Dice Games on Earth

Last time we wrote some events about the Dice Games in Heaven.Those games were mainly played by Shiv and Paarvatee and are mentioned in our scriptures. This article is about the Dice games played on Earth and these games are also mentioned in our scriptures. How they had affected the people is given here. There are three very main popular stories of Dice game go around.

(1) Nal and Pushkar
This story is very well known. It comes in Mahaabhaarat too. King Nal and King Pushkar were both brothers. Once Pushkar invited Nal to play Chausar (a kind of Dice game). Nal went there and started playing Chausar with him. In a few days time Nal lost his all wealth and kingdom in the game. He left the game saying that he had lost everything and he did not have anything to lose more so he was leaving. Pushkar reminded him to put his wife on stake but he was sensible so he left the game and the kingdom too.

He had to wander in the forest for several years. During their wanderings they had no food for several days and Then Nal saw some birds. Nal wanted to catch them for his food. Since they did not have anything to catch he threw his single cloth he had, a loin cloth he was wearing, to catch them as a net, but see the game of fate, that instead of helping in catching the birds, those birds flew away carrying the cloth and he remained naked. He got so distressed that he left his wife Damayantee sleeping and went away thinking that she would go to her parents' house.

Damayantee did reach her parents' house and started searching for her husband. By the wisdom of Damayantee they met again. Thus they had to suffer a lot before Nal could regain his kingdom and wealth from Pushkar. After returning from the forest, he played another Dice game with Pushkar and won it. Although he had won Pushkar's all wealth and kingdom but knowing the difficulties of the defeat he had seen during the past years he returned everything to him warning that he would not play Dice game again.

(2) Balaraam and Rukmee
Another story is from Bhaagvat Puraan. Krishn was married to Rukminee. Their son Pradyumn was married to Rukminee's brother Rukmee's daughter Rukmvatee, and Pradyumn's son Aniruddh was married to Rukmee's granddaughter Rochanaa. When Krishn and Balaraam went to marry Aniruddh to Rochanaa, 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 he began to play the game with Balaraam. 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

(3) Paandav and Kaurav
This is the most known and most mentioned incident related to Dice game. This comes from Mahaabhaarat.  Kaurav, especially their eldest brother Duryodhan was very jealous with Paandav and wanted to take their kingdom or kill them at any cost. After he failed to kill them in Baaranaavat Fair, and he failed to get Draupadee in marriage, his anger rose very high. He threatened his father to commit suicide or separate Paandav from him, so Dhritraashtra divided the kingdom and gave Khaandav Prasth to Paandav. When Paandav performed Raajsooya Yagya, he invited Dhritraashtra and his sons also. When Duryodhan saw his prosperity there in such a short time, his jealousy rose to sky high. Then he hatched a plan with the consultation of his Maamaa Shakuni. He invited Paandav for a Dice game.

Yudhishthir was addicted to Dice game, so he immediately came to Hastinaapur to play the game. According to his religious and moral nature, he played it on the terms of Duryodhan and lost all his wealth and kingdom. But then because of his addiction, he put on stake his brothers, and then even his wife and lost all of them too. As a result of his addiction, his wife had to suffer so much insult in the Dice game court that even Krishn had to come to help her and Bheem and Arjun had to take vows then and there only.

Somehow they got their wealth, kingdom, brothers and wife back and got ready to return to their kingdom, but how Duryodhan could tolerate all this? This was not his aim, so he invited them again to play the game and this time also he succeeded in defeating them with his evil tricks and sending them to forest for 13 years - 12 years of normal exile and one year of living incognito.

These are the three main famous incidents of the effects of Dice games played on Earth.

Sushma Gupta
www.sushmajee.com