Epics of India Storybook

In the first mention of Dhritarashtra in Buck’s Mahabharata, Buck says, “Dhritarashtra ... was blind, but [his] bodily strength had no equal among men” (page 24). This detail surprised me. After finishing Narayan’s Mahabharata, I thought of Dhritarashtra as a primarily weak character. (I don’t remember if Narayan mentioned Dhritarashtra’s superior strength — if he did, it is not something that stood out to me at the time.) Seeing Dhritarashtra as a strong character here at the beginning of Buck’s Mahabharata makes me realize that Dhritarashtra had potential to turn out very different than he did.

Buck then says that “because Dhritarashtra was blind, Bhisma made Pandu king” (page 27). Dhritarashtra was the first born, and he should have been the king; but very early in his life, it was made clear to him that his blindness was a weakness. Today’s psychology would probably say that Dhritarashtra had “low self-esteem”, and this no doubt stems from his early life. Later Bhisma tries to put a positive spin on Dhritarashtra’s blindess, that he would be the king “whose wisdom is his only eye” — but by that time Dhritarashtra already viewed his blindness as a weakness that made him unfit to rule.

The first time in which we see Dhritarashtra interacting with other characters is the scene in which Bhisma tells Dhritarashtra that he will be the king and that Gandhari is coming from Gandhara to be his wife. Dhritarashtra does not view himself as a strong king that a king’s daughter would want to marry; instead he is shocked that someone would want to marry a blind man she has never met.

Because of later events in the story, the main adjectives that come to mind when I think of Dhritarashtra are “torn” and “indecisive”. Throughout the rest of the Mahabharata we’ll see Dhritarashtra waver back and forth between who should be king, his son or his nephew. I believe this wavering originates from these early events in his life. It was made clear to him that his blindness made him unworthy of the kingship, but then the kingship was given to him anyway after his brother died. He was never confident that he should have been king.