​After Bhishma, why was Drona, not Karna, made the Kauravas’ commander?

Answer Podcast

Question Question Why did Why did Duryodhana make Drona his commander After the fall of Bhishma And not Karna Answer Because Drona was Much much senior to Karna And because Drona was on the level Of the teacher of Karna And because Drona was a brahmana So Karna himself Suggested to Drona To Duryodhana that That Drona should be made the commander So after Bhishma fell on the 10th day At that time Karna entered the war Karna had refused to fight As long as Bhishma was the commander Because he felt that Bhishma had impugned on his honour And he didn’t want to give credit to Bhishma For For winning the war If Karna contributed to it So basically Karna had not fought for the first 10 days And the 11th day when he Entered into the battle after the fall of Bhishma So Duryodhana was so happy to have him That he offered him the The post of the commander But Karna told him no He said that I am a I am a sutra putra So people, there are Kshatriya warriors who will not Accept me as the commander And more importantly Drona has fought faithfully for you Putting aside his affection for the Pandavas So here Karna He exhibited His keen sense of real politic He said He knew that from the social dynamics And the Overall political situation He knew that his commandership would not be accepted Although he was a powerful warrior And from the point of etiquette Also Drona was senior to him Drona was at the level of his teacher So therefore they had Drona made the commander But Duryodhana had his own plan And he exploited So although Karna suggested to him that Drona made the commander Duryodhana decided to Not just do it out of his Out of deference to etiquette Deference to Deference to seniority But he decided to exploit it Exploit this Giving of this post So when he offered the post to Drona Drona had been thinking that Drona had also expected that When Karna enters Duryodhana will make Karna the commander And He was not very pleased With the idea that somebody who is At the level of his student Who is a charioteer’s son Who is Drona did not consider all that competent To be commanded by him So when he Was offered the post of the commander Drona was pleased and Drona said What benediction do you want? Now Duryodhana knew That Drona would ask for some benediction And Duryodhana had already planned With his manipulative mind He said that please have Yudhishthir Arrested and brought before me Alive Arrested So Drona’s eyes Opened wide and he said Oh! Ajat Chatur Yudhishthir is so non-emical That even you don’t want to kill him You want him alive So he said that Drona shook his head and he said that Actually if we kill Yudhishthir then Bhima And Arjuna will go crazy And they will destroy our entire army If you bring him Bring Yudhishthir arrested alive Then I will challenge him to another Cambling match with Shakuni And Shakuni will send him to the forest Once again and this way We will win A respite of further Further 13 years So at that time Drona shook his head And he knew that he had been He had been Co-opted into Duryodhana’s evil scheme To try to Unethically again Gain upper hand over the Pandavas So Drona Drona was made the commander Instead of Karna because Duryodhana That’s what Karna suggested That is what was appropriate but that is also because Duryodhana wanted to extract This favour from Drona Thank you. Hare Krishna.