​Why did Drona ask for Ekalavya’s thumb?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
theistic, and devotional conclusions of the Vedic literature.
Thank you. Question, why did Drona ask for the finger of Eklavya? Answer, this is a difficult subject to understand, and it is very easy to pass snap judgment saying that Drona ruined the career of Eklavya by asking for his thumb, but things are not as simple as that. Yes, at one level, the incident where Eklavya gave his thumb to Drona, it does definitely indicate Eklavya’s dedication to his Guru, wherein Eklavya wanted to do something wonderful for his, as a Dakshina for his Guru, although he had learned only indirectly from him.
But let’s look at the full incident. At that time, Eklavya was a part of the Nishadha tribes, and this tribe was known to be made of anti-social elements who would often disrupt society. So, they were in constant trouble, they used to sometimes plunder the pilgrims and travelers who would go through the forests, and they were a constant source of trouble for the Kuru dynasty rulers.
And that’s why when Eklavya came to Drona to learn from Drona, Drona said, no, I cannot teach you. So, now externally it is said that he gave him the reason that you are not a Kshatriya, so I cannot teach you. But Kshatriya is not just a matter of birth, it’s also a matter of mentality.
And mentality means two aspects, there is the character and there is the competence. So, for example, now a surgeon may have the competence to cut the body very efficiently and do and remove whatever harmful part is there in the body to fix up whatever is wrong. But if that surgeon doesn’t have character, then they may well actually do some mess in the body, maybe steal an organ or steal a part of the organ or basically show as if far more expenditure is required on the surgeon than what is actually required.
And they may do the job well, but they may exploit the patient far more than what is, exploit the patient unnecessarily, excessively. So, then for a person to actually do a job well, both the character and the competence are essential. So, Eklavya, he definitely had the competence.
He did develop the remarkable archery skills, but unfortunately he did not use his archery skills very well. So, when Drona refused to teach him, now he learned in two ways. One is that he made a effigy of Drona and he would offer his respects to the effigy and practice whatever he had learned, whatever he could understand.
And sometimes he would go to Drona’s academy also and stay on the outskirts, stay in the trees and there observe what Drona was teaching the students and try to learn from that. But either way, he had that mood that Drona is my teacher and thus he learned and he became expert. Now all this to his credit, his eagerness to learn, his zeal in applying himself to the learning of the skill.
But unfortunately later on when the Pandavas, when Arjuna and Drona were walking through the forest, at that time they suddenly saw a dog and the dog’s mouth had been stitched up. So, now at one level this was a remarkable feat of archery. At another level it was quite barbaric.
A dog is usually not a very dangerous animal unless it’s like a Doberman or something like that. And unless a dog has done something malevolent, to stitch up the mouth of a dog when the dog is also not able to bark, it’s quite a cruel thing to do. So, what is the solution? So, Arjuna looked at this and Arjuna said, who has done this? And then as they went forward, they saw that here there was this person who was actually practicing archery and who turned out he was Eklavya.
So, Eklavya had been practicing archery and a dog had been barking nearby. So, he had got irritated with the dog’s barking and just he had shot arrows to silence the dog. But in silencing the dog, he just completely sealed up his mouth and the dog had been reduced to a state of pitiable helplessness.
So, now at that time Eklavya, when he saw Drona, he came and offered obeisances to him and he said, you are my guru. And then Drona looked and immediately recognized, oh Eklavya was the same person who had come and tried to learn from him and that learning he had refused. He had refused to teach him.
So, then he intuited, he figured out what must have happened and then he thought, you know, A, such a person who takes some joy in victimizing the helpless, where a helpless dog is being just sewn up by him. Now, if he gets this formidable archery skills, then he can create quite a big havoc in society. He can break havoc.
Just like today, we have concerns that sometimes if some countries which are ruled by hot-headed tyrants, say terrorist states or some states which are very much influenced by terrorism and the leaders are themselves quite hot-headed, if such countries get nuclear weapons, then they can break a great havoc in the world. And that’s why it’s a matter of great responsibility that who can have nuclear weapons. And this is, there can of course be certain level of privileging and certain level of discrimination in this, but overall the point is that we cannot have, there has to be some level of discernment in who can be given extremely powerful weapons.
So, archery was at that time an extremely powerful and dangerous skill and to have it in the hands of a person who was liable to use it against the ruling powers, was liable to use it against defenseless victims, that would be dangerous. And that’s why at that time Drona asked him. So, the reason that often advances, Drona said, Drona wanted Arjuna to become the best archer in the world.
He wanted his student Arjuna to become the best archer in the world. And in order to ensure that Eklavya would not challenge him for that position, Drona asked Eklavya for his finger. Now that’s only, that can be one part of the reason, but that’s not the primary reason.
If Drona was simply such an ego-hungry kind of person who wanted the prestige of having the greatest archer as a student, then Eklavya was already ready to say that he was a student of Drona. So, Drona could have got that credit even through him. And we see that Drona was so broad-minded in terms of giving knowledge to everyone that he was ready to even educate Dushtadyumna.
Dushtadyumna was a person who had been born through the fire in the yajna that was performed by Drupada for the explicit purpose of causing the death of Drona. So, Drona was so broad-minded that as a Brahmin, he was ready to give knowledge even to a person who was going to kill him, who was born specifically, ordained for his death. So, it was not that Drona was a petty-minded person.
He was very broad-minded. And we have to see the subtler things that are going on over here. So, Drona wanted to protect Eklavya himself from doing bad karmas because a person with a formidable power, if that person abuses whatever power they have, then they can often cause a lot of harm to themselves by doing bad karma.
And then they will have to bear the consequences. So, to protect society from any anti-social influences caused by his powerful archery skills and to protect himself from also doing some serious bad karma, what Drona told Eklavya is, give me your thumb as Guru Dakshina. Now, definitely it’s to his credit that Eklavya gave him the thumb.
But at the same time, if Eklavya was such an obedient student, then the first time when Drona forbade him from learning archery, saying that I will not teach him, at that time he could have just accepted that and he could have looked for some other vocation. And when he did not do that, then he basically, it is selective obedience may always not be obedience. So, when he obeyed one instruction that is glorious, but if he had obeyed the earlier instruction, then a whole lot of trouble could have been avoided.
And eventually, what happened is that Eklavya joined a rank of demons. And the demons were, he was a part of the demoniac army of Jarasandha. And he joined, basically he joined various demoniac ranks and eventually it was Krishna who in a fight killed Eklavya.
So, that’s how actually Eklavya met his death. So, Eklavya is often seen as a model of Guru Bhakti. But the important point to think is, it recognizes that he was actually, his Guru Bhakti was not as deep as it could have been.
And what his Guru did for