Dhṛtarāshṭra, the Blind King of Hastināpura

Dhṛtarāshṭra was the blind king of Hastināpura. He was the father of Duryodhana and the hundred Kauravas. He was the elder brother of Pāṇḍu and the uncle of the five Pāṇḍavas.

He was born blind because his mother Ambikā shut her eyes in fear during niyoga (a union arranged to continue the family line) with the ṛshi Vyāsa. Although he was the eldest, Pāṇḍu was made king in his place. He married Gāndhārī, who bound her own eyes for the rest of her life. When Pāṇḍu went to live in the forest, Dhṛtarāshṭra took over the rule. His love for his eldest son Duryodhana again and again overcame his sense of dharma. This led to the destruction of the Kaurava line.

In the first skanda of the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, he appears in his last days. Vidura advises him to give up the world. He leaves in silence with Gāndhārī and Vidura for the Himālaya and reaches moksha (liberation) through yoga at the āśrama of Saptasrotas. The Mahābhārata gives a longer account of his last years in the Āśramavāsika Parva.

A different Dhṛtarāshṭra, a gandharva, appears briefly in the Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 10, as a messenger whom Indra sends to King Marutta. The two share only a name. Another page covers that gandharva.

Birth

Dhṛtarāshṭra was born from the union of the ṛshi Vyāsa and Ambikā. Ambikā was the first widow of Vicitravīrya. Satyavatī arranged the union through niyoga, so that the Pūru line would continue.

When Vyāsa came before Ambikā, his fierce look overwhelmed her. She saw his dark form, his blazing tapas (austerity) energy and his matted hair, and she closed her eyes completely. She kept them closed through the whole meeting. For this reason the son born to her was without sight. His blindness was not a disease. It followed directly from his mother’s closed eyes at the time of his conception.

Marriage to Gāndhārī

Dhṛtarāshṭra married Gāndhārī, the daughter of Subala, king of Gāndhāra, and the sister of Śakuni. When she learned that her husband was blind, she made a firm choice that could not be undone. She tied a strip of cloth over her own eyes and never took it off for the rest of her life. She chose to share her husband’s limit, as an act of full loyalty and dharma. The tapas gathered through her lifelong chosen blindness gave her great power.

Gāndhārī bore Dhṛtarāshṭra one hundred sons, the Kauravas, and one daughter, Duśśalā. The eldest of the hundred sons was Duryodhana, born on the same day as Bhīmasena.

As king

Pāṇḍu had been made king because of Dhṛtarāshṭra’s blindness. When Pāṇḍu went to the forest after the śāpa (curse) of Kiṃdama, Dhṛtarāshṭra took over the real rule of Hastināpura. Bhīshma, the great protector of the Kuru line, and Vidura helped him throughout. Vidura’s advice was always wise and in keeping with dharma. Dhṛtarāshṭra understood the principles of dharma and the ruling of a kingdom. But his attachment to his sons again and again kept him from acting on what he knew was right.

The Kaṇika episode

As the Pāṇḍavas grew up, they surpassed his own sons in learning, strength, archery and personal virtue. Dhṛtarāshṭra could no longer sleep at night. He could not bear to see Yudhishṭhira crowned yuvarāja (crown prince), which public pressure and Bhīshma’s insistence forced him to do. He could not bear to see the campaigns of Arjuna. He could not bear to see Bhīmasena train with Balarāma.

He called Kaṇika, the finest political mind among his ministers, and asked him whether to seek peace with the Pāṇḍavas or to make war. Kaṇika gave a cold discourse on rājanīti (the art of rule), now known as the Kaṇika Vākya. He advised removing enemies by the four upāyas (means of policy), keeping one’s aims fully secret, and using spies everywhere. The discourse gave Dhṛtarāshṭra a plan of action, but not peace. As the Sambhava Parva ended, he sat alone and brooding. The seeds of every later Kaurava act of aggression began in this moment.

Sabhā Parva: the dice game

Vidura’s warnings

Vidura warned Dhṛtarāshṭra against the dice game before it began. He said plainly that Śakuni’s dice were crooked, that the game would destroy the Kuru line, that Duryodhana was like a vulture circling over the family’s future, and that the Pāṇḍavas should not be invited in such a way. Dhṛtarāshṭra heard all this and still allowed the game. His strongest wish was to see Duryodhana succeed and the Pāṇḍavas lessened, and it overcame all of Vidura’s advice. His invitation to Yudhishṭhira set the whole chain of events in motion.

The dice game and the omens

Dhṛtarāshṭra sat in the assembly while the game was played, and Draupadī was staked and lost. He did not step in when Duḥśāsana dragged Draupadī into the hall. He did not step in during the vastraharaṇa (the pulling at her cloth). But right after it, terrible omens appeared. Jackals howled with fire in their mouths. Asses brayed harshly in the horse stalls. Birds cried out in ill-omened ways. Dhṛtarāshṭra was seized with fear.

He called Draupadī before him and offered her varas (boons). She asked that Yudhishṭhira and her four other husbands be freed, with their chariots and weapons. She refused a third vara. Dhṛtarāshṭra declared the dice game null and void and gave back all that had been lost. He did this out of fear of the omens and fear of what the Pāṇḍavas might do in revenge.

The second dice game

After the Pāṇḍavas had gone back to Indraprastha, Duryodhana pressed his father a second time. Gāndhārī spoke against it. In Dhṛtarāshṭra’s presence she recalled all the birth omens that had warned of Duryodhana’s destructive nature. Bhīshma, Droṇa, Kṛpa, Vidura, Somadatta, Bāhlīka, Vikarṇa and Yuyutsu also opposed it. Dhṛtarāshṭra still gave way to Duryodhana’s demand and allowed the Anudyūta, the second game. It ended in the thirteen-year exile of the Pāṇḍavas. Every elder who could have stopped it spoke, and Dhṛtarāshṭra overruled them all.

Grief at the Pāṇḍavas’ departure

When the Pāṇḍavas left for the forest, Sañjaya described the scene to Dhṛtarāshṭra in exact detail. He told how each Pāṇḍava walked and how each showed his pain and his resolve.

Bhīma stretched out his strong arms toward the Kaurava side.
Arjuna scattered sand toward his enemies.
Nakula covered his face, so that his gaze in anger would not turn anyone to ash.
Sahadeva covered his face with dust in fury.
Draupadī walked weeping with her hair loose. Every woman of Hastināpura wept for her and cursed Dhṛtarāshṭra.

Dhṛtarāshṭra asked Sañjaya what he was thinking at that moment. Sañjaya answered:

“O King, at the Rājasūya you chose not to see when you could have, and now you have brought about what you were afraid of. You had a choice, and you made it with your eyes closed.”

Strī Parva: grief, the iron statue, and meeting the Pāṇḍavas

After the eighteen-day war, all his hundred sons were dead. Gāndhārī had lost every child. The Kuru line passed wholly to the Pāṇḍavas. In Chapter 1 of the Strī Parva, Dhṛtarāshṭra is at Hastināpura in deep grief. He prepared to strike his own body against a pillar. Sañjaya, always at his side, held him back by force and spoke with great care. He said that Dhṛtarāshṭra’s sons had lived as kshatriyas and died as kshatriyas, and that this was no cause for such grief.

Vidura then took up the long work of comfort in Chapters 2–10. He taught Dhṛtarāshṭra through discourses on karma, on how nothing lasts, on the Man in the Forest allegory, on the nature of saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death), and on the path of calm. Vyāsa came in Chapter 8 and told the Bhūdevī-Kali Upākhyāna. He explained that Duryodhana was an aṃśa (part) of Kali and that the war was needed to lift the burden of the earth. This was told to comfort Dhṛtarāshṭra, by making clear that the destruction was a divinely willed event and not only a human failure.

The most dramatic episode of the Strī Parva that concerns Dhṛtarāshṭra is the iron statue, in Chapter 12. The Pāṇḍavas came to Hastināpura to pay their respects, and Bhīmasena was among them. He was the man who had killed Duryodhana, whom Dhṛtarāshṭra loved above all others. Kṛshṇa saw the danger ahead. He quietly moved Bhīma away from Dhṛtarāshṭra and put an iron statue of Bhīma in the king’s arms instead. Dhṛtarāshṭra held the statue with all the grief and fury of a man who had lost a hundred sons, and crushed it to powder. When he found his arms empty and heard no sound from Bhīma, he thought he had killed Bhīma, and he wept with new sorrow. Kṛshṇa then told him the truth. The statue was iron and Bhīma was unharmed. Dhṛtarāshṭra was overcome with relief. Kṛshṇa rebuked him gently, and he admitted that his old anger had overtaken him. After that he embraced each Pāṇḍava with real love.

Udyoga Parva: Dhṛtarāshṭra and Kṛshṇa’s embassy

The stotra and the 21 names (Chapters 70–71)

In the Yānasandhi Parva, Dhṛtarāshṭra recites the 21 divine names of Kṛshṇa and offers a stotra (hymn of praise). He knows Kṛshṇa’s true divine identity and honours it in prayer. Yet he does not act to restrain Duryodhana.

Preparations for Kṛshṇa’s arrival (Chapters 85–86)

When Kṛshṇa came as the Pāṇḍavas’ envoy, Dhṛtarāshṭra made grand preparations. He ordered sixteen chariots, eight war elephants, a hundred dāsīs (maidservants) and rich gifts, to receive Kṛshṇa with honour. Vidura urged restraint. He warned that Kṛshṇa could not be won by show of wealth and that the king was missing the point of the embassy.

Kṛshṇa’s great speech (Chapter 95)

In the assembly hall, Kṛshṇa spoke to Dhṛtarāshṭra as a father who still held authority over his son. He set out the Pāṇḍavas’ claim in dharma and the certain destruction of the Kauravas if war went on, and he offered the smallest terms. Dhṛtarāshṭra was visibly moved and admitted that what was said was true, but he could not bring himself to act on it. When Duryodhana rose, refused the terms and walked out, Dhṛtarāshṭra did not stop him.

Vana Parva: Vyāsa’s counsel

In the Vana Parva, Vyāsa visited Dhṛtarāshṭra. He advised him through the Surabhi Upākhyāna and by other means. He tried to wake the king’s conscience about the suffering the Pāṇḍavas were bearing because of Duryodhana’s adharma. The great ṛshi Maitreya also came to Dhṛtarāshṭra’s court and urged peace. Despite these efforts, Dhṛtarāshṭra’s attachment to his son proved stronger than his sense of dharma.

Bhīshma Parva

The Bhūmi Parva conversation

In the Bhīshma Parva, Dhṛtarāshṭra and Sañjaya are at the centre of the epic’s greatest description of the world. Vyāsa gave Sañjaya divine sight, and the war was about to begin. Dhṛtarāshṭra then asked the questions that bring out the Sudarśana Dvīpa and Bhūmi Parva description. He asked Sañjaya about the nature of the earth, the lands the warriors had come from, and how the world is made up. Sañjaya, with the vara of Vyāsa, gave a full survey of the world. It covers Meru, the varshas (great regions), Uttara Kuru, the rivers of Bhārata, the yugas and the seven dvīpas (continents). Throughout, Dhṛtarāshṭra asks exact and well-formed questions. He shows real intelligence and curiosity, though his intelligence never overcame his fatal attachment.

His question before the war was also a moral one: “Tell me the signs of those who will certainly win in battle.” Vyāsa answered with the signs of victory and, by their opposites, the signs of coming death. The signs of victory are clear fire, flames rising to the right, pure scents, good-omened birds turning clockwise, and cheerful faces.

The lament for Bhīshma

The Bhīshma Parva opens with a sudden turn. Sañjaya comes to Hastināpura and announces that Bhīshma has fallen. Dhṛtarāshṭra answers with a long lament, one of the longest in the parva. He praises Bhīshma’s great qualities: his brahmacarya (celibacy) and the tapas energy it gathered, his strength that no one could beat in battle, his vows, and his clear sense of right. He wonders that such a man could fall.

In the same place Dhṛtarāshṭra admits that the Pāṇḍava side had always been the more righteous one. He knows which side dharma is on, and he knows that Kṛshṇa’s side means victory. He says so openly.

Aśvamedhika Parva: counsel to the fallen Yudhishṭhira (Chapter 1)

At the start of the Aśvamedhika Parva, after the udaka-kriyā (water offering) at the Gaṅgā, Dhṛtarāshṭra was the first to speak to the fallen, grieving Yudhishṭhira. He urged him to rise and take up his rājadharma (a king’s duty), and to enjoy with his brothers the earth won by kshatriya-dharma. He said that he and Gāndhārī were the ones with true cause to grieve, since they had lost all hundred sons “like wealth found in a dream”. In the same speech he said that he himself had not listened to Vidura’s good advice, and that the whole family had perished through Duryodhana’s dosha (fault). Another page tells this whole episode.

The Bhāgavata account of his last years

Life at Hastināpura after the war

After the Kurukshetra war, Dhṛtarāshṭra stayed at Hastināpura under the care and rule of Yudhishṭhira. He was broken by grief. All his hundred sons had died, Gāndhārī had lost every child, and the Kuru line had passed wholly to the Pāṇḍavas. Yudhishṭhira served him with full respect and a son’s devotion, but Dhṛtarāshṭra’s inner life was empty. For fifteen years he stayed in the palace, well cared for, and carried the weight of all his failures as a father and as a king. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 13, tells this.

Vidura’s counsel

Vidura came back from his long tīrtha-yātrā (pilgrimage), having received knowledge of the Self (ātmajñāna) from Maitreya Maharshi. He came to Hastināpura and sought out Dhṛtarāshṭra. He spoke with the clarity of one who has seen through the illusion of worldly identity. He addressed his elder brother with sharp care:

“O King, arise! Arise and depart from here without delay. There is terrible fear ahead. Already Kāla (Time) is at your door. Look, the body you have protected is falling apart before you. Your senses are failing. Your hearing dims, your digestion weakens, your teeth loosen, and the eyes that were never useful to you even in sight have now grown clouded within. You have lived here enjoying the hospitality of the very men whose fathers you wronged. How much longer will you sit eating their food in the house of your enemies? Even the dogs at whose feet you fed, do they not deserve better than one who eats and gives nothing? Renounce now, while your mind still has force. Go to the forest.”

Vidura described the road ahead. He told of crossing the rivers of the north, reaching the Himālaya, entering the groves of tapas, slowly giving up all action, drawing in the senses, and fixing the mind on the Self. He urged Dhṛtarāshṭra to take Gāndhārī with him.

The silent departure

Dhṛtarāshṭra heard Vidura’s words in the dark of early morning and made up his mind. He did not wake the household and did not say goodbye to Yudhishṭhira or the others. He rose, took Gāndhārī’s hand and left, with Vidura leading the way. They walked north toward the forest.

Yudhishṭhira came back from his morning prayers and found them gone. He was in deep distress. He feared that the aged blind king, bitter, shamed and living on others’ charity, might have gone to drown himself in the Gaṅgā. Nārada came and comforted him. He explained that Dhṛtarāshṭra had taken the righteous path of forest renunciation and had gone to an āśrama in the northern Himālaya, on the bank of the Gaṅgā near Saptasrotas.

Moksha at Saptasrotas

At the āśrama near Saptasrotas, Dhṛtarāshṭra put himself wholly under Vidura’s guidance. He took up prāṇāyāma (breath control) and deep meditation, and slowly drew his mind away from outer things. His body grew thin through fasting and tapas. In time, by long prāṇāyāma, he drew the inner fire upward through his body. By this practice a yogin knowingly lights the elements of the body in their right order, rising from the gross to the subtle. Dhṛtarāshṭra’s body was burned up in this fire of yoga, and his jīva (the living self) merged into Brahman.

Gāndhārī had stayed faithfully with him through every misfortune: marriage to a blind man, the death of all her children, and years of grief. She now performed anugamana, following her husband in death. She entered the same fire of yoga that had burned him and followed him into liberation. Vidura saw both events. Nārada then carried the news to Yudhishṭhira, so that the Pāṇḍavas could perform the proper rites and be at peace. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15, tells this.

The Mahābhārata account: the Āśramavāsika Parva

The Mahābhārata’s own Āśramavāsika Parva gives a longer and different account of Dhṛtarāshṭra’s last years and his departure. In it Dhṛtarāshṭra leaves openly, after talks with Yudhishṭhira over several days. It has a formal yajña and a great procession, Kuntī goes with him into the forest life, and the end foretold for him is very different from that in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa.

Fifteen years at Hastināpura (Chapters 1–2)

For fifteen years after the Pāṇḍavas came to the throne, Dhṛtarāshṭra lived at Hastināpura, still honoured as a king. Yudhishṭhira and his brothers came to him every day for his blessing and gave way to him in everything. They gave him the same rich beds, clothes, meats and delicacies he had known as ruler. Vidura, Sañjaya and Yuyutsu served him all the time. Kṛpācārya stayed near him. Vyāsa himself sat with him and told him the histories of the devas, the pitṛs (forefathers) and the rākshasas.

Gāndhārī kept the same austerities as her husband. She slept on the ground, wore deerskin and kept to japa (quiet repetition of a mantra). Again and again she paid the debt of śrāddha (offerings for the dead) to their dead sons through gifts to brāhmaṇas.

Only Bhīma could not fully put aside the memory of the dice game. Outwardly he gave way to Yudhishṭhira like his brothers, but in his heart he stayed turned against Dhṛtarāshṭra. Out of the court’s hearing he would recall the cruelties of Duryodhana and Duḥśāsana aloud. He took pride in having sent the “sons of the blind king” to the world of the dead. Dhṛtarāshṭra learned of this and grieved, but Yudhishṭhira’s household gave him no other cause for sorrow.

Nirveda and the decision to renounce (Chapter 3)

In the fifteenth year Dhṛtarāshṭra gathered his household. In tears he confessed that the ruin of the Kuru line lay wholly at his own door. He had crowned the “evil-minded” Duryodhana against every warning. The warnings came from Vidura, Bhīshma, Droṇa, Kṛpācārya, Vyāsa, Sañjaya and Gāndhārī herself. He had also refused Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa’s advice to bind Duryodhana and his ministers before war became certain.

He asked Yudhishṭhira’s leave to go to the forest with Gāndhārī, in bark garments, and to live out his life in tapas on whatever came to hand. This was the old custom of their family once a king had settled the kingdom on his sons. Yudhishṭhira was overcome and at first refused. He called himself the cause of his elder’s suffering. Dhṛtarāshṭra was worn out by days of pleading and by an eight-day fast, and he fainted into Gāndhārī’s lap. Yudhishṭhira woke him with water and asked only that he first take food before anything else was decided.

Vyāsa’s sanction (Chapter 4)

Vyāsa then came himself and told Yudhishṭhira not to stand in the way of his grandfather’s wish. An aged king who had lost his sons should not be made to die of grief at home, when the forest life of the rājarshis (royal ṛshis) was open to him. Yudhishṭhira gave way at once. Dhṛtarāshṭra was reassured that Yudhishṭhira held no anger against him or Gāndhārī, and that his own hundred sons had been as dear to Yudhishṭhira as Duryodhana was to him. He agreed at last to eat. Vyāsa said that death in battle or a ritual death in the forest were the only two proper ends for a rājarshi. He blessed the king and left for the woods.

The rājanīti discourse to Yudhishṭhira (Chapters 5–7)

That evening Gāndhārī, Vidura, Sañjaya and Kṛpācārya followed Dhṛtarāshṭra home. After the meal he sat Yudhishṭhira beside him and gave a long discourse on rājadharma. It covered these points:

The eight-limbed state (ashṭāṅga). The seven aṅgas are svāmī (the king), amātya (minister), suhṛt (ally), janapada (the land and people), bala (the army), durga (the fort) and kośa (the treasury). Justice and order (nyāyavyavasthā) is counted as an eighth.
The choosing and testing of ministers.
The use of cāras (spies) against enemies and against one’s own ministers.
The fortifying of the capital.
The secrecy of the council room (mantra-gṛha).
Graded punishment (daṇḍa).
The careful keeping of the treasury.

In Chapters 6–7 he turned to policy between kingdoms. He taught the maṇḍala (circle) of twelve kings and the six guṇas (shāḍguṇya): sandhi (peace), vigraha (war), yāna (march), āsana (waiting), dvaidha (a double policy) and āśraya (seeking shelter). He taught the vaitasī-vṛtti, the way of the reed, which bends before a stronger force and rises again once it has passed.

He also spoke of the fivefold make-up of an army and of the threefold śakti (power) a king must weigh before any campaign: prabhu (the king’s own strength), mantra (counsel) and utsāha (energy). He spoke of the vyūhas (battle formations) taught by Śukrācārya. He taught that a rājarshi who rules by dharma gains the same fruit as one who performs a thousand aśvamedhas. Other pages treat these teachings in full.

Farewell to the citizens (Chapters 8–9)

At Gāndhārī’s urging, Dhṛtarāshṭra asked Yudhishṭhira’s leave to go without further delay. He added one more wish. He asked that a great dāna (gift) be given at his own house, to free from the preta state the sons who had died in the “evil dice game”. He also asked that the citizens be called together so that he could take leave of them in person.

Before the gathered brāhmaṇas, kshatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras of Kurujāṅgala, Dhṛtarāshṭra stood blind, old, without sons and thin from his vrata (vow). He asked their forgiveness for whatever wrong he or Duryodhana had done them. He said that he had known more happiness under Yudhishṭhira’s rule than under Duryodhana’s. He placed Yudhishṭhira and the citizens in nyāsa (mutual trust) with one another, and he commended the four younger Pāṇḍavas to them as guardians. The assembly was too grieved to answer and wept in silence.

The bahvṛca brāhmaṇa’s reply (Chapter 10)

The citizens chose a learned bahvṛca brāhmaṇa (one who knows the Ṛgveda) named Sāmba to answer for them. He told Dhṛtarāshṭra that the Kuru kings, Duryodhana among them, had never wronged the people. He said that the death of eighteen akshauhiṇīs (armies) in eighteen days could only have been daiva (fate) working through kshatriyas bound to die in battle. He said that neither Dhṛtarāshṭra, nor Duryodhana, nor Karṇa, nor Śakuni carried the blame for it. He gave leave for the departure gladly and praised Yudhishṭhira at length. Dhṛtarāshṭra and the assembly exchanged blessings. Then he went back with Gāndhārī to his house for the night.

Śrāddha and the great dāna-yajña for the fallen (Chapters 11–14)

The next morning Dhṛtarāshṭra sent Vidura to Yudhishṭhira. He said that before leaving that Kārtika he wished to perform śrāddha for Bhīshma, Droṇa, Somadatta, Bāhlīka and, if Yudhishṭhira agreed, even for Jayadratha the Saindhava. Bhīma alone resisted. He recalled the exile and Draupadī’s humiliation. Arjuna rebuked him gently. Yudhishṭhira told Vidura to say to Dhṛtarāshṭra that whatever he wished to give was his to give, from Yudhishṭhira’s and Arjuna’s own treasuries.

Dhṛtarāshṭra was very pleased. He had thousands of brāhmaṇas examined and brought. Over ten days he performed a vast dāna-yajña. The gifts were food, clothes, vehicles, gold, gems, male and female servants, herds, jewelled blankets, villages, farmland, elephants, horses and maidens. They were given in the names of Droṇa, Bhīshma, Somadatta, Bāhlīka, Bhūriśravas, Duryodhana, each of his own hundred sons by name, Jayadratha, and his other kinsmen and friends. At Yudhishṭhira’s wish every stated gift was made ten times larger. Worn out, Dhṛtarāshṭra at last closed the great gift-yajña. He had paid in full what he owed his sons, his grandsons, and the pitṛs of both himself and Gāndhārī. Another page tells this episode in full.

Leaving Hastināpura (Chapters 15–19)

In the month of Kārtika, with brāhmaṇas who had mastered the Veda, Dhṛtarāshṭra performed, together with Gāndhārī, the ishṭi (a yajña) called Udavasanīya. He formally took up the vow of vānaprastha (forest life). He came out of his palace in bark garments (nāracīra) and skins, carrying kuśa grass, with the sacred fire placed before him. He honoured his own house with parched grain and flowers, satisfied the whole body of palace attendants with wealth, and left.

Yudhishṭhira fell weeping at his feet and cried, “Father, where do you go!” Arjuna was overcome too. He clung to Yudhishṭhira and sank to the ground in grief. These people followed Dhṛtarāshṭra weeping:

Bhīmasena, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva
Vidura and Sañjaya
Gautama
Yuyutsu, the son of a vaiśya woman
Dhaumya
many brāhmaṇas

Kuntī walked holding the shoulder of the blindfolded Gāndhārī. Dhṛtarāshṭra in turn kept a hand on Gāndhārī’s shoulder as he walked. Draupadī, Subhadrā, Uttarā (carrying her infant son), Duśśalā, Citrāṅgadā and the other daughters-in-law of Dhṛtarāshṭra also set out. The wailing of the city was likened to the grief on the day the Pāṇḍavas left the Kaurava assembly after the dice game. Women who had never before seen the sun or the moon, so closed in had their lives been, poured into the royal road in grief. This is told in Chapter 15.

Dhṛtarāshṭra left Hastināpura through the Vardhamāna gate. Again and again he turned back the crowds who followed. Vidura, the chief minister (mahāmātya), and Sañjaya took vows to go with him into the forest. Kṛpācārya was sent back. The mahāratha Yuyutsu was given into Yudhishṭhira’s care and sent back with him. When the citizens had turned back, Yudhishṭhira and the women’s quarters (antaḥpura) asked Dhṛtarāshṭra’s leave to return. Yudhishṭhira said to his mother Kuntī, who was still following the king toward the forest, “Mother, I will follow the king; you should turn back.” Kuntī’s eyes filled with tears, but she went on, holding Gāndhārī. This is told in Chapter 16.

Dhṛtarāshṭra himself then asked Gāndhārī and Vidura to persuade Kuntī to return. He said that even a woman devoted to tapas could keep her vows from within the kingdom, and that he was well satisfied with the service of this daughter-in-law. Gāndhārī passed on the king’s words in full but could not move Kuntī from her resolve. This is told in Chapters 16–18.

Dhṛtarāshṭra went on that same day to a dwelling on the bank of the Gaṅgā. There learned brāhmaṇas set up sacred fires in the tapovana (forest of austerity). There, and at each later halt, he kept the agnihotra and sandhyā rites with full faith. Vidura and Sañjaya attended him. They made kuśa beds for the king, for Gāndhārī nearby, and for Kuntī beside her. The party faced north, kept fasts and went on toward Kurukshetra.

At Kurukshetra, at the āśrama of the rājarshi Śatayūpa, a former king of Kekaya who had also given up his throne, Dhṛtarāshṭra went on to Vyāsa’s own āśrama and took dīkshā (initiation). He then settled at Śatayūpa’s āśrama itself. There, at Vyāsa’s direction, Śatayūpa taught him the full rules (vidhāna) of forest life (āraṇya-vāsa). Gāndhārī and Kuntī kept the same tapas and vratas alongside him. They wore bark and skins, and their bodies grew thin with the discipline. Vidura and Sañjaya served the king in the same austerities. This is told in Chapters 18–19.

Nārada’s prophecy (Chapter 20)

Nārada, Parvata and Devala came to the āśrama, with Vyāsa and other siddhas (perfected beings). Kuntī honoured them. Nārada told of the fates of ancient kings who had reached svarga (heaven) through tapas in this same forest. They were Sahasracitya, Śailālaya, Pṛshadhra, Purukutsa and Śaśaloma.

Then, at Śatayūpa’s request, Nārada told Dhṛtarāshṭra his own coming fate. He would do three more years of tapas. After that he would go with Gāndhārī to the realm of Kubera. From there he would move freely among the divine lokas in the kāmagamana vimāna (a flying chariot that goes where its rider wishes). His faults would be burned away by tapas. Nārada also foretold that Kuntī would rejoin Pāṇḍu, that Vidura would enter into Yudhishṭhira, and that Sañjaya would reach svarga by meditating on Yudhishṭhira. Another page tells the whole account, including what Nārada overheard between Indra and Pāṇḍu in svarga.

Meeting the Pāṇḍavas again (Chapters 21–25)

The Pāṇḍavas were full of grief at Hastināpura and at last decided to visit Dhṛtarāshṭra. Sahadeva and Draupadī urged Yudhishṭhira, and he gathered a large company and marched to Kurukshetra. At the āśrama, Dhṛtarāshṭra was returning from bathing in the Yamunā. Sahadeva met him first. Sahadeva ran ahead to embrace Kuntī. The rest of the Pāṇḍavas then came. Dhṛtarāshṭra knew them by their voices and touch, and he comforted them. Sañjaya formally presented the whole Pāṇḍava company, by name and gotra (family line), to the tapasvins (ascetics) gathered at the āśrama.

Anuśāsana Parva: Bhīshma’s last words (Chapters 167–168)

Yudhishṭhira came back to Kurukshetra fifty-eight nights after Bhīshma’s fall. Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and the whole household came with him. Bhīshma woke on his bed of arrows as Uttarāyaṇa began. He spoke to Dhṛtarāshṭra directly, before speaking to Kṛshṇa and departing.

Bhīshma told the blind king plainly not to grieve. He said that Pāṇḍu’s sons, above all Yudhishṭhira, were Dhṛtarāshṭra’s true sons in dharma. They were pure in mind, devoted and obedient to his word. His own hundred sons, Bhīshma said, had been “dushṭa-buddhi, overtaken by krodha and lobha” (evil in mind, overcome by anger and greed), and were not to be mourned.

Dhṛtarāshṭra then saw Bhīshma’s departure by yoga. The prāṇa (life breath) was drawn up through the cakras. The arrow shafts fell away limb by limb. Then the prāṇa rose out through the crown of the head as a great light. Afterward Dhṛtarāshṭra walked around Bhīshma’s funeral pyre with the rest of the assembly, going counter-clockwise (apasavya). Another page tells this in full.

Vyāsa’s revelation and the death by fire (Chapters 26–39)

In the closing parva of the epic, Dhṛtarāshṭra’s forest āśrama became the place of the Mahābhārata’s greatest revelations.

Vidura merged his prāṇa into Yudhishṭhira and left his body before Dhṛtarāshṭra’s eyes. This is told in Chapter 26. The next day Vyāsa came and revealed to Dhṛtarāshṭra that Vidura had been Dharma-devatā himself, born under the śāpa of Māṇḍavya, and that Yudhishṭhira was also an aṃśa of that same Dharma. This is told in Chapter 28.

Vyāsa went on to reveal, chapter by chapter, that every warrior who had died at Kurukshetra had been a deva or a celestial being in aṃśa. This included Dhṛtarāshṭra himself. His own inner nature, Vyāsa said, was that of a wise gandharva king who bore this same name. That gandharva Dhṛtarāshṭra is a different figure from the messenger of the Aśvamedhika Parva who has the same name.

Then Vyāsa led the whole household to the Gaṅgā and entered the waters. He called up the whole host of the fallen, who rose restored to youth and splendour. By Vyāsa’s grace Dhṛtarāshṭra was given divya-cakshu (divine sight), so that he could see them all, his hundred sons among them, for one joyful night before they returned to their lokas. Chapters 31–33 tell this in full.

Two years after returning to Hastināpura, Yudhishṭhira learned from Nārada that Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī had died together in a great forest fire (dāvāgni) at Gaṅgādvāra. They were too weak from their tapas to flee. Sañjaya alone escaped, to the Himālaya.

Yudhishṭhira lamented bitterly that Agni had shown kṛtaghnatā (ingratitude) toward the family that had once satisfied him at Khāṇḍava. Nārada later answered that Dhṛtarāshṭra had not been burned by an ordinary fire at all. At the end he had been united with his own sacred agnihotra fire. His officiating priests had left that fire in the forest, and only later did it spread out of control.

Yudhishṭhira and the Pāṇḍavas, with Yuyutsu at their head, then performed the full udaka-kriyā, tarpaṇa (water offering) and śrāddha, with rich dāna, for all three at the Gaṅgā. This closed the Āśramavāsika Parva. This part of the account is in Chapters 37 and 39. Other pages tell these episodes in full.

Svargārohaṇa Parva: Gandharva-rāja in svarga and the loka of Kubera

When Yudhishṭhira gained his divine body and moved among the blessed in Svarga, Indra pointed out Dhṛtarāshṭra to him. There Dhṛtarāshṭra shone as a Gandharva-rāja (king of the gandharvas). He was wise and blazing with the fire of tapas, and free of his blindness and grief. This is told in Chapter 4.

In the final account of destinies told by Sauti (Ugraśravā), Dhṛtarāshṭra and his faithful and renowned queen Gāndhārī reached, when their puṇya (merit) was spent, the lokas of Kubera, the master of wealth. These lokas are hard to reach. Nārada had foretold this same realm for them. This is told in Chapter 5.

Sources

Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Chapters 103–140
Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Dyūta Parva and Anudyūta Parva, Chapters 47–81
Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapters 13, 15
Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 9–10
Mahābhārata, Udyoga Parva, Chapters 70–71, 85–86, 89, 95
Mahābhārata, Strī Parva, Chapters 1–15
Mahābhārata, Bhīshma Parva (the Bhūmi Parva conversation and the lament for Bhīshma)
Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Bhīshma Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapters 167–168
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapters 1–2
Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 1–25
Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 26–39
Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapters 4–5