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Is There Only One Version of The Game of Dice In The Mahābhārata?
M.A. MEHENDALE
The Sabhāparvan of the Mahābhārata (Mbh.) describes the game of dice played by Sakuni, on behalf of Duryodhana, and Yudhisthira. This version of the game we may call the standard version. But is this the only version of the game available? When one goes through the description in the Sabhăparvan and considers certain other references to the game found elsewhere in the Mbh. one notices certain discrepancies in narration. In order to account for them it becomes necessary to assume that at one time there were current different versions of the game. It is now not possible to have full details of the lost versions, but we can form some idea about them on the basis of the evidence offered by the discrepant account. Their presence in the standard version must be attributed to the anxiety of the narrator to include features of other versions in the standard one that he was narrating.
I. Discrepancies in the Sabhäparvan
There are five discrepancies in the Sabhăparvan version, two of which have been already noticed by scholars before.
1) When Dhịtarāṣtra consulted Vidura about the game of dice, the latter expressed his disapproval. Ignoring it, Dhstarăşțra asked him to go to the Pandavas to invite Yudhisthira for a game. Distressed, Vidura left for Bhisma's residence (2.45.58). In the next Adhyāya, however, we do not hear about the meeting between Bhişma and Vidura; instead, what has been narrated before is repeated in Adhyāyas 46-51 and then we are told that Vidura left for Indraprastha (2.52.1).
Obviously the two statements about Vidura's departure belong to two different versions of the game and some one has brought them together'.
2) When Duryodhana sent his messenger to Draupadi a second time to get her to the Sabhā to obtain an answer to her question (2.60.10-12), she apparently refused to oblige him. He then returned to the Sabhā and repeated Draupadi's question. Since no one replied?, Duryodhana, delighted, asked the messenger to go to Draupadi again to invite her to the Sabhā (2.60.16).
Between stanzas 12 and 16 which report the above sequence of events there occur two stanzas (2.60.14-15) which are totally incongruous with the narration. They inform us that Yudhisthira, knowing what Duryodhana desired, sent a
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