This painting depicts an episode from the Book of Virata of the epic Mahabharata ([War of the] Great Bharatas). The technique of continuous narration is employed in the painting so that principal characters are repeated as the action unfolds. In a pivotal event of the Mahabharata, the heroic Pandava brothers must forfeit their kingdom and are forced into a thirteen-year exile after losing a rigged game of dice to their half-brother, Duryodhana. Here the brothers are shown disguised and hiding in Virata in the palace of King Drupad, their wife’s father, during the last year of their banishment. This folio illustrates the moments before the brothers reveal their identities and return to their own kingdom. The main characters are identified by inscribed name captions.
The painting is divided into four sections. In the upper left corner, the five Pandava brothers—Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva—are shown talking to King Drupad and then outside on the terrace among a larger group of men. Directly below, the brothers are shown eating. In the upper right corner, their mother, Kunti, and their common wife, Draupadi, are shown being led to where they will eat, then sitting down to the meal. Outside the palace walls, in the bottom right corner, several horse-drawn chariots wait, presumably to take the brothers back to their kingdom.
