Vyasa · 400 BCE · exile

The great Sanskrit epic, attributed to Vyasa. Two branches of one royal house contend for the throne at Hastinapura, and a rigged game of dice sends the five Pandava brothers and their wife into thirteen years of exile - twelve in the forest and one in disguise. When they return to claim what is theirs, the refusal brings both houses to the field at Kurukshetra.

1. 1
   Hastinapura

   At Hastinapura, the blind king Dhritarashtra holds the throne for his hundred sons while his brother's five, the Pandavas, grow up alongside them - cousins raised together and set against each other from the start.

2. 2
   Indraprastha

   Given the wasteland half of the kingdom, the Pandavas raise the shining city of Indraprastha out of it - and the sight of that success is what brings Duryodhana to the dice game, and the loaded dice that take everything back.

3. 3
   The Kamyaka forest

   Stripped of kingdom, wealth and their wife's dignity in open court, the five brothers and Draupadi walk into twelve years of forest exile - hermitages, pilgrimages, and the slow gathering of weapons and allies.

4. 4
   Virata

   The thirteenth year must be spent unrecognised, and they pass it in the court of Virata in disguise - a cook, a dancing master, a groom, a herdsman and a lady's maid, one recognition away from beginning the whole exile again.

5. 5
   Kurukshetra

   The exile served and the kingdom refused, both houses bring their armies to the field at Kurukshetra - where Arjuna's chariot halts between the lines and Krishna answers the question of whether any of this should be done at all.