Week 5 Reading Diary: PDE Mahabharata continued

PDE: Mahabharata by various authors

After reading the next handful of sections of the public domain version of the great Indian epic Mahabharata, I became very intrigued by a few of the many stories. The one I enjoyed most was reading about how Draupadi would be married to all five of the Pandavas. The mother of the Pandavas, Kunti, had made an accidental command and ordered that her sons marry one woman. I was instantly interested in this story because throughout the Ramayana and the parts I have read of the Mahabhararta, only men had multiple wives. I had never read about women having multiple husbands. I was especially curious about how it would be to be married to five brothers. That must definitely be weird. At the beginning, it was Arjuna who won Draupadi at the swayamvara, but Arjuna told the oldest brother, Yudhishthira that "thou art our elder brother and we are thy servants." For this reason, Arjuna felt that Yudhishthira deserved to marry Draupadi. The funny part in all of this commotion was that each brother secretly wanted Draupadi. When they couldn't decide, the decision was put on Drupada, father of Draupadi. Drupada asked the eldest Pandava whether he would allow Arjuna to marry Draupadi. Yudhishthira said that he would need advice from the great rishi, Vyasa. Vyasa was the one who announced that it was already written that Draupadi would marry all five of the Pandava brothers. To change this ending up a bit, I would write a story about how Draupadi was given the choice of which brother she would marry. 

(Draupadi and the Pandava brothers. Source: Wikipedia)