Shakuni – the real story

Shakuni

We know that Shakuni was the person who masterminded the ascendancy of Duryodhana by beating Pandavas in gambling. What we don’t know that he was imprisoned by his own nephew, Duryodhana. His father and brothers have sacrificed their life, so Shakuni could survive. Read this unknown and interesting strory.

Shakuni in Mahabharata
Shakuni in Mahabharata

Shakuni – The gambler, whose wishes were obeyed by the dice was the brother of Gandhari. There is a story that the dice he used was made out of bones of his father,  Subala’s thighs.  His sister, Gandhari had some problem in her astrological chart according to that her second husband only will survive.

Shakuni the Gambler

To rectify this situation, Gandhari was first married to a goat and then the animal was killed, so strictly speaking, she became a widow before marrying Dhritharashtra.  When Duryodhana took charge of the Hastinapura, he was lambasted by Bhima that he is son of a widow.

Shakuni defeating Yudhishthira
Shakuni defeating Yudhishthira

Angered with this insult, he came to know about the story,  attacked Gandhar province and imprisoned his 100 uncles including Shakuni. He arranged to provide one handful of rice for all of them to eat everyday. It was decided by the Subala, the father that Shakuni will eat the food given and survive to destroy Kauravas.

Shakuni’s brilliance

There is also an other story about how his father assessed the intelligence of his sons to select the most brilliant one. He asked his sons who were all in the prison to insert a thread through a bone so that who is succesful can eat the fistful of rice and survive to take revenge.

All the sons attempted and failed but Shakuni emerged victorious. He managed to tie a speck of rice to one end of a thread and fed it to an ant which took the thread through the hole of the bone. Shakuni survived. He was asked to eat the flesh of his own father which he did and created set of dice from his bones. After all of them died and only Shakuni was left,he was allowed out of prison on Gandhari’s insistence.

Note: This story is not found in original Mahabharata written by Vedavyasa

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Tekula Surendra
10 years ago

this story is accepted in south India. This interesting real fact is not shown in Mahabharat by star plus nowadays

Sachin Shetty R
Sachin Shetty R
10 years ago

duryodhana is now still in his childhood days. This incident as given is supposed to happen when he become the king.. so still head to go

Aatrayi Das
9 years ago

This doesn't exactly make sense because Shakuni has been close to Duryodhana and poisoning his mind against the Pandavas since Duryodhana was a kid. And Duryodhana never became the king. Dhritarashtra was always the ruler even when the Pandavas were sent to exile. Duryodhana has always been addressed as 'Yuvraj' which means Prince. So its not really possible for Duryodhana to attack Shakuni's line and imprison them.
According to other stories Shakuni's kingdom, Gandhar, was attacked either by the ancestors of Shantanu or by Shantanu himself.

vijin
vijin
9 years ago
Reply to  Aatrayi Das

It was bheeshma not dhuryodhan

Narayanaru Vasudevaru
9 years ago

The story of mahabharatha was an intellectual. This includes logical and illogically logical. A great epic and highly complex.

Ashutosh Nadkar
Ashutosh Nadkar
4 years ago

Shakuni has been portrayed as the most villainous character of Mahabharat but was what if he was actually a victim of the given situations? My book based on this mythological epic poses some logical questions to the readers. Feel free to share your thoughts on the topic.

Shakuni ka Pratishodh, The Revenge of Shakuni

A book of mine "Revenge of Shakuni" explains this story in a poetic format. There are two major interpretations of why Shakuni wanted a revenge on the Kuru clan. One was that he was not happy with his sister marrying the blind man (who was not even destined to be the king), and second was that Dhritarashtra destroyed the Gandhar clan in a brutal manner. Of course I would recommend buying the book: http://www.revengeofshakuni.info or directly from Amazon. But a group is creating a dance drama based on the book, which hopefully will be accessible soon to.

Gaurav T.
Gaurav T.
3 years ago

Request you not to post such non sense and baseless stories, without doing any research and reference. This is factually and logically both wrong. How did Shakuni got so close to Duryodhan? how can an ant eat a thread along with rice? I mean please add some sense before putting this story to public, a small kid won’t also buy this logic. I believe such non sense stories are the reason for fraction between north India and south India Hindu religion.

Anonymous
Anonymous
3 years ago

you should put this note in beginning. Otherwise in first glance people will believe it to be authentic.