Shakuni

Gandhari's brother at the Kuru court

Shakuni was a son of King Subala of Gandhara, the kingdom beyond the Indus in the far northwest, which is why the epic often calls him Saubala. When Bhishma asked for Gandhari as a bride for the blind prince Dhritarashtra, it was Shakuni who escorted his sister to Hastinapura, where she bound her own eyes for life. He stayed on at the Kuru court and became, with Karna and Dushasana, the closest adviser of his nephew Duryodhana.

The popular story that he stayed to avenge a family starved in a Kuru prison, and that his dice were carved from his father's bones, is a much later folk tradition and has no place in the epic.

The plan that needed no army

He shared in Duryodhana's early schemes, including the plot to burn the Pandavas in the house of lac at Varanavata. After Yudhishthira's imperial sacrifice, when Duryodhana came home sick with envy of Indraprastha, Shakuni offered a way to take everything without a battle. Yudhishthira loved dice, played badly, and would not refuse a formal challenge; Shakuni had no equal at the board. Together they pressed the reluctant Dhritarashtra until he agreed to the game.

The dice game

In the hall at Hastinapura Shakuni threw for Duryodhana. The epic says plainly that he played by deceit, and Yudhishthira accused him of it after the first throw, then went on staking. Shakuni won his treasure, his kingdom, his four brothers and finally Yudhishthira himself, then reminded him that Draupadi was still unstaked. When Dhritarashtra undid the result, Shakuni won a second game with twelve years of forest exile and one in hiding as the stake. Sahadeva, the quietest of the brothers, swore to kill him.

Uluka, Sahadeva and the last day

Through the exile he stayed at Duryodhana's side, helping to plan the cattle-inspection that ended in the gandharvas' ambush. On the eve of the war his son Uluka carried Duryodhana's insults to the Pandava camp. At Kurukshetra Shakuni led the Gandhara horsemen and fought with illusions, and his brothers Vrishaka and Achala died under Arjuna's arrows. On the eighteenth day Sahadeva killed Uluka in front of his father and then cut off Shakuni's head with a broad-headed arrow, keeping the vow made in the dice hall.

The man who threw the dice

Shakuni is the epic's plainest schemer, but the text does not let him carry the whole blame. Duryodhana wanted the game, Dhritarashtra allowed it, the elders watched it, and Yudhishthira kept playing. Readers still argue how much of the ruin belongs to the man who threw the dice and how much to everyone who let them be thrown.