Duryodhana

Duryodhana was the eldest of the hundred sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī. He was the head of the Kauravas and the main opponent of the Pāṇḍavas in the Mahābhārata. He was born on the same day as Bhīmasena.

From his early years Duryodhana was jealous of the Pāṇḍavas, and he firmly held that the Kuru kingdom was his by right. As a child he poisoned Bhīmasena and drowned him in the river. At the astra-darśana (the display of weapons skill) he crowned Karṇa king of Aṅga, so as to win an ally against Arjuna. He pressed his father Dhṛtarāṣṭra until the king asked the minister Kaṇika how to deal with the Pāṇḍavas. Droṇācārya trained him, and he was especially skilled in gadā-yuddha (combat with the mace).

Birth

Duryodhana was the eldest son of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī. He was born on the same day as Bhīmasena. At his birth bad omens appeared. Animals howled and jackals cried in the wrong direction, along with other signs of evil. The elders, among them Bhīṣma and Vidura, advised that this child perhaps should not be raised, because the omens showed that he would bring ruin to the family line. Dhṛtarāṣṭra could not bring himself to follow this advice. He kept his son and loved him.

Jealousy and the poisoning of Bhīma

The five Pāṇḍavas came to Hastināpura after the death of Pāṇḍu. From that time Duryodhana was jealous of them, quickly and strongly. He saw that Bhīmasena was stronger than all the Kaurava princes. He saw that Arjuna was better than everyone in archery. He saw that the character of Yudhiṣṭhira made him loved by all. Duryodhana could not bear this.

He decided to act against Bhīma first, as the greatest danger in strength. At a feast he mixed poison into Bhīma’s food. He waited until Bhīma lay unconscious, then bound him and pushed him into the Gaṅgā. The plan failed. Bhīma lived through the power of the nāga-rasa (the nectar of the nāgas) and came back stronger than before. Yudhiṣṭhira told Bhīma to keep the matter quiet.

The astra-darśana and the crowning of Karṇa

At the astra-darśana, where the Kuru and Pāṇḍava princes showed their training, Karṇa came uninvited. Duryodhana saw a chance in this. Because of Karṇa’s birth and standing, he was not allowed to meet Arjuna. Duryodhana acted at once. He crowned Karṇa king of Aṅga there in the arena, giving him royal rank so that the contest could go on. He did this quickly and under the eyes of the crowd. It won Karṇa’s complete loyalty for the rest of his life. The friendship of Duryodhana and Karṇa became the main military strength of the Kaurava side.

The growing conflict

The fame of the Pāṇḍavas grew. Arjuna led military campaigns. Yudhiṣṭhira was formally named yuvarāja (crown prince). Bhīmasena trained with Balarāma. Duryodhana’s sense of injury grew into a crisis for the state. He pressed Dhṛtarāṣṭra to act. The Kaṇika Vākya, in which Dhṛtarāṣṭra asked the minister Kaṇika how to handle the Pāṇḍavas, came largely from Duryodhana’s constant pressure on his father.

His qualities

Duryodhana had real qualities. He was brave and physically strong, and his skill with the gadā was second only to Bhīma’s. He was also loyal and generous to those he favoured, as his treatment of Karṇa showed. His character, however, was built on jealousy, pride and the belief that he had been denied what was rightfully his.

The lament at Indraprastha and the dice game

Duryodhana saw Yudhiṣṭhira’s Rājasūya and the splendour of the Māyā Sabhā at Indraprastha. He went back to Hastināpura so full of envy that he fell ill in body. Draupadī had laughed at him when he stumbled in the palace of illusions, mistaking water for solid ground and crystal for a pool. He confided in Śakuni. He listed the wealth of the Pāṇḍavas with bitter exactness and said that life in such a shadow was not worth living.

Śakuni proposed the dice game. Duryodhana took the plan to his father Dhṛtarāṣṭra and overcame his resistance with the argument that the Pāṇḍavas were growing too strong to be held back. Dhṛtarāṣṭra ignored Vidura’s urgent warnings and agreed. A grand new sabhā (assembly hall) was built, and Yudhiṣṭhira was invited.

During the game Duryodhana sat in the assembly and watched while Śakuni played for him. Draupadī was staked and lost. She sent back a question about dharma. Duryodhana lost patience and sent Duḥśāsana to drag her into the hall by force. In the assembly he bared his left thigh and invited Draupadī to sit on it. It was a deliberate insult. It drew from Bhīmasena his most terrible oath: that this very thigh would be shattered by his gadā.

Fear of Arjuna

Before the second dice game, Duryodhana spoke to Dhṛtarāṣṭra with unusual frankness. He said that he was consumed by fear of Arjuna. This was not political calculation, he said, but real terror. He said: “I see Arjuna alone everywhere. Even words beginning with ‘a’, such as horses, wealth, goats, fill me with fear because of him. He appears in my dreams. I cannot escape him.” He named Arjuna’s deeds exactly: the defence of Khāṇḍava against Indra, the conquest of the north for the Rājasūya, and the abduction of Subhadrā. Even so, he could think of nothing but to destroy him.

The second dice game and the exile

As soon as Dhṛtarāṣṭra released the Pāṇḍavas, Duryodhana plotted with Karṇa and Śakuni to call them back. He proposed a second game with a single stake. The loser would spend twelve years in vanavāsa (forest exile) and one year in ajñāta-vāsa (living unrecognised). If they were found, the count would start again. The game was played and the Pāṇḍavas lost.

As the Pāṇḍavas put on deerskins and got ready to leave, Duryodhana copied Bhīmasena’s lion-walk in the assembly. It was such a bold show of contempt that it is named as one of the direct causes of Bhīma’s stronger resolve.

After they left, Droṇa spoke to the court and warned Duryodhana plainly that the good times would last only a season. Nārada then appeared and foretold that in the fourteenth year, because of Duryodhana’s crime, the Kauravas would be destroyed through Bhīma and Arjuna.

The Vana Parva: the śāpa of Maitreya

In the Vana Parva, the great ṛṣi Maitreya came to the court of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and urged Duryodhana to make peace with the Pāṇḍavas. Duryodhana sat in open contempt. He tapped his thigh with his hand and smiled in scorn, and gave no real answer. Maitreya lost his patience at this pride and gave Duryodhana a śāpa (a curse): “Bhīma will shatter this very thigh of yours with his gadā.” The śāpa came true exactly as spoken at the end of the Kurukṣetra war.

The Udyoga Parva: the last failure of peace

In the Udyoga Parva, Duryodhana is the one who does not move, and all efforts at peace fail against him.

Winning Kṛṣṇa’s army. Duryodhana and Arjuna both came to Dvārakā to ask Kṛṣṇa for help. Duryodhana arrived first and took a seat at the head of Kṛṣṇa, who was sleeping. Arjuna stood at his feet. When Kṛṣṇa woke, he offered a choice: himself without weapons, or his large Nārāyaṇī army. Arjuna chose Kṛṣṇa. Duryodhana was delighted and took the army. He treated Kṛṣṇa as one resource among many and not as the Supreme Puruṣa. This proved to be his deciding mistake in strategy.

The trap for Śalya. Duryodhana set up lavish resting camps along the route of Śalya, the king of Madra and uncle of Nakula and Sahadeva, as Śalya marched towards the Pāṇḍavas. Disguised agents made it seem that this welcome came from the Pāṇḍavas. In thanks, Śalya impulsively gave a vara (a boon). Duryodhana then revealed himself and asked that Śalya serve as Karṇa’s charioteer. In this way a Pāṇḍava ally became a Kaurava help.

Refusing all peace. Drupada’s brāhmaṇa envoy, Sañjaya’s embassy, and in the end Kṛṣṇa’s own mission were all turned away. Duryodhana made his well-known declaration that he would not give the Pāṇḍavas as much land as could be covered by the point of a needle. This shows his complete refusal to admit their rightful claim. The refusal made the war certain and put the full weight of its ruin on him.

Vidura’s judgement throughout the Prajāgara Parva was without mercy. Duryodhana’s pride (abhimāna) would destroy not only himself but the whole Kuru line. The comet of anger kindled between Bhīṣma, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Droṇa and Yudhiṣṭhira would sweep across the world. The tigers (the Pāṇḍavas) and the forest (the Kaurava line) needed each other. By driving away the tigers, Duryodhana was destroying the forest.

Kṛṣṇa’s embassy and the plan to arrest him. Kṛṣṇa came as the Pāṇḍava envoy. Duryodhana refused his invitation to dine with them first, and Kṛṣṇa declined Duryodhana’s own banquet. Before the formal session of the sabhā, Duryodhana told Karṇa and Śakuni of a plan to arrest Kṛṣṇa (Chapter 88). He meant to seize the Pāṇḍava envoy and stop the mission by force. Bhīṣma heard of the plan and walked out of the assembly in anger. He would not take part in such a breach of dūta-dharma (the law protecting an envoy).

Kṛṣṇa then entered the sabhā with Nārada and gave his great speech to Dhṛtarāṣṭra (Chapter 95). He set out the Pāṇḍavas’ clear claim under dharma, the certain destruction of the Kauravas if war went on, and the offer of five villages. Duryodhana rose, rejected the terms and walked out of the sabhā. Paraśurāma then told the Dambhodbhava Upākhyāna as a warning to him. It names Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna as the eternal Nara and Nārāyaṇa, whom no king can challenge and live. This warning also went unheeded.

The Śalya Parva: the lake and the final fall

Hiding in the Dvaipāyana lake

By the end of the eighteenth day of battle, all the great Kaurava commanders were dead. Only Duryodhana was left. He was badly wounded and worn out, with no army, weapons or allies. He fled the battlefield and went to the Dvaipāyana lake. By a yoga power called jala-stambha (the stilling of water) he entered the lake and hid in its depths. This part of the Śalya Parva is called the Hrada-praveśa Parva.

Hunters had seen him enter the lake, and they told the Pāṇḍavas, who were searching for him. Yudhiṣṭhira stood at the lake and called him out. Duryodhana came out and spoke with a mixture of grief and defiance. He said that the kingdom no longer interested him. His brothers were dead and his allies gone, and the earth was now empty of those he had loved. Yudhiṣṭhira then made an offer that even Kṛṣṇa later called dangerously chivalrous. Duryodhana could fight any one of the Pāṇḍavas with any weapon he chose, and if he won, the kingdom would be his. Duryodhana chose the gadā and chose to fight Bhīmasena.

The gadā-yuddha

Bhīma and Duryodhana were both students of Balarāma in gadā-yuddha. Their combat took place at the Anirīṇa tīrtha (a holy place by the water), south of the Sarasvatī. Balarāma came there from his pilgrimage to the tīrthas of the Sarasvatī to see the fight of his two chief students. The Pāṇḍavas, Kṛṣṇa and many onlookers watched.

Both warriors showed great skill. The fight lasted most of a day. At a critical moment Kṛṣṇa made a sign to Bhīma by slapping his own thigh. It reminded Bhīma of his sworn oath. Bhīma made a feint, drew Duryodhana a little off balance, and struck him on the thighs with his gadā. Duryodhana fell to the ground with shattered thighs. These were the thighs he had bared and slapped in scorn before Draupadī in the dice hall. They were the very part of his body that Maitreya had said Bhīma would break.

The blow broke the rules of gadā-yuddha, which forbid a strike below the navel. Balarāma was angry at what he saw as an unfair act and raised his plough to step in. Kṛṣṇa held him back. He said that Bhīma had sworn a public oath to break those very thighs because of Duryodhana’s adharma. The keeping of an oath made in dharma, he said, came before the formal rules of single combat.

Duryodhana’s last words

Duryodhana lay mortally wounded on the ground but was not yet dead. He accused Bhīma of fighting with adharma. He said that he himself had done all that a proper kṣatriya should do. He had ruled the earth, enjoyed the pleasures of a king and fought to the end. Now he would die a warrior’s death and go to the worlds of heroes. He said that the Pāṇḍavas, who had won by crooked means, would live in grief while he rose to svarga (heaven).

He also spoke in grief mixed with anger. He had studied under Droṇa, had Bhīṣma as his grandfather and Karṇa as his friend, and yet he had been defeated. The Pāṇḍavas had lived only because Kṛṣṇa had always used māyā (trickery) for them.

Aśvatthāmā’s report and his death

Aśvatthāmā, Kṛpācārya and Kṛtavarman came to Duryodhana as he lay dying on the field. Kṛpa spoke a lament over the fallen state of Duryodhana, the son of the great Dhṛtarāṣṭra and a king who had ruled the earth, now lying broken in the dust. Then Aśvatthāmā told all that had happened in the Pāñcāla camp during the night. He spoke of the owl and the crows, his resolve, the guardian at the gate, the stuti (hymn of praise) to Mahādeva, Bhagavān Śiva’s blessing and the āveśa (entering of the power), the killing of Dhṛṣṭadyumna, the killing of the five sons of Draupadī, the Prabhadrakas and Śikhaṇḍī. The whole Pāñcāla and Sṛñjaya army was destroyed. Kṛpa also told of his part in guarding the exits.

Duryodhana was deeply moved by the full account. The Sauptika Parva records that he felt great satisfaction, with the calm of a dying man who feels that justice has come to him. He said: “Greater than a hundred yajñas, greater than rule over the three worlds, in this moment I count myself equal to Indra. You three have done what no mortal power could have done, after the way the war itself was fought. Droṇa’s honour has been avenged. The Pāñcālas are destroyed. Dhṛṣṭadyumna is dead. I am content. Go well.” He said farewell to them and died.

The Strī Parva: Gāndhārī’s lament

In the Strī Vilāpa section of the Strī Parva (Chapters 16–25), Gāndhārī walked across the field of Kurukṣetra with divine sight given by Vyāsa. Kṛṣṇa was with her and answered her. She looked first for the body of Duryodhana, for she knew that her eldest and most beloved son lay somewhere on the field. When she found him, she spoke a long lament. She mourned him not only as a mother who has lost a child, but as a woman who had watched his character form and his fate unfold over a whole lifetime.

She lamented the manner of his end. A warrior of his rank and family, the grandson of Bhīṣma, the son of the ruler of Hastināpura, a student of Droṇācārya and the friend of Karṇa, had died from a blow below the belt that broke dharma. She said to Kṛṣṇa, even in her grief, that Bhīma’s blow had been against dharma. Yet she also said that Duryodhana had died fighting, a warrior’s death, facing his enemy. In this he had kept kṣatriya-dharma and had reached vīra-śayana (the hero’s bed of the battlefield).

Her grief for Duryodhana was joined to her grief for all her hundred sons, the whole generation that was lost. The text gives her lament for the eldest, the centre of her husband’s love and her own, much more time and feeling before she turns to the others.

The Āśramavāsika Parva: remembered in bitterness and spoken of as daiva

In the fifteen years after the war, Bhīma alone at Hastināpura could not let go of his enmity toward Duryodhana. Out of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s hearing, he told his companions how his own arms had sent “the sons of the blind king,” Duryodhana first among them, to the world of the dead (Chapters 2–3).

Dhṛtarāṣṭra took leave of the citizens of Kurujāṅgala and asked their forgiveness for any wrong done to them by himself or by Duryodhana. The bahvṛca brāhmaṇa Sāmba answered for the citizens. He said that the destruction of the Kuru host was daiva (fate) alone. Neither Duryodhana, nor Dhṛtarāṣṭra, nor Karṇa, nor Śakuni was to blame for it. The Kuru kings, Duryodhana among them, had never wronged their people (Chapter 10).

At the end of the Parva, in the ten-day dāna-yajña (a ritual of great gifts), Dhṛtarāṣṭra performed śrāddha (the rite for the dead) for Duryodhana by name among his hundred sons. He paid the debt owed to him as a father pays a debt to a son (Chapter 14).

The Āśramavāsika Parva: shown to be Kali

At the Gaṅgā, Vyāsa told Gāndhārī that Duryodhana had been Kali himself (Chapter 31). Duryodhana rose from the sacred waters among the host of the fallen. He was young again and free of vaira (enmity). He met his mother, father and brothers with joy for one night and then returned to his loka (world).

The Svargārohaṇa Parva: enthroned in svarga and the return to Kali

When Yudhiṣṭhira at last went up to svarga (Triviṣṭapa), the first person he saw there was Duryodhana. He sat on a shining throne, bright with the glory of heroes and radiant like the sun. The Sādhyas and the shining devas were with him. Yudhiṣṭhira could not bear the sight and turned away in disgust. He said that he did not wish for worlds shared with that greedy and short-sighted king, for whose sake his kinsmen had died, the earth had burned and Draupadī had been shamed.

Nārada, laughing gently, held him back. In svarga, he said, the enmities of the mortal world melt away completely, and Yudhiṣṭhira must never again speak of Duryodhana in this way. Duryodhana had done great adharma, but he had earned this high place by kṣatriya-dharma alone. He had faced the terror of battle without fear and had given his body to the fire of war. All the devas and the righteous in svarga now honour him, and he reached this place by his fearlessness in a time of great danger. Nārada told Yudhiṣṭhira to put aside the memory of the dice game and every grievance, for in svarga no enmity lasts (Chapter 1).

In the closing account given by Sauti, the true nature of Duryodhana was shown again. He had been a portion of Kali. Together with the other sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, who were rākṣasa-aṃśas (portions of rākṣasas) of great strength, he was made clean by the weapons that struck him down in battle. Through them he rose to svarga, and his enmity was ended. In this way the chief opponent of the epic, having played his part in lifting the burden from the earth, took his place among the blessed (Chapter 5).

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Chapters 107–140
• Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Dyūta Parva and Anudyūta Parva, Chapters 47–81
• Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 10
• Mahābhārata, Udyoga Parva, Chapters 1–46
• Mahābhārata, Udyoga Parva, Chapters 72–100
• Mahābhārata, Śalya Parva, Gadā Parva, Chapters 29–60
• Mahābhārata, Sauptika Parva, Chapter 9
• Mahābhārata, Strī Parva, Chapters 16–25
• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 2–3, 10, 14, 31
• Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapters 1, 5