Bhima

Duryodhana invited Bhima and the Pandavas to a picnic beside the Ganga. He and his brothers had decided to kill Bhima, and the plot began with poisoned food. After Bhima ate, the poison took hold. Duryodhana's men bound him and threw him into the river, expecting the water to hide the deed. Bhima sank through the Ganga and was carried by underwater currents.

The river led him to the realm of the Nagas. The serpent beings saw him arrive and attacked him with their bites. Their venom worked against the plant poison already in his body. In Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time, the Naga poison became the antidote to what Duryodhana had given him. The attack therefore changed the plot's direction. The snakes meant to harm him instead removed the poison that had weakened him.

Arka and Vasuki then dealt with the unconscious prince. The Nagas brought him back to their palace and placed pots of a powerful drink before him. Bhima drank the rasa, and it restored his strength. The rasa renewed Bhima's strength before his journey home.

Bhima eventually returned to the Pandavas. In The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendering (2 Vols.), Kunti clasped him to her and wept because she had believed him dead. His brothers gathered around him, and the family learned that Duryodhana's attempt had failed. The river had taken Bhima away as a victim of a hidden murder. It returned him from the Nagas with his life and strength intact, leaving the plot exposed by its failure.

Bhima travelled to Magadha with Krishna and Arjuna and faced Jarasandha in a wrestling match. Jarasandha recognised that Bhima was the strongest of the visitors and chose him as an opponent. The king wanted a wrestling match, so Bhima faced him while Krishna and Arjuna watched.

The contest did not end quickly. In The Puffin Mahabharata, Bhima and Jarasandha fought for fourteen days and nights. Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time records a twenty-eight-day fight, with the two men returning to the palace at evening and beginning again the next morning. Neither could gain a final advantage for a long time. Jarasandha laughed at Bhima and treated the contest as a game, while Bhima kept searching for a way to finish it.

Jarasandha had been joined together at birth from two separate halves. Krishna understood that ordinary wrestling would not be enough. During the final struggle he gave Bhima a sign, showing how the king's body could be separated along the old seam. Bhima seized Jarasandha's ankles, planted his foot between the legs and tore him apart from the lower body upwards.

The death ended the match that Jarasandha had expected to control. Bhima left Magadha after defeating the king in the manner his joined birth made possible. The Puffin Mahabharata gives fourteen days, while Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time gives twenty-eight days. In both works, Jarasandha accepts the fight, the struggle outlasts ordinary endurance, Krishna reveals the weakness, and Bhima tears the king in two. The contest closes with Bhima standing over the defeated ruler and the long resistance finally broken.