Guru (guru)

A guru is a teacher, and in the Mahabharata the relationship is treated as heavier than kinship, which is precisely why the epic keeps breaking it. Drona teaches both sets of cousins and dies at the hands of his own students, Kripa survives to see everything he taught turned to slaughter, and Parashurama curses the best pupil he ever had for lying about his birth. Against these the epic sets Dhaumya, Sandipani and the anonymous teachers of the Paushya stories, whose students dam a field with their bodies or eat poison leaves rather than disobey.