Dhritarashtra

Dhritarashtra (धृतराष्ट्र) is the blind king of Hastinapura in the Mahabharata, father of the hundred Kauravas and of Duryodhana, and the man whose question opens the Bhagavad Gita. His love for his eldest son overpowers his judgement, and the great war on Kurukshetra is the result.

Who was Dhritarashtra?

Dhritarashtra was born blind to Queen Ambika, wife of Vichitravirya, through the sage Vyasa, because Ambika closed her eyes at the meeting. Because of his blindness his younger brother Pandu was crowned first. When Pandu withdrew to the forest and later died, Dhritarashtra ruled Hastinapura. He married Gandhari, who chose to live blindfolded in sympathy with her husband, and had a hundred sons and a daughter, Duhshala. A son by a maidservant, Yuyutsu, later sided with the Pandavas.

A father’s blindness

Dhritarashtra knew that Duryodhana was wrong, and said so at times, yet he could not bring himself to oppose him. He allowed the dice game in which the Pandavas lost their kingdom, and he failed to restrain Duryodhana before the war. Readers have long seen in him a portrait of attachment that blinds a person more than the loss of sight.

Dhritarashtra in the Gita

The Gita opens with Dhritarashtra’s only verse in it (1.1): what did my sons and the sons of Pandu do on Kurukshetra? Even here he says “mine” for his sons and “Pandu’s” for his nephews, a detail that commentators notice. He then listens as Sanjaya narrates the war and the Gita to him.

After the war

After the war, Dhritarashtra lived for fifteen years at Hastinapura under his nephew Yudhishthira. He then retired to the forest with Gandhari and Kunti and died there in a forest fire.