The beautiful princess, captivated by the goodly appearance of this suitor, immediately hung around his neck the crown of flowers, although the defeated rajahs muttered a mere Brahman should not aspire to the hand of a princess.  In fact, had not his four brothers, aided by Krishna (a divine suitor), stood beside him, and had not the king insisted there should be no fracas, the young winner might have had a hard time.  Then, as the princess seemed perfectly willing, the wedding was celebrated, and the five brothers returned to the humble hut where they lived on alms, calling out to their mother that they had won a prize!  On hearing these tidings, the mother—­without knowing what the prize was—­rejoined, “Share it among you,” an injunction which settled for good and all that Draupadi should be common wife to all five.  But the legend adds that this came to pass mainly because the maiden had prayed five times for a husband, and that the gods were answering each of her prayers separately!

Shortly after this fivefold marriage,—­which assured the Pandavs a royal ally,—­Bhishma persuaded the blind rajah—­who had meantime discovered his nephews were not dead—­to give them one half of his realm.  Taking up their abode there, the Pandavs built the city of Indraprastha (Delhi) on the banks of the Jumna, before they decided that the eldest among them (Yudhishthira) should be king, the others humbly serving as his escort wherever he went.

One day this eldest Pandav went to visit the eldest Kuru, a proficient gambler, with whom he played until he had lost realm, brothers, wife, and freedom!  But, when the victor undertook to take forcible possession of the fair Draupadi, and publicly stripped her of her garments, the gods, in pity, supplied her with one layer of vesture after another, so that the brutal Kuru was not able to shame her as he wished.  Furious to see the treatment their common wife was undergoing at the victor’s hands, the five Pandavs made grim threats, and raised such a protest that the blind uncle, interfering, sent them off to the forest with their wife for twelve years.  He also decreed that, during the thirteenth, all must serve in some menial capacity, with the proviso that, if discovered by their cousins, they should never regain their realm.

  “’Tis no fault of thine, fair princess! fallen to this servile state,
  Wife and son rule not their actions, others rule their hapless fate! 
  Thy Yudhishthir sold his birthright, sold thee at the impious play,
  And the wife falls with the husband, and her duty—­to obey!”