I am a huge fan of the Mahabharata- what an amazing epic! There is nothing one cannot find the answer to in this beautiful creation. Depicting even Gods as people with emotions, it brings out the various qualities of human nature. There is not just black or white among the characters but a lot of gray.
One of the characters that intrigue me is Duryodhana. Duryodhana is supposed to have stolen the kingdom from Pandavas. That is true but according to the rules of those days, I would think he was the rightful heir as his father was the eldest son of the king. True, Dhritarashtra was blind and he gave up the right to his younger brother Pandu. sometimes I think that it is not Duryodhana’s fault if his father was unfit to rule the kingdom. He was surrounded by people who had their own agenda. Like Shakuni, his uncle whose main goal was to take revenge of Bheeshma who forced his sister Gandhari’s hand in marriage to the blind Dhritarashtra and Dhritarashtra, his father who secretly cursed himself for being born blind and therefore not being in a position to inherit the throne. It is a classic case of the father trying to live his dreams through the son. We tend to forget the good points in him. He was a capable and just ruler. His subjects were happy under his rule. He was a great friend. When everyone including the Pandavas,Bheeshma, Drona and all the other respected people of the kingdom made fun of Karna’s low birth (actually they didn’t know that Kunti was his mother!) and did not let him compete in the archery contest, Duryodhana was the one that came forward to give Karna the status to allow him in participating. It didn’t matter to him what Karna’s caste was! There may be an arguement that he insulted Draupadi. When he visited the Pandavas in their castle built by Maya, the mystical architect, he fell into the water that had the illusion of hard floor and Draupadi laughed at him spitefully in front of of everyone present and he wanted to pay her back for her insult. This makes me think that if she had not laughed at him he would have left her alone.
Another virtue to his credit his trust in his friends and relatives. There is a story in which Karna plays a board game with Duryodhana’s wife in his private chambers and accidentally tugs at her pearl necklace that breaks and the pearls fall down and duryodhana enters at the exact same moment when this happens. While one would think that he would be angry at Karna and his own wife, he merely picks up the pearls and asks her if he could mend it for her. It is amazing the trust he had on both of them in a society which was narrow minded!
Duryodhana may have fought for the wrong cause but he sure had a great personality! It has hard to decide whether he was a good or a bad person!
