Draupadi's cry is conveyed in Vyasa's verses of austere and forthright force. It pierces the heart of all that is heroic - an utterance of insulted feeling expressed in the language of intellect, in a thought.
Hear the cry of dishonoured Draupadi to her husband Bhima:
उत्तिष्ठोत्तिष्ठ किं शेषे भीमसेन यथा मृतः ।
नामृतस्य हि पापीयान्भार्यामालभ्य जीवति ॥
[The Mahabharata, Virataparva, 17.15.]
"Arise, arise, O Bhimasena, wherefore liest thou like one that is dead? For nought but dead is he whose wife a sinful hand has touched and lives."
''The whole personality of Draupadi is unleashed in that cry, her chastity, her pride, her passionate and unforgiving temper, but it flashes out not in an expression of pure feeling, but in a fiery and pregnant apophthegm''.*
It is said by the great yogi-poet Sri Aurobindo that this dynamic force of intellectualism, blended with heroic fire and a strong temperament was a characteristic of the epic personalities of central regions of India, and is what distinguishes Vyasa's writing from that of all other epic poets.*
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