Bhima

The wind god's son

Bhima was born to Kunti in the forest after she called on Vayu, the wind god. As an infant he fell from her lap onto a mountain rock, and the rock shattered. At Hastinapura he wrestled his Kaurava cousins without malice and broke their bones anyway, and Duryodhana came to fear him. At a river festival at Pramanakoti, Duryodhana fed him poisoned sweets, bound him with creepers and rolled him into the Ganga. Bhima sank to the country of the nagas, where snakebite cancelled the poison. Vasuki gave him eight bowls of a strength-giving elixir, and he came home stronger than before. He learned the mace from Drona and later from Balarama.

Protector in the wilderness

When the house of lac burned, Bhima carried his mother and brothers out. In the forest he killed the demon Hidimba and married his sister Hidimbi, who bore him Ghatotkacha. At Ekachakra he took the demon Baka's cart of food, ate it, and killed him. For Yudhishthira's Rajasuya he wrestled King Jarasandha and tore him in two.

In the dice hall, watching Dushasana drag Draupadi by the hair, Bhima swore to break Duryodhana's thigh and drink Dushasana's blood. In exile he met his half-brother Hanuman on the road to Kubera's lake. During the hidden year at Virata's court, as the cook Ballava, he killed Kichaka for assaulting Draupadi.

Vows kept at Kurukshetra

By the war's end Bhima had killed every one of Dhritarashtra's hundred sons, as he had sworn. When Drona could not be beaten, it was Bhima who killed the elephant named Ashwatthama and shouted the news. On the seventeenth day he struck Dushasana down, tore open his chest and drank, or seemed to drink, his blood. He later told Gandhari it never passed his teeth.

On the eighteenth day he fought Duryodhana with maces beside the lake. When the duel would not turn, Arjuna, prompted by Krishna, slapped his own thigh as a signal, and Bhima struck below the waist and shattered Duryodhana's thighs. Balarama, who had taught them both, was furious at the foul blow. Afterwards Krishna gave the grieving Dhritarashtra an iron statue of Bhima to embrace, and the blind king crushed it.

The last to fall before the king

On the final journey into the Himalaya, Bhima asked about each of the others as they fell. He was the last to fall before Yudhishthira reached heaven. His fault, Yudhishthira said, was that he ate too much and boasted of his strength.

Hunger and loyalty

Bhima is the brother who acts when the others argue about dharma. He alone moved when Draupadi was wronged, at Kichaka's hall and in the war. Readers keep asking where his justice ends and his savagery begins.