Who is Bhima?

The son of the wind

Bhima was the second Pandava, son of Kunti and the wind god Vayu. Even as a baby he was so heavy that when he fell from his mother’s lap, the rock beneath him shattered. He grew into the strongest man of his age, with an appetite to match. One of his names, Vrikodara, means "wolf-belly."

The one Duryodhana feared

As boys, Bhima teased his cousins without mercy, and Duryodhana never forgot it. He poisoned Bhima and threw him into the river. Bhima sank to the world of the serpents, where the poison was cancelled and he was given a drink that made him even stronger.

Bhima is the Pandavas’ protector. He carried his family out of the burning house of lac. In the forest he defeated demons, married Hidimbi and became father of Ghatotkacha, and met his elder brother by the same father, Hanuman. In disguise as a palace cook he killed Kichaka, who had tormented Draupadi.

The vows

When Draupadi was dragged into the dice hall, Bhima swore two terrible oaths: that he would drink the blood of Dushasana, who dragged her, and that he would break the thigh of Duryodhana, who insulted her.

How Bhima’s story ends (spoilers)

He kept both vows. In the war Bhima killed every one of Duryodhana’s hundred brothers, and on the last day he broke Duryodhana’s thigh in a duel with maces. Years later, on the final walk to the Himalayas, he was the last of the brothers to fall before Yudhishthira.