The Promise Fulfilled

Arjuna had Uttara drive to the Shamī tree by the cremation grounds, and there, over the prince's fear of touching what hung in a tree by a burning-ground, he had him climb up and bring down the leather bag; and when it was opened, Uttara beheld weapons that blazed like the sun, and among them the legendary Gāṇḍīva. And Arjuna revealed to the trembling prince who he truly was: that he was Arjuna, and that the five servants of Virāṭa's court, and Sairandhrī, were the Pāṇḍavas and Draupadī themselves, come out of their hiding at last.

The very touch of the Gāṇḍīva sent a surge of courage through Uttara's heart, and he took up the reins gladly now, while Arjuna drew on his gauntlets and twanged the great bow, and its sound rolled like thunder across the plains of Matsya. And on the other side, Droṇa heard that sound and knew it, and turned to Bhīshma and said: the great archer Arjuna has come. And Duryodhana was elated, for if Arjuna had truly been discovered before the thirteenth year was out, the Pāṇḍavas would be bound to return to the forest for twelve years more.

And here a sharp dispute broke out among the Kuru leaders, and it revealed their souls. Karṇa boasted that he would slay Arjuna single-handed; and Ashvatthāmā, Droṇa's son, rebuked him sternly, reminding the whole assembly that the kingdom had been won not by heroism but by the fraud of loaded dice, and that Arjuna's Gāṇḍīva would answer them now with sharp arrows, not with numbers thrown on a gaming board.

But it was Bhīshma, the wise patriarch, who settled the matter, for he made a precise reckoning of the movements of the stars and the planets, and declared that the thirteen years of exile and hiding had in fact ended the day before, that the term was fully and honourably complete, and that the Pāṇḍavas' vow had been kept to the letter. So even the enemy's own patriarch confirmed that the Pāṇḍavas had fulfilled their pledge exactly.

Then Arjuna charged the Kaurava host; but before he fought, he did a thing that reveals him, for as he passed his revered teachers Bhīshma and Droṇa, he saluted them, shooting arrows that fell gently at their feet in reverence rather than in war. And then he routed the Kaurava army, recovered the royal cattle, and returned in triumph, and, to guard the disguise a little longer until the formal unmasking, he let the young prince Uttara take the public credit for the victory.

So the exile ended, the vow fulfilled to the day, and the Pāṇḍavas stood ready at last to reclaim what was theirs.