The Yaksha's Questions

Late in their forest exile, the Pandavas were desperate for water. Nakula went ahead to a lake and did not return. Sahadeva followed him, then Arjuna, then Bhima. None came back.

Yudhishthira found all four lying dead by the water, without a wound on them. As he bent to drink, a voice came from the lake: This water is mine. Answer my questions first. Your brothers did not — and you can see what became of them.

Yudhishthira straightened up and said, "Ask."

What follows is one of the most quoted passages in the Mahabharata — the Yaksha Prashna. A few of them:

"What is heavier than the earth?" — A mother.

"What is higher than the sky?" — A father.

"What is faster than the wind?" — The mind.

"What is the greatest wonder in the world?" — Day after day, countless beings go to the house of death. Yet those who remain live as though they will live forever. Nothing is more astonishing than this.

"What is the path?" — Not argument, not scripture alone, not the opinion of any single sage; the path is the one the great have walked.

"Who is truly happy?" — The one who is not in debt and not in exile, who at the end of the day cooks a simple meal in his own house.

Satisfied, the Yaksha said: "You have answered everything. I will restore one of your brothers. Choose."

Yudhishthira said, "Nakula."

The Yaksha was surprised. Bhima's strength and Arjuna's bow were what the Pandavas needed to survive; Nakula was neither. Why him?

"My father had two wives," Yudhishthira said. "Kunti's son stands before you — I am alive. If only one more may live, let it be a son of Madri. That is what fairness requires of me, not what advantage requires."

At that the Yaksha revealed himself as Dharma, Yudhishthira's own divine father, and restored all four brothers.

Why it endures: the test was never about knowledge. Every answer he gave could have been recited by a scholar. The last one — choosing the brother who was least useful to him — is the only one that could not be faked.