Water sports

Mahabharata Adiparva Sambhavaparva section 130-131
Sri Sadgurbhyoh namah

Bhima possessed immense strength and prowess even as a child. He used to tease kauravas by pulling their hair, dragging them along ground, drowning them in water. He used to defeat all 100 kauravas single handedly. When the children of Gandhari climbed a tree to pluck fruits, Bhima used to kick the trunk of the tree with his foot, thus shaking the tree to such an extent that the kauravas used to fall with fruits. Bhima used to do these out of childishness , but not out of malice.

Duryodhana, became envious of Bhima, and he prepared to commit a sin of killing Bhima. He thought, "We hundred brothers cannot fight with a single pandava, i.e Bhima, if I get rid of him, I can deal with others easily". So, Duryodhana constructed a play house on the banks of river Ganga, near Pramanakoti. It is a water sports complex. All the kauravas and pandavas went there to enjoy water sports. The son of blind king, Duryodhana, with sweet words and malice in heart mixes a virulent poison in the food of Bhima. Bhima collapses. Then, Duryodhana ties up Bhima with chords and throws him in the river.

Bhima drowns in river, and reaches the land of serpents (nagaloka). Various snakes of deadly poison bite all over the body of Bhima. The vegetable poison given by Duryodhana gets neutralised by this snake poison and Bhima regains consciousness. He breaks open the fetters and seeing the snakes, he catches hold of them and presses them down. One of the snakes escape and report it to their King Vasuki. Vasuki comes there and sees Bhima. There is a snake named Aryaka, who is a relative to Kunti from her mothers side. Vasuki recognises Bhima as a relative and takes him to his home. Aryaka requests Vasuki to let Bhima drink the rasakunda (a vessel containing a drink that can give strength of a thousand elephants). Then Bhima is taken to the place where rasakunda is there, and he drinks 8 such vessels and lays down to rest. He gains strength equal to 10000 elephants. He sleeps for 8 days there and returns to Hastinapur.

Meanwhile Yudhishtir is worried about his younger brother and Kunti is worried about her son Bhima. After he returns they learn about the wicked deed of Duryodhana. Yudhistir tells his brothers, "From now on we have to be vigilant about duryodhana's plan, and let this wicked deed not be known in public."

Hari Om