The Mahabharata. Episode 1: A Game of dice

The Mahabharata is the longest book in the world and was composed over one thousand years. It is the account of a dynastic struggle spanning many generations and culminating in a great civil war. In this first part, “A Game of dice”, the poet Vyasa narrates to a boy, the descendant of the heroes of these high matters, the events of the Mahabharata, with, acting as his amanuensis, the elephant-headed god of learning, Ganesha. The story is of a family row, between the five Pandavas - notably Yudhisthira, Bhima and Arjuna - and their first cousins, the hundred Kauravas - their leader Duryodhana. Yudhisthira’s only weakness is gambling, and at the end of the episode the Pandavas and their wife-in-common Draupadi are driven into exile in the forest as a result of defeat at dice against the (cheating) patriarch of the Kauravas, Sakuni. This happens on terms so humiliating that Bhima, greatest of warriors, vows revenge, and the scene is set for what Mario Vargas Llosa called ‘the War of the End of the World’. This beautifully produced masterpiece is adapted from the play by Jean-Claude Carriere.