Untold Story of Shakuni of Mahabharat, King of Gambling and Greed

SHAKUNI,the mastermind of Mahbharata war.

Whenever I read Mahabharat, and study its characters portrayed by Ved Vyasa, Shakuni’s Character often excites me. On one hand he loved his sister Gandhari and her hundred sons and on other he hated all others in kuru clan. He was also angery with Dhritrarashtra, his sister’s husband. The reason of his anger was his sister Gandhari's marriage to Kaurava’s blind prince Dhritrarashtra. He swore to avenge this insult by slowly destroying Bhishma's clan, i e. whole Kuru clan.

SHAKUNI AND HIS DICE

 One thing I may reiterate again and again. During the period words of mouth of were very important. If anybody vowed or sworn for anything, he will fulfill it by any means and may give his life for that. Every alternate character in Mahabharata takes a devastating oath in their life. On vows or oaths a whole book can be written. 

So coming back to Shakuni, he was mastermind on plotting the Mahabharata war. He was extremely intelligent and cunning. One hand he wanted the war for Gandhari’s marriage and on other he wanted to avenge Gandhara's defeat by Hastinapur led by Bhisma years before. In some military campaign by Bhisma, Gandhara came under annexation of Kuruvansh. Hastinapur conquered Gandhar, killed the king Achala Subala, and imprisoned all the male members of his line of adharma. This included Shakuni and his 100 brothers. All of them were sparsely fed (with a grain of rice each per day) in the captivity, the family decided that only one of them to survive and gave all the rice to Shakuni, so that he could take revenge. Eventually, on request from Shakuni's father, Shakuni was released as slave of Hastinapur and was allowed to live. Shakuni's dice was made from bones of his dead father. Shakuni's father soul was said to have entered the dice and it would roll to the number Shakuni wanted.

He only ignited hatred between the Kauravas and Pandavas and succeeded his plans to sow seeds for the biggest battle in Indian history. Shakuni on various occasions tries to plant hatred between Kauravas and Pandavas.

• He advised Duryodhana to mix poison into Bheema's food.
• He Hired Purochana to kill the Pandavas in the wax palace, Lakshagraha.
• He invited Pandavas to play a friendly game of dice against Duryodhana and Shakuni played on his behalf.Yudhishtira was persuaded to bet on Draupadi, even though he had already lost all his wealth and kingdom, and his brothers.
• Secretly wanting the great sage Durvasa to curse the Pandavas in anger, he asked the sage to visit the Pandavas in the forest knowing that the Pandavas would then have nothing to feed him.
• He advised Dhuryodhana to feed Shalya's army and make Shalya his ally who wanted to fight for the Pandavas.
• During the Kurukshetra war he prorogated everyone to kill Abhimanyu by cheating, when he was unarmed.

Shakuni was killed on the eighteenth day of the Kurukshetra war by Sahdeva.

Again the most important thing Shakuni have told us is that Game of dice or gambling is ages old, where man has greed to win till he loses everything.

But it even excites me that he was a great devotee of Lord Shiva. Again to add further excitement, it is surprising that there is an ancient temple dedicated to Shakuni at Pavithreswaram in Kollam District of Kerala. A throne used by Shakuni is found in this temple. People think in this place he got his mokshya. The temple is maintained by the Kuravar community of the region.