Mahabharata – Ekalavya – {Ep.161}

In this episode, we’re going to talk about Ekalavya. Some of you listeners had asked for this story and chronologically in our progression with the Mahabharat we’re in exactly the right place.

If you haven’t heard of the Mahabharata before, welcome to planet Earth! There are no fixed checkin checkout times and no free breakfast or free wifi. Also. Don’t mind the construction, we are attempting to restructure our atmosphere, it’s been overheating easily. The country of India has many stories but the two absolutely major ones are the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. We have covered both on the show before, along with a bunch of other myths as well as folklore. Most of the stories on this show stand alone. With the Ramayana and Mahabharata, it will help to have heard the episodes we’ve covered before. You can check out the previous episodes from the links in the show notes.

The Story so far

But if not, here’s a quick summary of the Mahabharata so far. It started with Bhishma, the crown prince of Hastinapur. He made a promise that he would not marry or have children. He did this just so that his father could marry Satyavati, a fisherman’s daughter. The people of Hastinapur were mostly upset, because Bhishma was a very capable warrior and had all the makings of a fine ruler. But a few people pointed out that maybe they had dodged a bullet if Bhishma didn’t sit on the throne. I mean, it wasn’t wise to leave the welfare of his entire country in the hands of Satyavati’s unborn children just because his father had discovered romance in his retirement years. But that’s how the story continued. Satyavati’s children, and then grandchildren faced oen tragedy after another. And the situation evolved into confusion. Dhritarashtra, who was born blind was the ruler after his brother Pandu abdicated and later passed away. You might think Ancient India had protected employment rights for those with a disability. But you’d be wrong. This was a largely ceremonial role. Bhishma did most of the administration, as he had sworn to do in support of the emperor. Dhritarashtra had over a hundred children. And Pandu had 5 sons. All those children were healthy, and fully qualified to be emperor. I mean if you checked their medical history and IQ tests and so on. The problem was should it be Pandu’s son Yudhishtir who was the Son of the previous emperor, and the eldest of the lot who should rule. Or should it be Duryodhan, the oldest child of Dhritarashtra. No one clarified this. It would have saved a lot of lives if they had.

Dronacharya University

But anyway, we begin today’s story at school. Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari’s children – called the Kauravs together with their cousins the Pandavas were at school. Dronacharya University specifically. Dronacharya was a very accomplished weapons instructor. He was especially skilful at archery. And he had promised to make Arjun, one of the Pandavas, the best archer in the world. Given Dronacharya’s skill this was totally possible. His was the only university in the known world that offered Archery 101, Archery 201 and Archery 301. And Dronacharya was the only teacher there. Which basically meant even before final exams, he promised that Arjun would score the highest grade. A bit unscrupulous you might say. But what do you expect? Most of the Kaurav brothers preferred a club, as did Bheem, the second oldest Pandav. Yudhishthir went for Advanced Spear fighting instead. And Nakul and Sahadev, the youngest Pandavs – preferred the care of Horses – a special elective. Something to do with their fathers connection with Horses, they had said. But Dronacharya hadn’t paid attention. Indeed, given this lack of competition Dronacharya would have awarded the best archer in the world certificate to Arjun just for showing up. The only competition in class was possibly from Ashwatthama, Dronacharya’s own son. But the boy hadn’t inherited all of his father’s genes when it came to archery. He wasn’t bad certainly and he would certainly have put many a warrior to shame, but he was not nearly as good as Arjun, despite everything Dronacharya tried.

Now, Dronacharya was a pretty famous instructor. And though he had an exclusive contract to teach the Hastinapur princes, that didn’t stop others from trying to learn from him.

This morning Dronacharya examined the credentials of the young boy in front of him.

“Hmm, your scores on the SAT, the Skilled Archery Test, aren’t bad, boy” Dronacharya began. “Indeed, you’d be easily near the top of my Archery class if you were to study here”

“So, can I enroll then?” asked the boy hopefully.

“Sorry, you can’t. I’ve got nothing against you personally. It’s just that you aren’t a Prince”

That surprised the boy. “So I can’t apply because I was born different. We are all created equal, and deserve the same rights – including life, liberty and the pursuit of education”

“That might look really cool on a Declaration of Independence or a Declaration of Human Rights a few millennia from now. But right now, this is Ancient India. And the Golden Rule now, is that those who have the Gold make the Rules. Dronacharya University is fully funded by the Emperor of Hastinapur who has reserved the right to decide who qualifies to study here. And the Emperor has decided that only the Hastinapur Princes can study here. Sorry, what can I do? My hands are tied”

The boy looked down, puzzled, at Dronacharya’s hands which were definitely free as the Professor waved them during his speech.

“I’ll tell you what, though” Dronacharya said. “I can recommend you to a really great school. It’s called the Hastinapur Community College. The professors there are real soldiers, retired from the Hastinapur army. The Principal was once the second substitute arrow carrier for Bhishma back in the day. Once he even got to load the arrows into Bhishma’s chariot when the first arrow carrier had the flu”

“Did he actually fire any arrows during his career in the army?” asked the boy

“Heavens no! What a thought! Why would a soldier need to fire an arrow? Bhishma does all that himself. Anyway, whom shall I make this letter of recommendation out to?”

“Ekalavya,” the boy said. He glumly accepted the letter, thanked the teacher and went his own way, doing some furious thinking.

A Dog in Distress

All was fine in Dronacharya University after that. For a while. Until the day Arjun went for a jog in the woods. He came across a dog. He had seen the dog before. It was a stray, and a favorite of some of the boys back in school. They would often feed it scraps from their table. Especially some of the Kaurav princes. The dog was usually loud. Every bark from it, sounded like a loud crash of drums. One look at it and Arjun wished he had brought airpods with him. But a few friendly barks wasn’t a bad thing. Except the dog wasn’t barking. It made no noise at all. This was puzzling. Something had happened to this dog.

He approached the pooch, and then he saw something that horrified him. The dog’s mouth was shut. Completely. With arrows. There were multiple arrows that had been fired very precisely to seal the dog’s mouth shut. And with minimal harm to the dog somehow. This little dog was excitedly wagging his tail and hoping Arjun had a bite to eat in his pocket. It was obviously not intelligent. Otherwise it would have realized that with its mouth shut it would not be able to eat. Arjun carefully examined the dog. The arrows had definitely been fired from a bow. But who would do such a thing?

If you’re thinking that Arjun was appalled by the way the dog had been treated, that’s not quite what he had in mind. He was worried that if he had been in the archer’s position he would probably not be able to do as precise a job. That meant he was not the best archer in the world after all. Arjun went off in the direction the Dog had come from.

You must not think ill of Arjun for not calling the SPCA and taking the poor dog to a veterinarian or an animal hospital. There was no signal for Arjun to call an ambulance. And even if there had been, cellphones and ambulances didn’t exist back in Ancient India. Arjun walked through the bushes until he finally found the source. It was Ekalavya. The boy hadn’t gone to community college after all. He was right here in the woods. Arjun observed him carefully. The boy was putting the finishing touches on his artwork. His artwork was a giant 3-dimensional painting but made entirely of arrows. And Ekalavya had fired each arrow into it from a long distance. The ends of the arrows were colored. Ekalavya picked up a yellow colored arrow and fired it. It landed precisely at the center of the Sun in this giant 3 dimensional landscape, completing it. It was a beautiful picture, there must have been hundreds of thousands of arrows here. And the fact that Ekalavya had colored the arrows before firing them made Arjun envy him.

This guy was brilliant! “Hi” Arjun said, as he approached.

“What do you think?” Ekalavya asked, not bothering to introduce himself.

“It’s fantastic! It’s marvelous! Stupendous!” Arjun blurted out.

“Nah, you’re just being polite. Or maybe you didn’t notice after all. You see the ladybug there on that leaf in the corner. I got the colors wrong. It should have been red with black spots. Instead I colored it black with red spots.

Oh look, you have brought the dog with you. I’m sorry if this is your dog, but it was loud and it was disturbing my concentration. I just wanted to shut it up for a few seconds”

“Who taught you to do this?” asked Arjun, ignoring the dog completely at this point.

“Dronacharya,” said Ekalavya with a big grin.

Arjun was furious. How could his professor do this? Arjun was supposed to be learning all this. Dronacharya had promised Arjun he would make him the best archer in the world. Instead he was teaching this boy, Ekalavya. How could he? He stomped off without a word.

He stormed into Dronacharya’s office. Dronacharya was taking a power nap in his office just then. If it had been anyone else but Arjun, Dronacharya would have properly punished them.

But Arjun was his favorite. And Dronacharya was himself distressed to see the look on Arjun’s face.

Dronacharya calmly heard the story. He was puzzled. He hadn’t been teaching Ekalavya. What was the boy talking about. So Arjun showed him the dog. “Oh my god! You didn’t remove his arrows yet, Arjun?”

Hastily Dronacharya summoned a couple of teaching assistants to take care of the Dog, while he and Arjun walked off to talk to Ekalavya, to clear this mystery once and for all.

The high cost of tuition

When they got there, Eklavaya had already started on his next painting. Which was an afternoon market scene in the center of Hastinapur. Pretty complex stuff.

“Hi” said Dronacharya to grab Ekalavya’s attention.

“Gurudev” said Ekalavya and dropped to his knees to greet his Professor.

“Why are you calling me that? I haven’t taught you anything. I mean other than that life is unfair if you’re not born a Prince”

“I’ve learned everything from you, Professor” said Ekalavya.

“How can you, when I haven’t taught you? I refused to teach you when you came to me”

“Indeed you did. But look here” he gestured towards a very life-like clay statue. It bore an uncanny resemblance to Dronacharya himself.
“This is my Guru, my teacher. I worship the statue everyday and practice under its watchful gaze.”

Arjun whispered to his Guru. “I should have known. This guy has gone cuckoo.

But Dronacharya wasn’t buying it. Ekalavya was self-taught. With just the motivation of a fake pair of eyes starting at him, Ekalavya had become such a skillful marksman. If word got out, it would not reflect well on Dronacharya. People would question if his high tuition fees were even worth it. Hmm, Tuition Fees. Eureka! He’d just had an idea.

“Well done, my boy” said Dronachrya. Arjun was horrified. Was Dronacharya abandoning him?

“But there’s a big problem,” the Professor said. “You are behind in paying your tuition fees”

“Ah, Gurudakshina” Ekalavya said. “What’s the price? Name it. Anything.”

“Your right thumb,” said Dronacharya coldly.

Arjun was horrified! “Professor! His Right thumb?!” he exclaimed

“You’re right, Arjun. I didn’t think of it. Wait a minute, you are right handed aren’t you, Ekalavya? Oh well then, carry on” he said to the boy who had taken out his knife by now.

Without any hesitation, Ekalavya chopped off his thumb and handed it to Dronacharya. That was all it took. In case you don’t know this, it’s impossible to do many things without an opposable thumb. You can’t tie a shoelace. You can’t button up your shirt. You can’t properly grip a coffee cup. And most importantly, you can’t fire an arrow properly.

Dronacharya calmly accepted the thumb, wished Ekalavya all the best for the future and walked off with Arjun.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Was Dronacharya a monster for doing this to Ekalavya? Many people think so. This was one of the earliest examples of limiting the competition. Imagine this happening at the Olympics? It’s definitely not sporting behavior. Over the centuries, people have tried to excuse Dronacharya’s behavior by saying that Ekalavya’s sharpened skills would have caused much more disruption and violence. But that’s purely hypothetical, since Dronacharya clipped his wings early.

And as an epilogue, the dog in the story wasn’t harmed at all, proving again that Ekalavya had mastered his skills. It’s remarkable that the dog continued to face Ekalavya long enough for the boy to fire one arrow after another. But that was part of Ekalavya’s skill as well.

Ekalavya is often quoted as an example of a dedicated student, someone who unquestioningly follows his teacher’s orders.

You could ask yourself why Ekalavya needed to create the statue at all. After all, everything he had learned was self-taught. But the answer was that he needed inspiration. It’s the equivalent of young children with a picture of Messi or Ronaldo on their bedroom walls. But I bet Messi or Ronaldo will not ask their young fans to sacrifice their career.

There’s a temple dedicated to Ekalavya in Gurugram near Delhi, where the incident happened. There is also a stadium named after Ekalavya in Agra. And there’s a government-run school called the Ekalavya Model school. But don’t worry they don’t make you pay gruesome tuition fees.

Other Mahabharat episodes we have covered before:

Check out these other Mahabharat Episodes too, some of which are peripherally linked to the main storyline, including

Episode 27 – The Rise of Shukra
Episode 28 – His Girl Friday
Episode 31 – Death Cheater
Episode 37 – A Fishy Engagement
Episode 120 – Mahabharata – Nala and Damayanti

That’s all for now.

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a folk tale from Manipur. This one explains why the Cuckoo can only drink water from one specific source. And, it also explains the value of community work