Mahabharat Katha: Before the Mahabharat war, there was a game of Chaucer between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, which changed the direction of history. In this game, due to Shakuni uncle’s tricks and devious plans, Pandavas lost their kingdom, clothes and even themselves at stake.
Not only this, the most tragic and condemnable incident that happened after this game was the insult of Draupadi, when she was dragged in front of the gathering. But in that dreadful moment, Lord Shri Krishna saved Draupadi’s honor and showed the whole world that whenever religion is in trouble, he himself comes down. Among these incidents, there is a less famous but very interesting incident, a time when Shri Krishna himself played backgammon with Shakuni. Very few people know this story but there is a deep message of strategy, intelligence and religion hidden in it. According to the Mahabharata, when the Kurukshetra war was in its mid-stage, the Kauravas realized that mighty warriors were dying one after the other and the war was going in favor of the Pandavas. At the same time, Angraj Karna was also killed by Arjun. In such a situation, the Kauravas had no powerful warriors left. Then Shakuni devised a trick and called Shri Krishna to play backgammon in his camp at sunset after the war was over. Shri Krishna knew what was going on in Shakuni’s mind but still he went when he was called. Shakuni put a condition before Shri Krishna that he should play a game of backgammon with Shakuni.
According to the condition, if Shakuni had won then the war would have ended there without fighting further due to which the lives of Shakuni, Duryodhana and other remaining Kauravas would have been saved and the Pandavas would have been given back their kingdom and if Shri Krishna had won in Chausar then the war would have continued and the end of the Kauravas by the Pandavas was acceptable to Shakuni and Duryodhana. The game started but only Shakuni kept making the move because whenever it was Shri Krishna’s turn, he left his turn and asked Shakuni to make the next move. When the game of backgammon was at its final stage, Shakuni insisted Shri Krishna to play backgammon and make one last move and then a leela took place. As soon as Shri Krishna took the dice of Chaucer in his hands, the dice shattered into ashes. Shakuni got scared after seeing this and asked Shri Krishna about its meaning. Then Shri Krishna replied to Shakuni that these dice filled with negativity turned to ashes just by the touch of Krishna, if Shri Krishna had played in place of Yudhishthir then there would have been no war.
Shri Krishna told Shakuni that only to end the injustice of the Kauravas, Shri Krishna neither stopped Yudhishthir and other Pandavas from playing Chaucer nor did he himself come to play in place of Yudhishthir. The essence says that Shri Krishna never played backgammon with Shakuni, but he definitely went to Shakuni to show him his leela.