English
Draupadi's Inexhaustible Vessel
Source: Mahabharata, Vana Parva (Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 3; the Durvasa episode in the vulgate recension)
Having lost everything at the dice game, the Pandavas set out for the forest with Draupadi. Many Brahmins followed them, unwilling to leave their side. Yudhishthira grew anxious: “How will I feed all these people in the forest?”
The family priest Dhaumya advised him to worship the Sun god and taught him the hundred and eight names of Surya. With discipline and devotion, Yudhishthira worshipped the Sun.
Pleased, the Sun god appeared and gave him a copper vessel. “For twelve years, whatever is cooked in your kitchen, fruit, roots, greens or grain, shall never run out.”
From that day Draupadi would first feed the guests, the Brahmins and her husbands, and eat last of all herself. Once she had eaten, the vessel gave nothing more that day.
Meanwhile Duryodhana served the quick-tempered sage Durvasa with great care. Pleased, the sage offered him a boon. Duryodhana slyly asked, “Please be the guest of my elder brother Yudhishthira with your disciples, but go to him after Draupadi has eaten.”
One day it happened exactly so. Everyone had eaten and was resting when Durvasa arrived with ten thousand disciples. “We are going to bathe. Have the meal ready when we return.” And off they went to the river.
Draupadi's vessel was empty. In distress she called on Sri Krishna in her heart. Krishna came at once… but the moment he arrived he said, “Krishnaa, I am very hungry. Give me something to eat first.”
Draupadi's eyes filled with tears. “Keshava, the Sun's vessel gives food only until I have eaten. I have already eaten. There is nothing left in it now.”
Krishna said, “Krishnaa, this is no time for jest. I am hungry. Quickly, bring the vessel and show it to me.”
Draupadi brought the vessel. Krishna looked at it closely. Stuck to its rim were a tiny bit of cooked greens and a single grain of rice. Krishna picked them up, ate them and said, “May Lord Hari, the Soul of the universe, be satisfied and pleased by this.”
Then he said to the Pandavas, “Go and call the sages to their meal.”
Down at the river, Durvasa and his disciples, in the middle of their bath, suddenly felt as if they had eaten a full feast. They began to belch. The disciples looked at one another: “How can we eat now? The food the Pandavas have prepared will go to waste.”
Durvasa remembered what had happened with King Ambarisha, when he had suffered greatly for insulting a devotee of the Lord. He understood that Sri Hari himself was protecting the Pandavas, and he quietly slipped away with all his disciples.
When the Pandavas reached the bathing place, no one was there. Duryodhana's scheme had turned back on itself.
Still, the Pandavas feared that the sage might return in the night in anger. Krishna reassured them: “Draupadi called me, and so I came. You have nothing to fear from Durvasa now. No harm comes to those who stand firm in dharma.” Then he took his leave of the Pandavas and returned to Dwaraka.
What this story teaches
Even a single morsel offered with devotion satisfies the Lord, and when he is satisfied the whole world is satisfied. A sincere call in a time of trouble is never in vain.
The Sun god's gift of the vessel to Yudhishthira is in Vana Parva, Chapter 3 of the Pune Critical Edition. The Durvasa episode, together with the detail that the vessel emptied once Draupadi had eaten, is found in the vulgate recension (such as the edition with Nilakantha's commentary); the Critical Edition treats it as a later addition and places it in an appendix. Popular retellings often say the vessel was given to Draupadi herself.
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