Dhrtarashtra

In the Mahabharata, the later of the two
great Hindu epics, the son of the sage
Vyasa and queen Ambika. Dhrtarashtra
and his stepbrother Pandu are the result
of a desperate attempt to preserve the
royal line of King Shantanu, after
Shantanu’s son Vichitravirya has died
without heirs. Upon Vichitravirya’s
death, his mother Satyavati calls upon
her oldest son, Vyasa, to sleep with
Ambika and her sister, Ambalika, in the
hope that the women will conceive.
According to tradition Vyasa is very ugly,
and each woman involuntarily reacts
when Vyasa appears in her bed. Ambika
covers her eyes, causing her son
Dhrtarashtra to be born blind, and
Ambalika turns pale, causing her son
Pandu to be born with an unnaturally
pale complexion. Despite his disability,
Dhrtarashtra assumes the throne after
Pandu’s abdication; the latter renounces
the world after being cursed by the sage
Kindama. Pandu’s two wives have five
sons, known as the Pandavas, and
Dhrtarashtra and his wife Gandhari
have one hundred sons, collectively
known as the Kauravas. The ultimate
source of conflict in the Mahabharata
stems from the conflict between these
two royal lines, each of which has a legitimate claim to rule.
Dhrtarashtra does little to forestall
this struggle. Although he is generally
portrayed as a good person, he is also
weak and unable to contain the ambitions of his eldest son, Duryodhana.
Here Dhrtarashtra’s blindness is not
just literal, but also symbolic, as he
lacks the vision and clarity that would
have allowed him to recognize the
breakdown between these two families and to therefore take steps to
avoid it. His disability not only keeps
him on the margin of daily life, but is
also a sign of his inability to influence
the course of events, whatever his
feelings about them. One of the few
times that he actually shows force is
when he offers boons to Draupadi
(daughter of King Drupada) after her
humiliation by Duryodhana and his
brother Duhshasana, through which
she regains freedom for herself and
her husbands.
Because of his blindness, Dhrtarashtra
does not actually fight in the Mahabharata
war, but receives regular reports from
his bard Sanjaya, who has the ability
to see events at a distance. After the
Kauravas are defeated, he goes with
Gandhari and several others to live in
194
Dhrshtadyumna
seclusion in the forest. Six years later
he is killed in a forest fire.