Duryodhan - Nothing is Just Black & White

Mahabharat presents the story of the throne of Hastinapur, the kingdom ruled by the Kuru clan. The Kaurava and the Pandava branches compete for rulership. Although the Kaurava is the senior branch of the family, Duryodhan, the eldest Kaurava, is younger than Yudhisthir, the eldest Pandava. Both Duryodhan and Yudhisthir claim to be the first in line to inherit the throne.

This is a new insight into the often treaded road where the Pandavas are shown to be in the right path and the Kauravas are constantly wrong. The Kurukshetra war stands for the following ideals – The triumph of truth over evil, justice over injustice and good behaviour over bad behaviour. All the above values are withheld when the Pandavas won over the Kauravas.

In real life however, everything is not so black and white. Good and evil in a person cannot be so clearly demarcated. Every person has good and bad qualities. Duryodhan too had many good qualities which are hidden and are overshadowed by a few of his vices. If we study the Epic Mahabharat as it was written by Ved Vyas, we can see that he has written his family story as it has happened. He has not favoured any particular character or put anyone under bad light. It is later in our understanding that we have started demarcating each character as good or bad. If we read the Epic without any bias, then we can understand that Duryodhan alone was not responsible for the destructive war of Kurukshetra. The Pandavas were equally responsible for it due to their ambition and insatiable hunger for power.

Duryodhan was the eldest son of Dhritarashtra. He has ninety-nine younger brothers and a sister. His original name was Suyodhan, meaning a good warrior. However, due to his bad behaviour he came to be known as Duryodhan, meaning bad ruler. He was very brave, mighty and highly skilled in warfare. He was of the opinion that he is the true heir of Hastinapur as his father was the present ruler and also the eldest son of Vichitravirya. His father was blind at birth and mother had tied up her eyes to be blind as her husband. Dhritarashtra was ruling Hastinapur presently even though he was blind. Dhritarashtra was not only physically blind, he was blind towards the misdeeds of his children and was also biased. Gandhari, their mother had chosen not to see their evil deeds even though she could see if she wanted. Her brother Shakuni, who had never liked the Kuru clan as he felt he had done injustice to his family by getting his beautiful and virtuous sister Gandhari married to a blind man. He always wanted revenge and left no opportunities where he could poison the minds of his young nephews and let them astray. Dhritarashtra’s excessive blind love for his sons made them selfish and spoilt.

Duryodhan is an extremely misunderstood character who is always portrayed as a perfect villain whose greed and arrogance led to the downfall of his clan. However, in Ved Vyas’s Mahabharat there are no ‘perfect’ heroes nor is there are ‘perfect’ villains. All heroes have made numerous mistakes and villains have done good deeds in some point or other. Duryodhan was a villain while dealing with his cousins, the Pandavas, but he was far from it in many occasions.

Duryodhan was a true friend to Karna and always stood up for him. He gave Karna the kingdom of Anga and made him a king so that the Pandavas and the elders in the family stop disrespecting Karna due to his low birth. Though this might look like his strategy to earn a strong ally to face Arjun but he truly loved Karna and mourned his death even more than that of his brothers. He had made Karna his commander in chief during the Kurukshetra war even after knowing that he is the eldest son of Kunti his faith in Karna is not undermined.

Duryodhan’s claim to the throne of Hastinapur was not entirely unfounded as he had a genuine right to the throne as the son of Dhritarashtra, the eldest of his generation. Dhritarashtra did not get the first right to the throne only because blindness rendered him ineligible, but that cannot be held against his children. Further he had to eventually rule the kingdom inspite of his handicap so Duryodhan being the eldest son of the present ruler had full right to the throne. The Pandavas were not truly the sons of Pandu. They were born to fight different Devas who had no lineage connected to Hastinapur.

Duryodhan was accepted as a fain administrator. It is evident on many occasions except when his cousins were present. Their presence always clouded his vision. Duryodhan is always blamed for luring the Pandavas for a game of dice. Yudhisthir could have refused playing but he said it was unbecoming of kings to refuse a game of dice. Using the same logic, Duryodhan is well within Dharma to throw the challenge. No one pressurised Yudhisthir to bet on his kingdom, brothers and wife. He should have known when to stop playing.

Duryodhan had faced prejudice throughout his life from the elders of the Kuru clan like Bheeshma and Vidur. This is due to the bad omens during his birth like he brayed like a donkey during his birth instead of crying and there were violent winds and fires from various directions. Observing these ill omens, the Kuru elders and other Bhramanas suggested Dhritarashtra to forsake his first born, since the child might cause destruction to the Kuru clan, but out of paternal love for his first child Dhritarashtra ignored the advice. His teacher Dronacharia was also strongly biased towards Arjun and dead against his best friend Karna.

Duryodhan embodies the quality of “Sportsman spirit” in its original meaning. During the fag end of the war on the 18th day when Duryodhan had lost all his commanders, brothers, friends and staring at certain defeat, he had gone to meditate in a lake and cool himself. There the Pandavas found him. Duryodhan told them that he wanted to gift the kingdom to them and retire to the forest. Yudhisthir rejected the offer by saying the kingdom was not his to be gifted. Yudhisthir made an offer to show his benevolence by saying he could choose any weapon of his preference and any brother amongst the Pandavas for a duel and the winner amongst them would be deemed as having won the Kurukshetra war. Despite having an advantage by fighting with a Gada (mace) over any Pandav brother apart from Bheem, Duryodhan did the right thing and choose Bheem. Duryodhan had a better fighting technique than Bheem due to which he was Balram’s favourite disciple. After a long and brutal battle, Bheem won the fight using unfair means by mortally injuring Duryodhan by striking his thigh with the Gada. It was illegal to attack anyone below the waist in a Gada fight. This shows that the Pandavas had even Krishna was biased and did all that they could do to kill a lone warrior.

Mahabharat is a culmination of all emotions, deeds and misdeeds. A saying goes that there is almost nothing happening in the world that is not already mentioned in Mahabharat. Therefore it is the Greatest Timeless Epic.