The story of why the best teacher of Vedic culture was named Drona is a fantastic one.
Legend has it that Bharadwaja, the great seer, while having bath, once saw an Apsara, a celestial beauty named Gritachi, having a bath at the same spot. It was one of the rare occasions when even a saint of his standing couldn’t restrain his desire, and as a result, some of his seed found a way out of his body. Bharadwaja collected that seed and put it in a pot. Out of that pot was born a powerful son and because, he was born out of such a vessel, Bharadwaja named him Drona. Well, that’s the fantastic story, so let’s leave it at that. Let us turn to what that son did in his life, as that is more instrumental and, perhaps, more amenable to analysis.
Drona, though technically a brahmin, was interested more in warfare. Therefore, not only did he learn the scriptures at his father’s hermitage, but also became adept in the use and teaching of weapons and warfare. Agnivesh, another disciple of Bharadwaja, was his teacher and Drona learnt all he could from him. Drona is also said to have learnt the art of celestial weapons from Parashuram, thereby elevating him to a different league of teachers altogether.
At his father’s hermitage, he had a very good friend named Dhrupad. They were so close that while studying together, Dhrupad promised Drona that he will share everything he gets in life with him. This promise of childhood and, more importantly, hanging on to it, like so many other promises in the epic, turned out be instrumental in the life and eventual death of Drona.
Now it so happened that after they grew up, Drona and Dhrupad went their own ways but found themselves at different levels of stature in life. Dhrupad was a Kshatriya and became the King of Panchala, while Drona, though not a renunciant, ended up becoming a householder brahmin teacher, who found it difficult to make ends meet.
Drona married Kripi, the sister of Kripacharya, another exalted teacher of Hastinapur and had a son, Ashwatthama. One fine day, Drona saw other boys make fun of Ashwatthama as he couldn’t afford to drink milk, and that shook Drona out of his poor, hand to mouth existence. If not for himself, he felt he deserved to do better for his family. As a brahmin, he was no longer interested in living on alms, and proceeded to Panchala to remind his dear childhood friend Dhrupad of the promise he had made. Drona felt he was entitled to half the Panchala kingdom as per the promise, which was a tall expectation. But at the very least, he felt he deserved a generous maintenance from Dhrupad.
To his utter dismay and surprise, Dhrupad didn’t entertain any such requests. As such, Dhrupad was not an evil king nor was Drona an evil or materialistic man. But like so many other characters in the epic, they were not perfect and had their weak moments. Dhrupad hadn’t accounted for half his kingdom going away just due to a childhood promise he had long forgotten. Drona hung on to that promise obstinately. In the angry melee of arguments, Dhrupad insulted Drona saying that the promise was made when they were equals, and now that they weren’t equals, there was no obligation for him to keep that promise. At best, as a King who offers charity to brahmins, he could offer some charity to Drona so that he doesn’t die of poverty.
Drona wasn’t looking for charity. He got enraged and walked off warning Dhrupad that he will have to pay for this insult. Dhrupad neglected him but the furious Drona walked out with anger and revenge embedded in his heart. As it turned out, Drona reached Hastinapur looking for means of livelihood for his skills in warfare and teaching. When he reached there, he saw the five pandavas and the hundred kauravas playing with a ball. The ball had fallen in a well and the kids were distraught on how to get it back and resume play.
Drona saw it as an opportunity to display his amazing skills. He asked the princes if they could provide him food if he taught them how to get the ball out. At that point, it was Yudhishthira who promised Drona that not only could he arrange for food, but also take care of his maintenance for life. Much pleased, Drona caught hold of a few blades of grass. Using fantastic skills and chants, he threw them one after another, starting with the first one piercing into the ball. To the prince’s utter surprise, the blades of grass stuck to each other forming a rope which Drona then pulled and got the ball out. He then repeated a similar trick on his own ring and the princes were astonished.
They ran towards Bheeshma, their grandsire and father figure, and told him all about it. In a sense, Drona and Bheeshma knew about each other due to their common teacher Parashuram. Bheeshma instantly recognized Drona and requested him to take up the role of the teacher of the Pandavas and Kauravas, and to turn them into fierce and skilled warriors that Hastinapur needed. Drona was more than pleased and thus the greatest teacher of Vedic times, Dronacharya, made a start.
It is said that Dronacharya’s school was on the outskirts of the kingdom and, in present day geography, corresponds to Gurugram. Students from far and wide across the world, princes of prestigious kingdoms made a beeline at Dronacharya’s school, as his reputation grew by leaps and bounds.
It is instrumental to understand Dronacharya the teacher, his loyalties to Hastinapur and the throne, and his treatment of various students to understand the character and its motivations.
There was no doubt that Dronacharya had a favourable attitude towards two students, Ashwatthama and Arjuna. Out of them, Arjuna was probably his favourite student if one discounts the fact that Ashwatthama was his son. Drona bestowed Arjuna with the best skills, and impressed with his talent, dedication and character, promised to make him the best archer in the world.
But beyond the teaching, Drona hadn’t quite forgotten the anger he had on Dhrupad, and it turned out to be a motivator for him for a long time. When the Pandavas and Kauravas finished their education and it was time for the guru dakshina – the repayment fee so to speak. Drona asked the princes to repay him by defeating Dhrupad.
Duryodhana, always driven by insecurity, was the first to march ahead, to prove a point over the Pandavas, who, as per Arjuna’s strategic brain, stayed back a bit. Duryodhana found it tough to face the mighty army of Panchala, and had to return back empty handed. It was then that Arjuna unleashed his skills and, along with Bhima, terrorized the Panchala army, captured Dhrupad and brought him, defeated and arrested, in front of Dronacharya. Drona felt that his pupils had helped complete his revenge. He taunted Dhrupad that, unlike him, he will keep his promise and return half his kingdom, despite the fact that Dhrupad, having lost his kingdom, was now lower in status than Drona. Dhrupad fumed within but had no way than to tolerate it. What Drona thought was the end of his revenge became the start of Dhrupad’s.
Dhrupad knew that with his strength reduced, and with the skilled princes in Hastinapur, there was no way he could succeed by exercising any military options to exact his revenge on Dronacharya. Therefore he took to the brahminical way of sacrifice. He approached two renunciant brothers known to perform sacrifices for such gains and through those sacrifices was born Drishtadyumna, whose life’s purpose was to exact revenge for his father Dhrupad by killing Dronacharya. At the same time, Dhrupad’s strategic brain was impressed with Arjuna, and his sacrifice also led to the birth of Panchali or Draupadi, who Dhrupad wished to marry Arjuna.
Therefore, he had two purposes fulfilled from the sacrifice. One was to safeguard his kingdom by having an alliance with the Pandavas through his daughter, Draupadi, marrying the best archer in the world, Arjuna. Second was to seek personal revenge on Dronacharya through his warrior son, Drishtadyumna. In a sense, like so many things in the epic, this was preordained and reached its fruition towards the later parts of the epic.
But the greatness of Dronacharya as a teacher is reflected when Drishtadyumna approached him as a student. Knowing fully well about Dhrupad’s sacrifice and its outcome, as well as the purpose of Drishtadyumna’s life, Drona focused on his duty as a teacher and evaluated the student on his merits and decided to accept him. In a sense, some of those very skills he would impart on Drishtadyumna ran the risk of being used against him. But despite that, the teacher didn’t reject Drishtadyumna. This is particularly instructive because Drona did reject a few illustrious students.
The most illustrious of students he rejected was Karna. That was primarily due to the same reason that Karna faced rejection everywhere, and that was his birth in a charioteer family. At that time, it wasn’t clear that Karna would be a threat to Arjuna so that wasn’t the reason. It was mainly a disqualification based on entry criteria that were understandably stringent for the best school of warfare then. Drona perhaps decided that the resources he had were best used to train students who would have the best chance to use them as future princes, kings or warriors. Little did he know then that Karna would end up being a fierce warrior himself.
Another student rejected by Drona but someone who didn’t take the rejection lightly was Ekalavya. Ekalavya, though, went ahead and secretly practised the skills taught by Drona. He was discovered only later when Drona found his astonishing skills in stopping a dog from barking by closing his mouth with arrows without hurting or killing the animal. When asked who his teacher was, he said it was Drona. If I am your teacher, I need the guru dakshina, Drona claimed. He asked Ekalavya for his right thumb which Ekalavya instantly cut and gave to his self appointed teacher.
It is said that Drona had rejected Ekalavya, initially, despite his talents, and later, asked for his thumb on discovering his skills, due to Ekalavya being a threat to Arjuna. There is no doubt that Drona’s favourite student was Arjuna but it doesn’t fit entirely into Drona’s character as he accepted Drishtadyumna. His rejection of Ekalavya may have been more complex than that. It may have been a case of entry criteria first and then about his loyalty to Hastinapur. For that we need to know Ekalavya and his background.
Ekalavya came from the Nishad community that was known to be outcast due to being law and order problems. Moreover, his father was a general in the army of Jarasandha, a demon king who had a long enmity with Krishna and the Yadu dynasty. As Kunti was Krishna’s aunt, Jarasandha was against Hastinapur too. In that sense, Drona perceived that Ekalavya and his skills could be bad for the throne and misused. In a sense his loyalties to Hastinapur came into play. At the same time, as a teacher, he helped Ekalavya’s karmic account by not imparting him with those skills which could be misused, despite his talent.
In that sense, Drona, born out of an accident, became Dronacharya, a teacher by accident. But once entrenched as the royal teacher of celestial warfare, he performed his duties to produce wards that he could be proud of. It was a different matter, perhaps a combination of his own motivations and of destiny, that, like Bheeshma, his loyalty to the throne of Hastinapur overtook his primary identity of being a brahmin teacher of warfare. So much so that, in the final war, he found himself fighting on the side that was against his favourite student, his foremost opponent and the Lord Himself.