Episode # 1056 – “Guru Dhronachaarya is dead!” – Sanjaya commences his narration to King Dhritarashtra!!!

In the previous episode, we had witnessed Guru Dhronachaarya taking over as the “Senapati” of the Kaurava army as Duryodhana and Karna do the needful to him. With this, we commence the discussion on the “Dhrona Parva”, wherein a few important events are to take place under the leadership of Guru Dhronachaarya on the battlefield. As Guru Dhronachaarya takes over the responsibility, he assures Duryodhana that he would definitely fight for his cause, however, the duo of Arjuna and Bhagawan Krishna are invincible in the battlefield. Guru Dhronachaarya reminds Duryodhana of the fact that this combo is nothing but the “Nara-Narayana” combo of the Bhadrinaatha Kshetra which has incarnated here to establish and restore “Dharma” in this world. In that way, unless and until Arjuna and Bhagawan Krishna are together on the battlefield, victory is assured for the Paandava side. There is no second thought about this! 

Meanwhile we shall now shift to what’s happening at Hastinapura – As we know, Sanjaya is narrating all the events that are taking place at Kurukshetra to King Dhritarashtra. Now, at a crucial juncture, Sanjaya suddenly laments to King Dhritarashtra thus, “Oh King! There’s a huge commotion on the battlefield! There’s absolute chaos everywhere! Guru Dhronachaarya is dead! Guru Dhronachaarya has collapsed on the ground of the battlefield! Drishtadhyumna has fulfilled the purpose behind his birth! He has chopped off Guru Dhronachaarya’s head! Oh my God! What a disaster!” As Sanjaya says thus, King Dhritarashtra couldn’t believe what was going on! In fact, this is one way of narrating a story. Sanjaya is an expert in story narration and he follows a method wherein he first narrates the main incident, followed by the entire story. He did the same thing in the beginning as well. Readers might remember that Sanjaya commences the entire war discussion with King Dhritarashtra by saying that Bhishmachaarya has fallen down! This is a tenth day incident as we know, but Sanjaya starts from here. This invokes King Dhritarashtra’s interest and involvement and as he asks for more details, Sanjaya starts narrating all the incidents that took place right from day one, including the Bhagawad Gita episode. This is the same strategy that he’s following here too. He’s starting from a point wherein Guru Dhronachaarya has fallen down – For a matter of fact, we’ve not even commenced the discussion of Guru Dhronachaarya entering the battlefield, however, Sanjaya is miles ahead in his narrative! This once again provokes King Dhritarashtra, who asks Sanjaya to narrate everything that happened around Guru Dhronachaarya’s demise. 

Now, Sanjaya starts thus – “Oh King Dhritarashtra! Let me first tell you in jist as to what happened – During the fifteenth day of the war, Guru Dhronachaarya was at his best! His prowess was unmatchable on the battlefield. At a time when the entire Paandava army was running for shelter, an unusual event unfolded wherein Guru Dhronachaarya dropped down his weapons all of a sudden and went into penance. At this time, Drishtadhyumna rushed towards him and chopped off his head with his sharp sword! This marks the end of Guru Dhronachaarya!” Upon hearing this, King Dhritarashtra immediately asks a follow-up question to Sanjaya thus, “Oh Sanjaya! What are you saying? How can Guru Dhronachaarya be without weapons in the middle of the battlefield? What happened to him? Why did he drop down his weapons? Who made him do it? What were the others doing around him? Why didn’t they come for his protection? What was Bhagawan Krishna doing? Was he silent when Guru Dhronacharya’s head was chopped when he was weaponless? This is certainly not “Dharma-Yuddham”. This is grossly unethical! What was Yudishtra doing? Everytime he keeps talking about “Dharma” and how did he allow this to happen? Oh God! This is a huge insult to our entire clan! This kind of war should not be fought at any cost! I never expected this deafening silence from Yudishtra during this unethical event! Even Yudishtra has failed in his duty today! “Dharma” has been grossly compromised!” 

Saying thus, King Dhritarashtra cries and laments! Upon hearing all this from King Dhritarashtra, Sanjaya never gets into any panic mode. He is very calm and composed. In fact, he laughs at King Dhritarashtra’s ignorance and is now going to give a very important reply to King Dhritarashtra, which we shall wait till the next episode and witness in detail! Stay tuned for an important and an interesting accord from Sanjaya! 🙂