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This painting is trying to tell us a story — a very specific one.

We are in ancient India, where you are the lucky recipient of a front-row seat to an archery contest devised by King Drupada, the ruler of the powerful Panchala kingdom in the northern part of the country.

People have gathered to compete for the hand of his daughter, Draupadi, who was traditionally described as one of the most beautiful women of the age, with eyes like lotus flowers and a fragrance you could smell for miles.

Our scene illustrates a SWAYAMVAR, which is “a practice where women could choose their husbands from a gathering of eligible suitors,” said Mallica Kumbera Landrus, the keeper of the Eastern art department for the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, where this painting is held. “She could simply have chosen her personal preference from the group, or the selection process could involve a public contest.”

The archery contest, one of strength and skill, is a well-traveled theme in art and storytelling. It’s often used to answer a simple question: Which man can prove himself worthy of this woman?

In some versions of Robin Hood, Robin Hood (in disguise) demonstrates his precision and skill by winning an archery contest and, eventually, the hand of Maid Marian.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus (in disguise) strings his bow and shoots an arrow through 12 ax heads lined up to win (back) Penelope (his wife).

Our contestants here must shoot this fish, revolving on that red stick high above the ground, through the eye:

The scene is festive. The band, in the bottom left corner, is ready to go.

The court is packed with kings and princes from far and wide to win Draupadi’s hand. Many tried to string the bow and hit the eye of the fish, but they failed.

“These are the losers,” said Joan Cummins, who oversees the extensive Asian art collection at the Brooklyn Museum.

As the kings and the princes look on to see how the next contestant will do, their servants behind them hold fans made of peacock feathers (called morchal), to swat away the flies and keep them cool in the heat.

At the center of our view, someone is about to succeed.

This is Arjuna. He’s not quite a god, but he’s not merely a man, either — his mother was a mortal and his father was king of the gods. He’s a skilled warrior and deep thinker. He’s painted blue, Ms. Kumbera Landrus said, because heroes and gods in Hindu stories are often painted like the “midnight sky.”

His bow is strung, ready to shoot his skinny arrow through the eye of the fish. (In other tellings, the contestants aren’t able to look up directly at the fish — only down at its reflection in water or oil.)

Even though we view only the moment before the shot, we know that Arjuna’s shot is true, and he wins the competition. We know because the view on the right is also Arjuna, moments after his victory. It was common in Hindu narrative paintings like this to show the same character twice.

There, his new bride is placing a ceremonial white garland around his neck.

Behind them are Arjuna’s brothers.

There is some deception behind this marriage: Arjuna and his brothers are in disguise, shirtless with their hair in buns, posing as members of the highest social class, the Brahmins.

Above the action below, the gods are happy, bestowing flowers and blessings on the union.

This story told in the painting is most likely thousands of years old. It’s from the Mahabharatathe great epic central to Hindu culture. Sometimes called the “longest poem ever written” (a stage production from 1985 ran nine hours long), it is a tale full of warring cousins — the Kauravas and the Paṇḍavas — with a plethora of subplots, gods, battles, philosophical and moral lessons. And lots of death, too.

The Mahabharata, with variations and retellings, has been likened to a mix of the Odyssey, the Bible, the stories of King Arthur and “War and Peace.”

It’s a sprawling story, and we’re used to seeing big paintings tell big stories. “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” more than 21 feet wide, tells the story of a turning point in the Revolutionary War. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo tells the story of the creation of man.

You might have thought this painting was big, too, based on its complex story and layered composition. But it’s actually only about 16 inches wide.

Paintings like this were made by groups of artists, sometimes family members. The artists built up layers of color, over and over, to get the rich tones we see here. They used brushes that could be as small as a single squirrel hair.

“This is a very fine painting,” said Laura Weinstein, a curator of South Asian art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. “It would have been made for a royal or elite patron and would have been accessible only to the family and close relations and friends who visited them.”

Like a graphic novel or a comic book, this image would have probably been just one in a series telling various parts of the epic tale.

“For those unable to read, the illustrations would have been wonderfully accessible,” Ms. Kumbera Landrus said.

The arrangement of people is straightforward. The “losers” (and their entourages) are on the left; the king and his entourage are on the right; Arjuna stands alone in the middle.

“Over and over again, what we might call naturalism is sacrificed for legibility,” Ms. Cummins said.

For example, though there are two moments depicted, it all takes place in one continuous space, set inside an angled palace courtyard where the perspective isn’t realistic. But it means you can see much more in one image. This perspective minimizes overlap in the faces — there are 116 — so we can see their expressions, hands, jewels, even beard hairs, clearly, despite this small space.

You could hold works like this in your hands, and get really close to inspect them.

“You would get your friends together, maybe have a little something to drink or smoke and look at paintings together,” Ms. Cummins said. “It was a nice way to pass an evening. You can look at these multiple times and still find new details that you didn’t see previously.”

The Mahabharata has been reinterpreted countless times — as recently as just last month, at Lincoln Center — and illustrated in varying styles.

In this scene from the early 1800s, here is Arjuna, doubled again, praying to the god Shiva (upper left) for a powerful weapon that he needs for battle.

Or herefrom 1850, portraying Arjuna’s first death (he dies twice), by his (spoiler alert) son, ironically by an arrow.

In his training as an archer, Arjuna excelled as a student.

One of his great skills was his ability to simply focus. As the story goes, his archery teacher asked various students, one by one, to look at a target and tell him what they saw. One saw the sky, others saw the tree branches and clouds, and some were distracted by other things that made it into their line of sight.

Arjuna replied that all he saw was the eye of the fish.

“The fish’s eye is used, or was used, as an idiom for maintaining your concentration,” Ms. Cummings said. “Focus on the business at hand. Don’t get distracted.”

This is an installment in our series of experiments on art and attention. If you liked this one, you may like these past exercises: a finished, unfinished portrait; a sudden rain over a bridge; a unicorn tapestry; some buckets from Home Depot; and a Whistler painting.

Sign up to be notified when new installments are published here. And let us know how this exercise made you feel in the comments.