After establishing Indraprastha Lord Krishna asked Arjun to go on a tour of Aryabrata (India) and make friendly alliances with the neighbouring kings and said marriage is the best alliance as it cant be broken. But he wanted all those to be done secretly.So Arjun intentionally broke the rule which was that, no brother is to break the privacy of the other brother when he was in the company of Draupadi, if they break the rule then that brother will have to go out of the kingdom for 12 years. Arjun broke the rule in pretext of helping a brahmin and went out of the kingdom.
During the first few days of his exile, while bathing in river ganga, the snake princess Ulupi saw him and was mesmerised by his looks and valour, so took him to naglok and asked him to marry him. Arjun said he being a human and Ulupi being a Nagkanya cannot marry, but Ulupi gave instances in which marriages had taken place between human and snakes, so he married her and stayed there for some days. A son was born of them.
Then he went on wandering to other places and at many places he got married to the daughters of tribe leaders. The tribe leaders were very powerful and they were delighted to have Arjun a Bharat Banshi (Successor of King Bharata) as their son-in-law. But he left his wives with the tribe promising to visit them time and again. There is no instance of him having any child with those wives.
In the 6th year of his exile, he went to Manipur. The princess of Manipur, Chitrangada was the only child of her parents. In Manipur there was a tradition of treating both male and female as equal. So Chitrangada was a fully trained warrior and used to think herself as a man in every aspect, except the fact that she had the body of a female. When she meet Arjun, a fight broke between them because of bad behaviour of chitrangada towards a old man who was of low caste. During the fight a part of chitrangada's cloth was torn which revealed that she was a female. Arjun scolded her that she doesnot have any character of a woman and is bad spot in the female world. Chitrangada went to her mother and asked what are the characters of a female and how can she become a female. Her mother after some explaining asked her to pray to Lord Shiva, Lord Shiva blessed her with woman emotions and as a result she fell in love with Arjun. Arjun who at that time was staying as a State guest in the kingdom of Manipur agreed to the alliance as he knew Manipur was situated to the east oF Indraprast and will secure their kingdom. Also additional advantage was that Arjun's child will be the future ruler of Manipur.
After staying there for nearly a year, he again went on wandering and marrying girls from powerful tribes till he reached Dwaraka almost during the completion of 10th year of his exile.
It was nearly rainy season when he reached Dwaraka, Arjun was slightly sick that time. There he meet Subhadra, sister of Krishna and Balaram. Subhadra took care of him unknown to the fact that he was arjun. Arjun there fell in love with Subhadra, but didnt say bcoz he didnt knew who she was. Arjun didnt knew Subhadra, neither Subhadra knew how Arjun looked. Subhadra helped him and went to her palace and arjun went to the palace to meet krishna. There both of them meet again and their love blossomed.
Balaram wanted Subhadra to get married to Duryadhan bcoz he liked him. But Krishna knowing Arjun and Subhadra's feelings towards eachother and himself wanting them to get married asked them to elope. Later the whole of yadav clan (Krishna's family) consented to their marriage and it was held in a grand manner. Since 12 years of his exile was not over, Arjun and Subhadra stayed at a palace made in the forest by Balaram outside Indraprastha for nearly a year before returning back to Indraprastha.
After marrying many women, he finally returned to Indraprastha with Subhadra who was his last wife at the end of 12 years.
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