Illustrator: P.B.Kavadi

ISBN: 81-7508-066-3

Vol. No: 565

Drona, the valiant archer, is second only to Bheeshma among the respected elders of the Mahabharata. Yet he remains an outsider. He added a streak of personal vendetta to that tale of family feud. 

Drona had studied together with Drupada, who later became the king of Panchala, in the ashram of Agnivesha. When he is unable to buy a glass of milk for his beloved son, he turns to his childhood friend for help. But when Drupada humiliates him, he goes to Hastinapura and becomes the teacher of military science to the Pandavas and Kauravas. 

His faith that Arjuna alone, amongst the Kaurava and Pandava princes, can avenge his humiliation makes him bestow special attention on this prince. It seems very cruel on his part to have demanded the thumb of Ekalavya, the great archer, but here again his own motives left him little choice but to pamper Arjuna.