Eklavya

Let me start this story in the good old fashion...

Once up on a time, in the gurukul (a school where a selected number of students stay with their teacher throughout their training period) of Dronacharya, the royal teacher, the Pandavas and Kauravas were practicing archery.

Pandavas are the 5 sons of King Pandu and Kauravas, the 100 sons of King Dhridharashtra. And Arjuna amoung the Pandavas was Drona's most favoured disciple. Arjuna was an excellent marksman and has performed many awe inspiring feats with his bow & arrow, even as a student in the gurukul. Once Drona tied a toy parrot on a tree and marked it's right eye. He then called all his students and gave a bow & arrow to each one of them and asked them to hit the marked eye of the parrot. No one but Arjuna could do it and ever since then, Drona always gave special attention to Arjuna and did everything to foster him as an ace archer. Drona also promised Arjuna to teach him the many tricks and trades of archery and make him the best marksman the world has ever witnessed.

And suddenly one day, there walked into the gurukul, a dark shabby looking boy. He went straight to Drona and prostrated himself in front of the master of archery and said:

"Most respected sir, I'm Eklavya, the young prince of Nishada tribe. I seek to learn archery under your guidance and I'd be most obliged to serve as one of your disciples. Please grand me my wish, oh noble one."

Now, this was a time when people from lower caste were not even allowed to enter a temple, let alone a gurkul and take lessons under the royal guru. Tribal and other lower casts were considered untouchables and education of any form were denied to them.

The Pandavas and the Kauravas who gathered around, laughed at the tribal boy. They ridiculed him and even bullied him for his audacity. Drona too send the boy back telling him that he was not "eligible" to seek training under him.

But the young Eklavya was determined. His ambition to become the best archer in the world was an overriding passion in him. He was not someone to accept defeat so easily and so he went back to the forest, built a statue of guru Drona in clay and began practising archery all by himself. He trained himself day in and day out and started to learn many tricks all by himself.

One day, Drona took his disciples out to the jungle for hunting. They moved deep into the woods and had a dog with them too. Suddenly the dog sniffed something and darted and disappeared into a bushy wilderness, all barking wild. The barking of the dog suddenly ceased and the silence of the woods engulfed them. Drona and his disciples became on their guard and they took aim with their bows to shoot at whatever that came out of the bushes. And out came their dog, it's mouth stuffed with arrows. But not a drop of blood was shed and the dog was the least hurt except that it couldn't bark any more 'coz its mouth was stuffed by arrows. Everyone was aghast at this sight.

"Who could've done such a feat?", exclaimed Arjuna.

Soon they found a tribal boy practising archery in a clearing beyond the bush and in front of a statue of Drona. It didn't take them much time to recognize Eklavya. Drona was much pleased with this and he blessed the boy. But Arjuna had an issue here. He approached his guru and said:

"Oh faithful one, you promised to make me the best archer in the world and now you're blessing a tribal boy who already proved to be of superior skill than I'm. I beg you, you should not let this happen. I'm supposed to be the best archer and not some tribal boy!"

Drona thought about this for a moment and came up with a most cruel idea to fulfil his promise to Arjuna. He approached Eklavya and said:

"I'm very pleased at the skill you have attained. You're already way ahead of my best student Arjuna and you practised archery in front of my statue."

"Of course I did guruji. I consider you my teacher, in my mind and if it was not for your blessings I could've never progressed much in archery."

"Fair enough. But since you have considered me your guru, you're liable to give me my guru-dakshina (fees)."

"I'd be most obliged to give you anything as your guru-dakshina. Please ask me for anything that I can give you."

And to this, Drona smiled and said, "All right. I usually get gold and other riches as my dakhina. Now, since you're in no position to give me that, all I'd ask for is your right thump".

History has never witnessed a teacher asking something like this to a disciple who did complete justice to his lessons. Personally it still confuses me so much that a man as noble and righteous as Drona ever did a deed like that.

According to some, Drona wanted to hamper Ekalavya's archery skills because he feared that Ekalavya would use them against Drona's employer, the King of Hastinapur (Ekalavya's father worked for Jarasandh, who was an adversary of the Hastinapur kingdom).

Others have alleged that Ekalavya learned all the archery skills by secretly observing the training sessions of Dronacharya. When Dronacharaya found out, he visited Ekalavya to verify his suspicions. Although Drona could have demanded an even greater punishment under the laws in effect at that time, he asked only for Ekalavya's right thumb, thus making the archery skills which he had learned secretly useless.

Any ways, speculations apart, Eklavya didn't stop to think twice before he took his knife out and cut his right thump and place it at the feet of his guru with utmost reverence. And thus Arjuna's claim as the best archer in the world was restored.