Adi Parva, the Book of the Beginning, lays the groundwork for the entire eighteen-book epic, opening with the wider mythic and dynastic history of the lunar Kuru line before narrowing onto the generation whose rivalry will consume the rest of the story: the five Pandava brothers, sons of Pandu, and their hundred Kaurava cousins, sons of the blind king Dhritarashtra, raised together and trained by the same teachers, Bhishma the grand-uncle and Drona the martial instructor, yet marked from childhood by Duryodhana's consuming jealousy of his cousins' superior skill and popularity.
The book narrates Arjuna's decisive archery at a tournament, the Pandavas' escape from a murder attempt in a house built of flammable lac, and their eventual joint marriage to Draupadi, won by Arjuna at her svayamvara archery contest and then shared among all five brothers at their mother Kunti's instruction, an arrangement the text treats as unusual even within its own world and explains through several layered mythic justifications. By its close, the two branches of the family have been forced into an uneasy division of the kingdom, the Pandavas granted the wilderness territory they transform into the magnificent city of Indraprastha, setting up the wealth and status that will make Duryodhana's envy, and the eventual war, unavoidable.