Dangerous Encounters 37

the royal assembly of the Kurus. Dhrtarastra, Bhismadeva, Dronacarya,
and other elderly persons were present, and somehow or other Draupadi,
the wife of the Pandavas, was placed as a bet. ‘‘Now if you lose,”’ the
Kurus told the Pandavas, ‘‘Draupadi will no longer be your wife.” So
when the Pandavas lost the game, Karna and Duhsasana immediately
captured her. ‘‘Now you no longer belong to your husbands,”’ they told
her. ‘‘You are our property.. We can deal with you as we like.”’

Previously, Karna had been insulted during Draupadi’s svayamvara. In
those days a very qualified princess would select her own husband in a
ceremony called a svayamvara. In modern America, of course, any girl
may select a husband as she likes, although for a common girl this is ac-
tually not very good. But even in those times an uncommon, highly
qualified girl who knew how to select a good husband was given the
chance to do so. Even this, however, was limited by very strict condi-
tions. Draupadi’s father, for example, placed a fish on the ceiling, and he
stipulated that in order to qualify to marry his daughter, a prince had to
shoot an arrow and pierce the eye of the fish, without directly seeing the
fish but seeing only its reflection in a pot of water on the floor. When
these conditions were declared, many princes came to compete, for re-
sponding to a challenge is a principle for a ksatriya, a heroic leader.

In the assembly for Draupadi’s svayamvara, Karna was present.
Draupadi’s real purpose was to accept Arjuna as her husband, but Karna
was there, and she knew that if he competed, Arjuna would not be able to
succeed. At that time it was not known that Karna was a ksatriya. He was
born the son of Kunti before her marriage, but that was a secret. Karna
had been maintained by a carpenter, and therefore he was known as a
Sudra, a member of the lowest occupational division of society. Draupadi
took advantage of this by saying, ‘‘In this assembly, only ksatriyas may
compete. I do not want any carpenter to come here and take part in the
competition.”’ In this way, Karna was excluded.

Karna regarded this as a great insult, and therefore when Draupadi was
lost in the game, he was the first to come forward. He was Duryodhana’s
great friend, and he said, ‘‘Now we want to see the naked beauty of
Draupadi.’ Present at that meeting were elderly persons like
Dhrtarastra, Bhisma, and Dronacarya, but they did not protest. They did
not say, ‘‘What is this? You are going to strip a lady naked in this assem-
bly?’’ Because they did not protest, they are described as asat-sabhayah,
an assembly of uncultured men. Only an uncultured man wants to see a
woman naked, although nowadays that has become fashionable. Accord-
ing to the Vedic culture, a woman is not supposed to be naked before
