The throne room of Kampilya fell into a profound, reverential silence. The presence of Vyasa was like the sudden stillness at the eye of a hurricane. The furious winds of royal pride and the chaotic currents of moral dilemma were all becalmed by the sheer gravity of his being. King Drupada, who moments before had been thundering with rage, now stood humbled, his anger extinguished by an overwhelming sense of awe. The Pandavas, caught in their impossible knot of Dharma, looked upon their grandfather with a mixture of relief and trepidation.
Vyasa's eyes, which seemed to hold the memory of creation itself, turned first to King Drupada. "You see this situation as an unprecedented violation of tradition, a stain upon your daughter's honour," the sage began, his voice echoing not just in the hall, but in the minds of all present. "You are looking at a single, tangled thread and calling the entire tapestry flawed. You must understand that what is unfolding here was woven long ago, by hands far greater than ours, on the loom of karma and destiny."
Using his divine power, Vyasa granted Drupada a temporary celestial vision. For a fleeting moment, the king's sight pierced the veil of the present. He saw not a throne room, but a desolate hermitage in a bygone age.
"Behold, O King," Vyasa narrated, his voice guiding the vision. "In a previous life, your daughter was a maiden of impeccable virtue named Nalayani. She was married to a sage of immense power, Maudgalya, a man afflicted with old age and a terrible, wasting leprosy. Yet, Nalayani served him with a devotion that was absolute. She tended to his rotting flesh without a flicker of disgust, she bore his ill-tempered moods with endless patience, and she loved him with a pure and selfless heart."
Drupada saw the young woman, her form ethereal and familiar, tending to the irascible sage. He saw her unwavering service, her sacrifice, her purity.
"Pleased beyond measure by her selfless devotion," Vyasa continued, "the sage Maudgalya was cured of his afflictions by the power of his own penance. He offered his wife a boon, anything her heart desired, as a reward for her years of service. Nalayani, who had suppressed all her youthful desires, asked her husband to grant her sensual happiness. The sage, using his yogic powers, assumed five different handsome forms, each one an expert in the arts of love, and for many, many years, he fulfilled her every wish."
"But the sage, his duty done, eventually grew weary of worldly pleasures and wished to return to his life of austerity. Nalayani, however, having tasted the joys of the world, was not yet satisfied. Her attachment had become a powerful craving. When Maudgalya prepared to leave, she clung to him, weeping, begging for more. Angered by her inability to let go of sensual desire, the sage cursed her."
The vision shifted. Drupada saw the sage's face contort with anger, and he heard the terrible words of the curse echo through time: "Because your desire is so insatiable that one man, even in five forms, is not enough for you, you shall be reborn! And in that life, to satisfy this great craving, you will be wed to five husbands!"
The vision faded, leaving Drupada gasping, his face pale. He understood. This was not a random event; it was the fruit of a past life, a karmic debt coming due.
But Vyasa was not finished. He turned his gaze to Draupadi, who had been listening with a stunned, rapt attention. "The curse filled the maiden with despair," the sage said, his voice softening with compassion as he spoke to her. "To overcome it, she began a severe penance to the great god, Lord Shiva. She retreated to the mountains, renouncing food and water, and prayed with a singular, burning focus for a virtuous husband."
Again, Vyasa's power filled the room, and all present could feel the intensity of that ancient prayer. They saw the maiden, emaciated but her spirit blazing, standing on one leg, her arms raised to the heavens.
"Pleased by her devotion, Lord Shiva appeared before her in all his radiant glory. 'Ask your boon, my child,' the great god said. But Nalayani, overwhelmed by the divine presence and desperate in her eagerness, stumbled over her words. She repeated her plea five times in quick succession: 'Grant me a husband! Grant me a husband! Grant me a husband! Grant me a husband! Grant me a husband!'"
"Lord Shiva, who is bound by the vows of his devotees, smiled a sad, cosmic smile. 'My child,' he said. 'Because you have asked for a husband five times, in your next life, you shall have five husbands, all of them incarnations of virtue.' Thus, the sage's curse was not negated, but transformed by divine will into a strange and unprecedented boon."
A murmur of awe went through the court. The story was incredible, yet coming from the lips of Vyasa, it had the undeniable weight of truth. Draupadi stared at the sage, her mind reeling. Her fate was not a humiliation. It was a boon from the great god himself. The anger within her began to dissolve, replaced by a profound, bewildering sense of destiny.
"But there is still more to this cosmic design," Vyasa said, now addressing the Pandavas. "You believe yourselves to be the sons of earthly gods, and you are. But you are also more than that. You are the earthly manifestations of five great Indras from past cosmic ages."
He explained that Indra, the king of the gods, was a title, not a single individual, and that in a previous cycle of creation, five Indras had been cursed by Lord Brahma for their collective arrogance. Their punishment was to be born on earth as a single brotherhood of mortals, to work together to re-establish Dharma.
"Yudhishthira," Vyasa said, his voice resonating with power, "is the incarnation of the Indra of Dharma. Bhima, the Indra of Wind. Arjuna, the Indra who defeated the great demon Vritra. And Nakula and Sahadeva, the twin Ashvins, who were granted the status of Indra through their great deeds. You five are a single divine entity, split into five bodies."
He then looked at Draupadi, his eyes filled with a deep reverence. "And you, Yajnaseni, are no mere mortal woman, nor just the reincarnation of Nalayani. You are an incarnation of the goddess Shri herself, the eternal consort of Vishnu, the goddess of fortune and prosperity. Just as she accompanies her lord in his many avatars, you have been born on earth to be the common wife of these five divine parts. You are the sacred thread that will bind them together. Your union is not just a marriage; it is a divine necessity, the lynchpin required to set in motion the great cleansing that this age requires. Kunti's words were not a mistake; they were the voice of destiny itself, spoken through her lips to ensure this sacred, pre-ordained union came to pass."
The revelation was complete. It was staggering in its scope. The personal drama in the throne room was revealed to be a single scene in a vast, cosmic epic. The marriage was not a violation of Dharma; it was a higher, divine Dharma, designed by the gods to restore balance to the world.
King Drupada fell to his knees, his pride completely shattered and replaced by a profound sense of religious awe. He was not just marrying his daughter to five exiled princes; he was participating in a divine plan. He was forging an alliance not just with the house of Pandu, but with the very forces that governed the cosmos.
"Forgive my ignorance, great sage," he stammered, his voice thick with emotion. "My eyes were clouded by worldly concerns. I see the truth now. I will not stand in the way of destiny. Let the will of the gods be done."
Yudhishthira bowed deeply to his grandfather. The terrible weight of his moral crisis had been lifted. The path was now clear, sanctioned by the highest authority imaginable.
Arjuna looked at Draupadi, his personal claim now seeming small and selfish in the face of such a grand, cosmic design. He saw not just the woman he had won, but the divine goddess who was their shared destiny.
Draupadi herself felt a profound transformation. The humiliation she had felt was washed away by a sense of awesome purpose. She was not an object to be divided. She was the sacred center, the divine force meant to unite these five parts of a single godhead. Her life had meaning beyond her wildest dreams. She looked at the five brothers, no longer as a collection of strangers, but as the five facets of her own pre-ordained fate.
With the divine sanction given and all objections silenced, the path was clear. Vyasa gave them his final blessing. "Let the wedding proceed," he commanded. "Marry her to all five of you, in accordance with the rites. Let Yudhishthira, the eldest, take her hand first, followed by the others in order of their birth. This union will be spoken of for all time. It is the first great drumbeat of the coming age."
And with that, the great sage vanished, leaving behind a court transformed. The preparations for the wedding began at once, not just for a royal marriage, but for a divine event. The news would shock the world, but here, in the court of Panchala, it was accepted as a sacred truth. The five Pandava brothers were to be wed to the single, fire-born princess, their lives and destinies now fused together, forged into a single weapon aimed at the heart of the coming darkness.