Shakuni

In the Mahabharata, the later of the
two great Hindu epics, the maternal
uncle of Duryodhana, the epic’s
antagonist. Shakuni’s most famous
episode in the Mahabharata is as a
player in the game of dice against
Yudhishthira, the eldest of the five
Pandava brothers who are the epic’s
protagonists. The epic describes
Shakuni as the world’s best dice player,
whereas Yudhishthira is enthusiastic
but completely unskilled. As
Yudhishthira begins to lose, he keeps
betting bigger and bigger stakes in an
effort to win back what he has lost.
After losing his family’s kingdom and
all their possessions, Yudhishthira
wagers himself and his brothers, and
after losing this bet, he wagers and
loses their common wife, Draupadi.
As a result, Draupadi is paraded
through the assembly hall by
Shakuni’s nephews, Duryodhana and
Duhshasana, her clothes stained
with her menstrual blood, sharpening
the already strong enmities between
these two groups. Shocked at such
treatment, Duryodhana’s father, King
Dhrtarashtra, gives the Pandavas
back their freedom. Then, because of a
loss in a subsequent game of dice, the
Pandavas agree to go into exile for
twelve years and live incognito for the
thirteenth, with the condition that, if
they are discovered in the thirteenth
year, the cycle will begin anew. In the
ensuing Mahabharata war Shakuni
fights on the side of his nephew and is
eventually killed by the fourth
Pandava brother, Sahadeva.