Great topic 👍🏼
Originally posted by: -Srushti-
Drona...
The most famous Guru ...His fame (As per me) eclipsed the fame of Guru Samdipani ...mainly because the role of Dronacharya was longer and pivotal in the journey towards Kurukshetra...
Drona as most of the characters in Mahabharat had an unconventional birth...(amazing how Mahabharat seems to be the dictionary of unconventional births!!) and was not born out of a womb...
No, it was a case of something that I'm not sure I'm allowed to describe here...
Originally posted by: -Srushti-
He went on to claim the half Kingdom that Drupada had promised him as a child...Not saying that Drupada's behaviour was exemplary. He was wrong...But I do believe that Drona took the humiliation to a level where he included a lot of people.
On one hand, one could easily compare & contrast Drupada's treatment of Drona w/ Krishna's treatment of Sudama. Drona could have either accepted a cow as alms - like Drupada offered, or taken the message that Drupada didn't welcome any friendship w/ him, and left him and looked elsewhere. But he was ego driven @ Drupada's rejection. One thing he forgot - he was a Brahmin, not a kshatriya, and therefore, it was not considered undignified to accept alms from kings: indeed, that was how kings got a lot of their punyas.
Originally posted by: -Srushti-
Asking a Guru Dakshina from his students, who belonged to a royal family, to attack Panchal was not a very noble agenda...To satisfy his own personal vengeance he used the men power and resources of a state which had sheltered him and used it to attack another state, whose citizens were no where liable for his personal insult...
Actually, in both the cases, the Kauravas & the Pandavas fought w/o using the state army. Although one strange thing - Karna too fought alongside the Kauravas to help them attempt to capture Drupada, which was improper given that Drona had specifically denied Karna as a student. The Kauravas were supposed to achieve it on their own, like the Pandavas did. Other than the 5 brothers, nobody else fought alongside the Pandavas.
Originally posted by: -Srushti-
But the few of his actions do put a question whether he was more bounden to the throne than the duties...
His apparent partiality towards Arjun which made him ask for the thumb of Eklavya as GuruDakshina...Rejecting Karna when he could see that Radhey had so much of skills...He forgot that he had faced similar rejection at the hands of Drupada..the difference between classes and status...
Not just that, as a guru, he ought to have accepted anyone who was willing. On one hand, he accepted Drupada's sons, such as Drishtadyumna, who was born to kill him, as his pupil, but refused to accept Ekalavya or Karna. And like I mentioned above, since he had disallowed Karna admission, he should have forbidden the Kauravas from including him in their attempt to capture Drupada.
The ironic thing about his caste based preference was that he himself hardly performed any of the activities usually associated w/ Brahmins.
Originally posted by: -Srushti-
And ofcourse his alliance with the throne was so strong that he did not stop Draupadi Cheerharnan...The wife of his favourite student...
And most worst of his sin was Abhimanyu Vadh...the brutal killing of the sixteen year old was something nobody could forgive...
Not just that - the fact that his son, a Brahmin, thought it okay to massacre a sleeping army after the war had already been lost on his side, reveals the lack of culture on Drona's part - he simply didn't imbibe any. Also, Drona was no better than Dritarashtra when it came to putra moh - he gave Ashwatthama anything he wanted. Also, he made no judgement on whether it was necessary to teach someone else everything he knew. For instance, he could have avoided teaching the Brahmashira to anybody. He taught it to Arjun, then Ashwatthama wanted it, then he taught Ashwatthama as well. What was that weapon used for? Ashwatthama tried to use it to wipe out the Pandavas, Arjun only used it to block him, and Ashwatthama then diverted it to Uttara's womb 🤢 Had Drona taught neither of them this, Arjun would have been no worse off, Ashwatthama wouldn't have been jealous, and he would have been more easy to control
Yeah, that, and his conduct during the war was pretty vile. Like on day 6, he defeated Virata in battle, and Virata got on the chariot of his son Sankha & started fleeing. Drona fitted a poisoned arrow on his bow and killed Sankha, who was not fighting him.
Also, aside from the killing of Abhimanyu, on day 15, Drona started using divine weapons against ordinary Pandava soldiers. The rishis in heaven were aghast @ his deeds, & Narada went to him & condemned him. It was this act that prompted Krishna to suggest that Drona be lied to & killed - Krishna did nothing like that the previous 4 days that Drona was in command.
Originally posted by: -Srushti-
I still consider that Bheeshma might have been helpless and had to choose to fight on behalf of Kaurvas...but Drona had no alliance...It was not a fight between Hastinapur and others...it was a fight between the contenders for HAstinapur...he could have chosen the side of Dharma without any bindings...or he could have refrained from participating...
But he did...
Yeah, and all for the sake of fulfilling his perverse dream of facing Arjun in battle. If he wanted that, he could have arranged an individual 1-1 battle w/ him, instead of joining the side of evil in a war.
Note that in the war, the bulk of Kaurava casualties happened @ the hands of Bhima & Arjun, while on the other side, the bulk of casualties were inflicted by Drona and then Ashwatthama. By comparison, what Bheeshma, Karna or Kripa did was pretty insignificant.
Back to the original point, while Drona was the most visible guru, I don't consider him a great, or even a good, guru. I'd think of gurus like Vashistha, Brihaspati, Sukhracharya and others, if one wants great gurus. But Drona or Parashurama would never make it in my list.
Edited by .Vrish. - 11 years ago
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