Dhrishtadyumna

A son called out of the fire

Dhrishtadyumna's story begins with a broken friendship. Drona and Drupada had studied together as boys, and when Drona, poor and hungry, came to claim the half of the kingdom Drupada had once promised him, the king laughed at him. Drona later made his princely pupils capture Drupada and took half of Panchala from him.

Drupada wanted a son who could kill Drona. He found two Brahmin brothers, Yaja and Upayaja, willing to perform the sacrifice, and at Kampilya a young man stepped out of the flames in golden armour, with sword and bow, while a voice from the sky announced that he was born to destroy Drona. His sister Draupadi rose from the same fire after him.

The pupil of his enemy

Drona knew the prophecy and still took Dhrishtadyumna into his house and taught him the whole science of arms, holding that fate could not be avoided and that a teacher does not turn a student away. The prince learned the bow and the arrays from the man he was made to kill.

At Draupadi's swayamvara he led his sister into the arena and announced the test of the bow. When a young Brahmin won her and walked away to a potter's house, Drupada sent his son to follow. Dhrishtadyumna watched the five strangers talk of weapons and armies and reported that they were warriors, which led Drupada to the Pandavas.

Commander of seven armies

At Upaplavya the Pandavas gathered seven akshauhinis and named seven leaders, Dhrishtadyumna among them. Arjuna argued that he alone could withstand Bhishma's arrows, and Krishna named him supreme commander over older kings, including his own father.

Each morning he read the Kaurava array and set the Pandava formation against it. He faced Drona again and again and was driven back each time. On the fifteenth day, after Drona had killed Drupada, the Pandavas spread the report that Ashwatthama was dead. Drona laid down his weapons and sat in meditation in his chariot, and Dhrishtadyumna climbed onto it and cut off his head while Arjuna shouted for him to take the old man alive.

Arjuna and Satyaki condemned the act, and Satyaki nearly came to blows with him until Bhima held him back. Dhrishtadyumna did not apologise. He listed the wrongs Drona had done as a Brahmin who lived by weapons and said the teacher had been killed by the same kind of deceit he had used.

The night raid

When the war ended, the Pandavas spent the night away from the camp with Krishna, and Dhrishtadyumna slept among the Panchalas. Ashwatthama entered the camp in the dark, found him in his bed, and killed him with his hands and feet, refusing him the warrior's death by a weapon that he begged for. Draupadi's sons and Shikhandi died the same night, and Draupadi fasted until the gem was taken from Ashwatthama's head.

Born for one purpose

Dhrishtadyumna was a capable general who held a coalition of proud kings to one plan for eighteen days. Yet the epic presents him chiefly as an instrument: made for a single deed, he did it, and the killing of a disarmed teacher drew down the revenge that ended his own life.