The brothers return to the camp, where the Brahmins scold Bhima- 'He shouldn't have been out hunting anyway! Hunting is bad!' Finally, the snake releases Bhima and then dies, his soul returning to heaven. The Snake and Yuddistira hit it off really well, and the two discuss questions of the Soul and Karma for a while. Yuddistira is good at quiz games the question is basically whether one is a Brahmin by birth or by behavior. If Yuddistira can answer the snake's question, then all would be well. When Yuddistira gets to the scene, Bhima tells him what is going on, and that the snake is under a curse. For the purposes of the later story, Arjun stays at home and Yuddistira does the rescuing. Meanwhile, Yuddistira sees dark omens and heads off to look for his brother on his own. The Snake takes his time and tells Bhima his life story before proceeding to eat the hero. Along the way, Bhima goes hunting and finds himself captured by a giant magical snake. Markandeya is still telling stories, so we'll have more from him next time.Įpisode 36 - The Pandavas journey south, out of the Himalayas and back to the plains. Much later in the story, we'll discover that of the five sons of Draupadi, it is Arjun's son and grandson who carry on the line of kings. We haven't gotten to that part of the story yet, but during the year in hiding, Arjun is disguised as an hermaphrodite, Brihanala, which literally means 'Woman with large penis'. There is also something sexual about Arjun that is different from the others. Since they are all incarnations of a single being- Indra- perhaps Indra had himself dismembered and each limb became a different Pandava. Arjuna, the 'Left-Handed Archer', seems pretty clearly to be linked with the left arm, and the twins make up the pair of legs. Yuddistira is clearly the head, while Bhima is associated with the right arm. I also present my theory that the five Pandavas are somehow correllated with the five extremities of the human body. He follows that up with two stories about Brahmins, and then gives us his rendition of the Fish, Manu, and the Flood.

After some prodding, Markandeya finally opens up and gives us his take on reincarnation, sin and the afterlife. Episode 37 - While Krishna is still hanging out at the camp, the sages Narada and Markandeya show up.

Krishna arjun episode 12