Parva 3
Vana Parva
Twelve years in the forest, and the stories told to fill them
Into the forest
The Pandavas left the city. People walked with them for a while, then slowed, one by one, and turned back. Draupadi was with them, and she was not quiet, the sharpest words in this entire book are hers. At one point she told Yudhishthira that forgiveness is not always dharma, that a king who does not raise his hand against injustice is not practicing dharma, he is only enduring it. Yudhishthira answered, and his answer would remain the same throughout the book, a vow once given must be kept, whatever the cost. This argument runs on for the whole twelve years, returning again and again, sometimes settled, sometimes not.
Arjuna's penance
The Pandavas needed weapons. Arjuna went alone to the north to perform penance. One day during his austerities a wild boar charged toward him. Arjuna loosed an arrow, and at the same instant another arrow struck the same boar. Facing him stood a hunter dressed as a mountain tribesman. The two argued over whose kill it was, and the argument turned into a fight. Arjuna threw everything he had and could not even move the hunter. Finally, conceding defeat, he made a Shiva-linga out of clay and offered flowers on it. The flowers landed on the hunter's head. The hunter was Shiva. Shiva revealed himself and gave him the Pashupatastra, one of the most powerful weapons in the Mahabharata, one Arjuna would never fire again.
He then went to Indra's realm and spent years there learning celestial weapons. There the apsara Urvashi offered herself to him. Arjuna refused, saying that as an ancestress of his line she was like a mother to him. Insulted, Urvashi cursed him to live a year without manhood. Indra later said the curse would become a boon, and in the thirteenth year, it did.
Bhima and Hanuman
Meanwhile Bhima was walking a mountain path. In the middle of it lay an old monkey, its tail stretched across the way. Bhima told it to move the tail. The monkey said, I am old, move it yourself. Bhima touched it, the tail did not budge. He used all his strength, still nothing. He realized this was no ordinary monkey, and asked who he was. It was Hanuman, son of the wind, which made him Bhima's own brother, since Bhima too was born of the wind. Hanuman blessed him, and said that in the war he would sit on the flag of Arjuna's chariot. At Kurukshetra, that is exactly what happened.
The stories heard in the forest
This is one of the longest books in the Mahabharata, and the reason is not battle. It is that sages kept passing through the forest and telling stories, and those stories are recorded here in full. The tale of Nala and Damayanti is here, Nala too lost everything at dice, and his wife set him upright again, which is exactly why it was told to Yudhishthira. The tale of Savitri is here too, the woman who followed Yama and, through words alone, won her husband's life back. Even the story of Rama is told here in brief, meaning the Ramayana exists inside the Mahabharata, as a story within the story.
Karna gives away his armour
Karna had been born with armor and earrings, fused to his body, and as long as he wore them no one could kill him. Indra, Arjuna's father, knew this. One day he came to Karna disguised as a Brahmin, at the very moment Karna stood having just offered his oblation to the Sun, a time when he refused no one. The Sun had already warned Karna that this was Indra, and what he would ask for. Karna gave it anyway. He said that honor mattered more than the body, and that refusing now would undo the name he had earned. He cut the armor and earrings from his own body and gave them away. In return Indra gave him a weapon that could only be used once, one that would never be used on Arjuna.
The cattle raid
Duryodhana had the idea of going to the forest to show the Pandavas their reduced state. He set out to camp nearby with his army and his queens, on the pretext of inspecting cattle. There he clashed with some gandharvas, who seized him and began carrying him off bound. His companions fled to the Pandavas. Yudhishthira sent Bhima and Arjuna. Bhima said, good. Yudhishthira said, among ourselves we are five and they are a hundred, but before outsiders we are a hundred and five. The Pandavas went and freed Duryodhana themselves. Nothing worse could have happened to him, and he returned humiliated.
The yaksha's questions
The twelfth year was nearly over. One day, thirsty, the brothers came to a lake in search of water. Nakula went first, bent to drink, and collapsed. Then Sahadeva, then Arjuna, then Bhima, all four lay where they fell. Finally Yudhishthira arrived. A voice spoke, a Yaksha, saying, answer my questions first, then drink. Yudhishthira sat down. The Yaksha asked one question after another, all about dharma and life. The most famous of them was, what is the greatest wonder in the world. Yudhishthira answered, every day people die, everyone sees it, and yet every man lives as though he will never die at all.
The Yaksha was pleased. He said he would bring one brother back to life, choose. Yudhishthira chose Nakula. The Yaksha asked why not Bhima or Arjuna, who were of more use. Yudhishthira said, my father had two wives, one son of Kunti, myself, is alive, so one of Madri's sons should live too. The Yaksha raised all four. The Yaksha was Dharma himself, Yudhishthira's own father. The twelve years were complete. Now the thirteenth had to come, and it would be the hardest of all.
Note: Draupadi's argument, Arjuna's penance and the Pashupatastra from Shiva in the tribesman's form, Urvashi's curse, Bhima's meeting with Hanuman, the tales of Nala and Damayanti and of Savitri, Karna giving away his armour, the cattle raid and the yaksha's questions are all in the Vana Parva of Vyasa's Mahabharata. This is one of the longest books in the Mahabharata, and the reason is that it holds little plot and many inset stories, the Ramayana among them. Karna gives with his eyes open — the Sun has warned him beforehand, and in the text his motive is fame, not naivety.
Source: Mahabharata (ascribed by tradition to Vyasa), Vana Parva