the high reputation of the Kuru royal family. Shakuni accompanied his sister to Hastinapura, the capital of the Kurus. After the marriage, Shakuni returned to Gandhara. Hatred for the Kurus? Much later, in some post-Mahabharata literature and in retelling stories and novels, Shakuni was portrayed as a victim, who sought revenge on the Kurus. Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik speculated that these narratives were created to remind us all not to judge people without learning of their story. According to him, A legend in the eighth century Jain text the Harivamsa Purana says that at Gandhari's birth astrologers predicted that her husband would have a short life. Fearing this, Subala and his sons get Gandhari "married" to a goat prior to her marriage to Dhritarashtra, and sacrificed the goat in order to nullify the defect. After Gandhari's marriage, Bhishma discovers this and becomes enraged at Subala for letting a "widow" become a bride of his family and decides to punish Subala and his family. Subala and his sons are captured and put in prison. Only one grain of rice is given to each captive. Knowing that Shakuni is the wisest among them and most able to take revenge, the prisoners give all their food to Shakuni so that he can survive. Eventually, Subala and his other sons die, while Shakuni survives and is released. This story is not found in the original Mahabharata and is strongly reminiscent of a similar tale told about the fall of the Nanda dynasty in the Kathāsaritsāgara. Yet another tale says that Bhishma imprisoned Shakuni's family as they refused to give Gandhari in marriage to the blind Dhritarashtra. Some other narratives replace Bhishma with Duryodhana as the one who captured and killed Subala and his other sons. In another story, Shakuni plotted against the Kurus because he was unhappy with the marriage of his beloved sister to a blind person, which he thought an insult to his family. In all of these stories, Shakuni swears to avenge this by slowly destroying Hastinapura. He achieves this by poisoning the mind of his volatile nephew Duryodhana into instigating the war with the Pandavas, which destroyed the Kuru line. Some versions of the story describe Shakuni using the bones of his dead family members to create dice that will never lose in a game, as Shakuni's father's soul enters the dice to make it roll to whatever number Shakuni wanted.