01Dvapara in human form
Shakuni was the son of King Subala of Gandhara and the brother of Gandhari. When the Adi Parva lists which devas and asuras came down as which men, it says that Shakuni was Dvapara, the spirit of the third age, born on earth. He brought his sister to Hastinapura for her wedding and in time made his home there, at Duryodhana’s side.
02The dice
Duryodhana came home from the Rajasuya sick with envy and talked of war. Shakuni told him there was an easier way: Yudhishthira loved dice and played badly, and no one in the three worlds could beat Shakuni at them. Let me play for you, he said. At the game he threw for Duryodhana, and after every stake the text repeats the same few words: “Won!” said Shakuni to Yudhishthira. It was he who suggested Yudhishthira stake Draupadi, and he who won the second game that sent the Pandavas to the forest.
03To the end
Before the war he sent his son Uluka to the Pandava camp with Duryodhana’s taunts. He fought through the eighteen days with his Gandhara cavalry. On the last day, after Shalya fell and the Kaurava army was breaking, Sahadeva killed Uluka before his eyes and then took Shakuni’s head with a broad arrow. The popular katha that Shakuni had sworn to destroy the Kurus because Duryodhana had starved his family in prison, and that his dice were carved from his father’s bones, is not in the Mahabharata at all; it grew up in later retellings.