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35-Dice Game-2 - On Prithvi
Here you will find three examples from Earth --
(1) Nal and Pushkar
This incident of Dice game appears to be the oldest on
Prithvi. There was a king of Nishadh Desh, King Nal who was married to Damayantee,
the princess of Vidarbh Desh. He had a brother named Pushkar. Once Pushkar invited
Nal to play Dice game. He went to him and played the Dice game. Gradually nal lost
his all wealth and kingdom to Pushkar. After losing everything, Nal got up and set
to go to forest, but Pushkar said - "You still have your wife to put on stake."
But Nal refused to do so, left the place and went to forest with Damayantee. Later
they got separated in the forest. Nal went to Ayodhyaa and became the charioteer of
its king and Damayantee also reached her father's house after spending some time in
misery. Nal learnt the Dice game tricks from the King of Ayodhyaa. Later they met
in Damayantee's palace and then planned to take his kingdom back from Pushkar. Nal
and Pushkar again played the game and this time Nal defeated him, but he had known
the sorrows and troubles of exile, so he did not send Pushkar to exile, he just returned
his kingdom and asked him never to play Dice game again.
(2) Paandav and Kaurav
King Shaantanu had a son named Vichitraveerya who had
two sons Dhritraashtra and Paandu. Dhritraashtra had 100 sons who were
known as
Kaurav and Paandu had five sons who were known as Paandav. Kaurav, especially their
eldest brother Duryodhan, was very jealous with Paandav and was always looking for
some opportunity to kill them. Once he planned them to kill in Baaranaavat fair by
burning them in lac house, but because of Vidur's vigilance they escaped. Duryodhan
was very happy to know that they were burnt in that fire, but when he he came to know
that Arjun married Draupadee, he became very sorry on his failure. He could not keep
them in the same palace, so he managed to divide the kingdom and send Paandav to Khaandav
Prasth. Paandav prospered there too and organized Raajsooya Yagya in which they invited
Kaurav family also. Seeing their prosperity, Duryodhan's jealousy reached sky high and
he decided to take it by cheating. For this he planned Dice game with the advice of his
Maamaa Shakuni.
Shakuni cheated in the Dice game and took
their wealth and kingdom. Later in the addiction of the game, Yudhishthir lost his
all brothers and Draupadee too to Duryodhan. Duryodhan insulted Draupadee in the court
and Bheem and Arjun had to take vow to kill Kaurav because of that. Seeing all this
Dhritraashtra got afraid and he returned everything to Paandav and asked them to go
back to their country. But this was the aim of Duryodhan, so he again managed to play
another Dice game with them with the condition that whoever will lose will go to forest
for 13 years including one year incognito and if he would be recognized during that 13th
year, he will have to go again to exile of 13 years. He was sure that he would win the
condition and he would recognize Paandav in their year of incognito. But this did not
happen. His jealousy and rage did not leave any other option for him except to fight with
them and kill them in the battle, hence the Mahaabhaarat war.
(3) Rukmee and Balaraam
The third Dice game is between Rukmee, brother of Rukminee, and Balaraam,
the brother of Krishn. This game
is not as popular as the two games mentioned above, but still it is a
main even of Mahaabhaarat. As it is known that Rukminee was married to
Krishn against the wishes of her brother Rukmee. But later Rukmee married
his daughter Rukmvatee to Rukminee's son Pradyumn. And then Rukmee married
his granddaughter Rochanaa to Rukminee's grandson (Pradyumn's son) Aniruddh. So
at the time of Aniruddh's marriage Krishn etc went to marry him to
Rukmee's place. Everything went
well and the marriage was performed without any significant event. In the end, the King of Kaling said to Rukmee - "This Balaraam
is ignorant in Dice game, if you can defeat him in Dice game, he will be
degraded. Why not we should degrade him?" Rukmee got ready and they
began to play the game. Rukmee won the few starting stakes. At this the King of Kaling
teased Balaraam - "This man does not know anything of Dice game, how
he can play the Dice game? He is
only a cowherd. It is royal game. He just has only a passion for it, but
it does not mean that he knows the game."
Balaraam Jee got very angry
hearing all this and played his next chance with an increased money and
won it. But Rukmee was blind in his winning so he did not agree to
Balaraam's winning in spite of the Divine voice which declared Balaraam a
winner. Balaraam got up in rage and hit Rukmee's head with the board of
the game on which they were playing and killed him. He killed other
princes also who were laughing at him. That is how the marriage and the
game ended.
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