his life. Otherwise Duryodhana dies right there. “Dharmaja! You yourself must decide what is to become of him,” he said. He is looking. This is Dharmaja, this is Bhīma, this is Arjuna, this is Nakula, this is Sahadeva. Bhīma is glaring. Half his life was gone. Dharmaja said one word. “If others come to do us harm, we are all a hundred and five. If the difference of Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas comes up, we are five. So if disgrace comes to Duryodhana today, it is as if it had come to us too; so untie the bonds and send him back.” On one side Duryodhana is happy at this broad heart. On the other side, “Alas! I wanted to disgrace them, and I myself have been disgraced!” he grieved, and he was like one whose life had gone. Thinking it better to take his own life than to go back, he made ready for suicide. Karṇa, Duḥśāsana and all of them came, stopped him, gave him some courage and calmed him. To fit this, Kṛṣṇa came in the middle and asked, “Duryodhana, did you win?” Four of the five breaths of life were gone. In this way, in many ways, Kṛṣṇa used to bring such humiliation on people who had put away their good fortune themselves.

Taking this occasion, King Virāṭa held both of Arjuna's hands: “Taking you for someone else, I could not recognise you all this time. These five Pāṇḍavas are the five breaths of life, an example for the Kali Age to come. What good fortune for me, to have kept such people in my house for a year!” he thought. “Arjuna! Marry my daughter Uttarā and bring peace to my mind,” he said. You must know the difference between the teachers of those days and the teachers of today. Today teachers are getting ready to marry their students. They are the same as children. Then Arjuna said,