Facts About Ekalavya, The Incomparable Archer And Warrior

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India is a mother land to the Gurushishya Parampara, the oral tradition of passing down the scriptures down the generations. Many great gurus and shishyas have upheld the greatness of this tradition from centuries immemorial.

Acharya is respected because of his position as a representative of ancient thought system. Even then, there have been some unsavoury examples of the Guru Shishya parampara, for example the Ekalavya Drona relationship that left a bitter impression in the minds of its onlookers.

Ekalavya was an ardent disciple of Drona, who did not even know that a boy named Ekalavya existed. Ekalavya practiced all alone, keeping an image of Drona for moral support and learnt the art of Archery to a marvellous extent.

Ekalavya's maturity showed up when he was asked to give his own thumb as Gurudakshina to Drona. Ekalavya's large heartedness did not allow him to think lowly of Drona and made him accept it as a part of his life.

His respect towards his Guru did not reduce even a bit at this point. His confidence in his skills let him continue with archery and exhibit the same degree of valour although the loss of thumb limited his abilities to some extent.

Ekalavya's Childhood: Krishna's uncle's son was Eklavya. Once during an expedition into a forest, Vasudeva and Devasrava get separated and Devasrava was found by a hunter king who brought him up like his own son.

Devasrava as he grows up to be marriageable, marries one from the hunter clan and Ekalavya was born to them. Ekalavya belonged to the clan of yadavas as he was related to krishna. Even in Mahabharata he is mentioned as an adopted son of Nishada tribe.

During the period of the Mahabharata, the kingdom of Shringaverpur located in the coastal region of Prayag (Allahabad) belonged to Hiranyadhanu, the Nishad king. Ekalavya grew up here most of the time.

Bilvidya or archery was denied to Ekalavya not because he belonged to the Shudra clan. Instead, Dronacharya had promised Bhishma that he will stay loyal as a tutor to the kuru clan only. There is another reason behind Dronacharya's refusal to teach Ekalavya archery.

Ekalavya's display of valour: Ekalavya was so valorous that he fought for Jarasandha against the Yadava sena and destroyed the army in Mathura.

Sri Krishna and Ekalavya: Krishna was excited to hear the news of the yadava defeat and came out eagerly to see him. Ekalavya was handling the bow and arrow with only four fingers and he had handled it superbly.

Ekalavya waged war against Krishna and came to be called a hero due to the valour that he showed. After that Ekalavya disappeared from the scene forever. Ekalavyas son Ketuman wanted to avenge Ekalavyas defeat against Krishna and was finally killed by Bhima in the Kurukshetra war as he fought against the pandavas, for the kurus.

Ekalavya was a great archer and he proved his abilities in front of Dronacharya. As Ekalavya showed his prowess, Dronacharya was stunned and asked him who was his guru.

Ekalavya revealed that Dronacharya was his guru whose remembrance inspired Ekalavya to achieve such heights in archery. Dronacharya also by now realized that Ekalavya was a far better archer than Arjuna. So Dronacharya asked him to give him his thumb as gurudakshina.