Drona and Pandavas --- 5

Pandavas came back to play one more round of gamble with a heavy stake. As expected they lost and went to 12 years of Vanavas and one of Adnyatvas. War between the two parties was postponed for 13 years. During this long period Drona continued to stay at Hastinapur. He knew that at the end of the 13th year, Pandavas will come for the final war and Drupada will be their main support. He never made any effort to avoid that. It looks as though he was looking forward to a final showdown with Drupada and Dhrishtadyumna, even if that would involve fighting against Pandavas. He participated in Duryodhana’s plan to loot the Godhana of Virata. On that day, when Arjuna came with Uttara to fight with the Kurus and was recognized Drona was the one who raised the question as to how he did so before completion of the 13th year. Bhishma gave his interpretation of the required extra lunar months to match 13 ‘Solar’ years. Drona neither openly accepted it, nor rejected it, then or any time later. Duryodhana of course rejected Bhishma’s explanation then and there. After Arjuna defeated the entire Kuru army and warriors including Drona, they all ran away. Drona did not do anything remarkable in this battle. Maybe, he did not take it seriously.

After the marriage of Abhimanyu to the daughter of Virata, the Pandavas staked their claim to their in Indraprashtha. In the several rounds of talks between the two parties, Drona never accepted or rejected Yudhishthira’s claim. Even when Krishna came for a final round of talks to avoid the conflict, Drona did not threaten Duryodhana that he would go over to Pandavas or would remain neutral. He may be justified in that as he would have been branded with fright of Dhrishtadyumna. Drona wanted the showdown with the Panchals which he had to face some day or other.

When the war was to actually start, Bhishma accepted to lead the Kouravas, deftly managed to keep Karna out of it and kept control over the war for 10 days. During this period, Drona also kept a low profile