King Dhritarashtra

Born blind, passed over

When Vichitravirya died without heirs, his mother Satyavati called her son Vyasa to father children on the widowed queens. Ambika shut her eyes in fear of the sage, and so her son was born blind. He grew up with the strength, it was said, of ten thousand elephants, but blindness barred him from the throne and his younger brother Pandu was crowned. Bhishma married him to Gandhari of Gandhara. When Pandu withdrew to the forest and died there, the kingdom came to Dhritarashtra after all.

At the birth of his eldest, Duryodhana, jackals howled, and Vidura and the priests told him to abandon the child. He refused. He also had a son, Yuyutsu, by a maidservant.

The indulgent father

Pressed by the citizens, he named Yudhishthira heir apparent. Then, at Duryodhana's urging, he sent the Pandavas to Varanavata, where the house of lac was waiting. He split the kingdom rather than choose between his son and his nephews. When Duryodhana wanted the dice game, Dhritarashtra built the hall, ignored Vidura and sent him with the invitation.

Only when Draupadi had been dragged into the hall and omens howled around the palace did he step in. He granted her boons that freed her husbands, then allowed the second game that exiled them. Through the exile he lay awake counting the Pandavas' strength and knew his sons could not win. On the eve of war he listened to Vidura all night, and still refused Krishna's peace.

The war told to a blind man

Vyasa offered him sight to watch the battle. He refused it, and the sage gave divine vision to his charioteer Sanjaya instead, who described every day of the war to him. When it was over he asked to embrace Bhima, who had killed his sons. Krishna had an iron statue of Bhima brought forward, and the old king crushed it in his arms before he broke down weeping.

Fifteen years and the forest fire

Yudhishthira kept him in honour for fifteen years, while Bhima taunted him within earshot. At last he asked leave to retire, gave great gifts in the names of the dead, and walked out of Hastinapura with Gandhari, Kunti, Vidura and Sanjaya. At the hermitage on the Ganga, Vyasa let him see his sons for one night when the dead rose from the river. He died in a forest fire, sitting still in meditation with the two queens beside him.

Blind in two ways

Readers argue over whether he was weak or complicit. His blindness of the eyes excused nothing, because the epic lets him see the consequences clearly and choose his son anyway.