In the previous episode, we had witnessed Guru Dhronaachaarya’s students trying to take on King Drupada. Readers should remember here that it was Guru Dhronaachaarya’s vengeance against King Drupada that made him train his students according to the strengths and weaknesses of King Drupada. As the lessons got over for the students, it was time for their first war – An opportunity to exhibit their skills and learning in a real-time war situation. It was the Kauravas’ turn first, and Duryodhana led his army along with Karna and the others to invade King Drupada. However, King Drupada proved to be too strong to all these people! The entire army came back with a lot of bruises and drubbings. As the Kauravas tasted defeat, it was now time for the Paandavas to have a go at King Drupada. Yudishtra was left to stay with Guru Dhronaachaarya and the rest of the four went in pursuit of King Drupada. However, the result was different this time – Arjuna made King Drupada run for his money as he wasn’t able to withstand the accuracy of Arjuna’s sharp and focused arrows! As King Drupada accepted defeat, Bheemasena started destroying the rest of King Drupada’s army and also the civilians in the city. However, Arjuna promptly stopped Bheemasena from doing any further damage. Subsequently, the four Paandava brothers arrested King Drupada and brought him to Guru Dhronaachaarya.
As King Drupada and Guru Dhronaachaarya see each other, Guru Dhronaachaarya has a sense of relief and extreme satisfaction that his vengeance has been accomplished! On the other hand, King Drupada did not know what to talk about and how to react, as Guru Dhronaachaarya had the upper hand and he was a captive. Guru Dhronaachaarya talks to King Drupada thus, “Oh Drupada! Even today I respect you as my friend. I do not have any grudges against you. It was you who had promised something to me and failed to deliver it, and you paid the dividend for it. Now that your entire kingdom is mine, I shall give you half of the kingdom to rule. That is because of my respect towards you as a good friend. As a king, I shall be able to make friendship with you only if you are also a king. Else I’ll not be able to do so isn’t it? This is the reason why I’m donating half the kingdom to you!” As Guru Dhronaachaarya says thus, King Drupada did not have another option but to accept Guru Dhronaachaarya’s deal. With this, King Drupada was released and subsequently he went back to his kingdom.
As King Drupada reaches his place back, he is fuming with anger and frustration! Even though Guru Dhronaachaarya accepted him as a friend and gave him half the kingdom, King Drupada couldn’t accept it. He took it as a huge insult from Guru Dhronaachaarya. He had sleepless nights after that, thinking of ways to counter Guru Dhronaachaarya. He eventually learnt from his war experience that it was nearly impossible to defeat Guru Dhronaachaarya and his students on the battlefield. There should be some other way in which King Drupada could have the upper hand. Finally after a lot of thought processes, King Drupada decides to conduct a “Yaaga” or a Spiritual Offering. This “Yaaga” was conducted by King Drupada with the special intention to counter Guru Dhronaachaarya. As King Drupada conducted this huge “Yaaga”, he came to be known as “Yagnyasena”.
This was a huge “Yaaga” and all the Brahmana Rishis from all over the place were called for it. As the “Yaaga” was proceeding, a male baby came out of the “Yaaga”, and this baby is none other than “Drshtadhyumna”. Subsequently, a female baby also came out of the “Yaaga” and this baby is none other than “Krishnaa” or “Draupati”. Thus we can see here that Drshtadhyumna and Draupati share a brother-sister relationship and were born out of a Yaaga. They did not have a natural human birth. They were blessed by a “Devata” and with this, they took birth in this world. Both of them were born for a definitive purpose. It is this same Drshtadhyumna who is going to kill Guru Dhronaachaarya during the Kurukshetra battle and we shall eventually see how this happened.
Thus, we should understand here that King Drupada performed a “Yaaga” to seek vengeance against Guru Dhronaachaarya for the insult that he had given. From the Yaaga, two children were born – Dhrshtadhyumna and Krishnaa (Draupati). So for today, let us understand till this point and let us wait till the next episode to continue this further! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 