How great the Pandavas were! In exile in the forest great saints and sages would visit them to give them hope and encouragement that their trials and tribulations would come to an end in due time.
Even Lord Krishna and Lord Balarama came to visit them. Seeing Maharaja Yudhisthira and his brothers living so austerely while Duryodhana is living it up in the kingdom he stole from them, Balarama bemoans how this can be. Krishna declares the goal of destroying their enemies will be achieved but only in due course of time.
Bhima the next oldest Pandava is finding it extremely difficult to be patient. He many suggestion how to leave the forest and kill Duryodhana. One of his suggestions is that in order to keep their word to remain in exile they could just go and kill Duryodhana and give the kingdom to Abhimanyu, Arjuna's son, and then return to exile until the thirteen years were through.
In making another suggestion it is interesting to note that Bhima cites a section of the Vedas, the Atharva Veda, that describes compressing time. Hmmm,. Physicists are very interested in such tings. Maybe they should research this section of the Vedas. Bhima's idea is to use that section of the Vedas and compress the thirteen years to thirteen days .
After Krishna and Balarama leave, Srila Vyasadeva, the compiler of Mahabharata himself appears. He also reinforces the plan to wait until the thirteen years is through. And then killing their enemies.
The sage, Brihadaswa, comes to their camp and relates the life of King Nala who also lost his kingdom in a dice game. Unfortunately King Nala did not do well in exile. He became overwhelmed by the influence of darkness and ignorance. He wandered in madness. Eventually though he did recuperate and did become successful. The sage related the story to assure Maharaja Yudhisthira that it could always be worse. He might not have the support of family members and the sages.
Just picture it. These people are royalty. Great powerful warriors. There they are in the forest wearing "the bark of trees." No armies, no big seats in the assembly hall, no myriads of servants catering to their every need, no satin bed sheets.
Click on the video for the audio book:
Link to the text:
http://www.krishnapath.org/Library/Mahabharata/Mahabharata-retold_by_C.Rajagopalachari.pdf