1. Drona makes Eklavya cut off his own thumb [Episode 23]
We rejoin the story as Sage Drona is teaching the young Pandavas (the five sons of the late King Pandu) and Kauravas (the 100 sons of King Dhritirashtra, not that we ever see anything like all 100 of them) the art of war.
Drona favours Arjun, the third son of Pandu, and swears to make him the greatest archer in the world. Almost immediately this turns out to be yet another unwise oath, for they meet the young manny Eklavya who claims to have learned from Drona without Drona's knowing about it. And Eklavya's skill at archery is, if anything, even more impressive than Arjun's.
To avoid an oathbreaking - even an unintentional one - Drona insists that he be paid for having taught Eklavya, which Eklavya agrees to before knowing what the price will be. Drona asks for Eklavya's thumb, which he uses in archery, and so will forever prevent him from competing with Arjun, as well as interfering with his ability to open doors for cats.
2. Krishna forgives 100 insults [Episodes 27-28 and 41-43]
The marriage of Prince Shishupal of Chedi and Princess Rukmini of Vidarbha was arranged by their fathers as part of their political alliance, overriding what should have been Rukmini's right to choose her husband. So before the formal betrothal took place, Rukmini arranged for her true love Krishna to "kidnap" (rescue) her.
13 episodes later, Shishupal returns and we learn his backstory - that he was born with four arms and three eyes until the extra arms and eyes over and above the amount mannys normally have disappeared the first time Krishna touched him, signifying that Krishna would be the one to cause his death. Knowing of this prophecy, Krishna promised Shishupal's mother that he would forgive Shishupal 100 crimes.
Many years later, they met again at the court of the newly crowned Emperor Yudhishthir, the eldest of the Pandavas. When Yudhishthir and his brothers offered their first respect to Krishna, Shishupal interrupted them and denounced Krishna as unworthy. He then let loose a stream of invective against Krishna, and over the objections of the Pandavas and Krishna's own brother Balram, Krishna just stood there, smiling. When Shishupal widened the targets of his insults to include Bhishma and everyone else there present who respected Krishna, Krishna calmed them and insisted that they were not the targets, only he himself was being insulted. Balram asked him why he was smiling, to which Krishna replied
Warning Shishupal that he had only three insults left, Shishupal kept going. After the 100th insult Krishna again tried to warn him, saying that the limit had been reached. Then, after the 101st insult, Krishna summoned his divine weapon and, without another word, in front of the whole court, cut off Shishupal's head. Shishupal had just enough time to realise he'd made a big mistaik and make an "oh noes!" face, but too late to do anything about it.
3. Arjun wins a wife [Episodes 34-35]
The contest arranged by her father to win Princess Draupadi's paw in marriage involves lifting a sacred bow and then using it to shoot a revolving fish's eye that you can only see from its reflection in a pool - and that assuming a cat hasn't nomed the fish first! Most of the princes who enter the competition can't even lift the bow - leading to a lot of komedy gurning as they act it being too difficult for them - never mind do the rest of it. After evil Duryodhan and various other minor baddys have had their turn and blown it, it is Arjun who finally succeeds - not really very surprising, since this was a contest designed so that only Arjun could win it.
What is more surprising is what happens when Arjun takes Draupadi to meet his mother and tells her what has happened. He and Bhim decide to tell Kunti that they have "brought back alms" for the lols.
Without looking, Kunti says "share it amongst yourselves." While she is horrified at the implication when she realises what this would mean (because the hypocrisy of their society permits husbands to marry multiple wives, but not normally the reverse), for some reason Kunti is unable to take back her words. It takes Krishna to turn up and explain that this was karmically preordained by the actions of Draupadi in her previous life. As he puts it:
"She asked for a husband who was an epitome of truth, had the strength of Hanuman, who was an ace archer, exceptionally beautiful and very patient. Did you not ask for all this? Did not Lord Shiva say one person cannot have all these qualities. Before asking you should have thought about whether your request was reasonable. You asked for a boon and the Lord has granted it. Yudhishthir is the epitome of truth. That's the first boon. None is stronger than Bhim. That's the second boon. Arjun is today's ace archer. That's the third boon. Nakul is the most handsome man alive. The fourth boon. Sahadev is the most patient. The fifth boon."
4. Bhim duels evil king Jarasandh to the deaths [Episodes 41-42]
Evil king Jarasandh wants to sacrifice 100 kings to the god Shiva to obtain immortality, and has so far captured 86 kings. In order to stop this, Krishna challenges Jarasandh to choose one of him, Arjun or Bhim to duel to the death, and Jarasandh picks Bhim thinking he would be the only one capable of posing him any kind of challenge.
Only when Bhim defeats him does he discover that Jarasandh already has a form of immortality, since when Bhim kills him - by ripping him in two - the two halves rejoin, and Jarasandh comes back to life and does an evil lol.
When the duel resumes Bhim tears Jarasandh in half again, and the same thing happens. Then Krishna shows Bhim the solution, so that when he rips Jarasandh in half for the third time, he throws the two parts in opposite directions (the right half to the left and the left half to the right), and this is enough to confuse the magic and prevent his reforming once more.
5. Yuddhishthir gambles everything away [Episodes 46-49]
This turning point in the story is so central to the narrative that it occupies four whole episodes at the midpoint of the series. Duryodhan, by now heir to the throne of Hastinapur, challenges his cousin Emperor Yudhishthir to play "the game of dice" (which may or may not have been Chaupar or Pachisi, both ancient variations of the same game, the ancestors of present-day Ludo), although it is his evil uncle Shakuni who rolls the loaded dice on Duryodhan's behalf, ensuring that they always win.
Oblivious to Shakuni's cheating and convinced his bad luck must change at some time, Yudhishthir gambles away his fortune, his lands, all his possessions, and eventually his brothers, himself, and their wife Draupadi, who are all to become slaves to the Kauravas. Duryodhan's victory seems complete, but then he makes a mistaik when he tries to humiliate his defeated enemies still further.
Draupadi is dragged in by her hair to meet her new owners, and then Duryodhan orders his brother Dushasan to strip Draupadi in front of her husbands and the entire court of Hastinapur. Dushasan cannot do it because, though he tries, Krishna appears at Draupadi's prayer and he intercedes by making her gown endlessly long, so Dushasan can never reach the end of it. Long dress is long!
Realising the outrage that has only been averted by a divine miracle, the Hastinapur elders come to their senses and King Dhritirashtra tries to make amends by returning to them all that the Pandavas have lost. But there is no going back to the way things were before the game - the Pandavas could forgive all of Shakuni's earlier plots, which were merely attempts to kill one or more of them, but they cannot forgive the humiliation of Draupadi. Oaths of vengeance are sworn by Bhim that will hang over him until the end of the story.
Even after all that has happened the game is not over yet. You would think that Yudhisthir would have learned his lesson by now, but no... gambling is his one weakness, and Duryodhan inists they play once more, though for different stakes. Obviously Yudhisthir loses yet again, and this sets them on course for the next stage of the story: the Pandavas must spend 13 years in exile...
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