Droṇa arrives at Hastināpura: the ball in the well and the bird's eye

Classical

Droṇa had come to Hastināpura after Drupada insulted him. When he went to the Pāñcāla court and asked for his old schoolfriend's help, Drupada had said friendship was possible only between equals, and that a poor Brahmin could not be a king's friend. Humiliated, Droṇa decided to get himself pupils who could one day repay the insult. He waited quietly in the house of Kṛpa, his wife's brother. One day the Kuru princes were playing with a ball when it fell into a dry well. They tried everything and failed. A thin, dark Brahmin watched them and laughed at their skill: he would bring up the ball and also a ring he threw in, using only blades of grass, if they would feed him.

He charged a handful of grass with mantras and pierced the ball with one blade, then that blade with another, making a chain to lift it out. Then he shot an arrow into the ring and drew it up. The astonished boys asked who he was. Droṇa told them to describe him to Bhīṣma, who would know. Bhīṣma understood at once that this was Droṇa, pupil of Agniveśa. He greeted him with honour, asked his story, and appointed him teacher to the Kuru boys, with a house and rich gifts. Droṇa taught the princes celestial weapons and human weapons alike, and princes from the Vṛṣṇis, the Andhakas and other lands came to learn from him. Karṇa came too. Arjuna, by his devotion, soon surpassed the rest. Droṇa's test of his pupils came with a wooden bird set on a tree.

He told each in turn to draw his bow, aim at the bird's head, and wait for the order to shoot. Before each shot he asked what the student saw. Yudhiṣṭhira said he saw the tree, the bird, his brothers, and Droṇa; Droṇa sent him away. Duryodhana and the others gave similar answers and were also dismissed. When Arjuna's turn came, Droṇa asked the same question. Arjuna said he saw only the bird. Droṇa asked him to describe it, and Arjuna said he saw only its head. Droṇa, delighted, said, shoot, and the arrow cut off the head. Droṇa embraced him. Later, while the pupils bathed in the Gaṅgā, a crocodile seized Droṇa's leg. The others froze; Arjuna killed it with five arrows. Droṇa then gave Arjuna the Brahmaśiras weapon, with the warning that he must never use it on a human.

The bird's-eye test is among the best-known scenes in the epic, and it is often taught as a lesson about concentration. It is also a lesson about Droṇa. He asks each student the same question, and ranks them not by skill but by what they can shut out, and the answer he is after, 'I see only the bird's head', is one that a teacher with a favourite would like to hear. Yudhiṣṭhira's answer, that he saw the tree, his brothers and the teacher, may be the answer of a man who will see the whole picture in a council. The scene prepares for the bitter feeling the other Pāṇḍavas, and Karṇa, will have about Arjuna, and for Droṇa's later promise that no pupil would equal him.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Who: Droṇa, Bhīṣma, Kṛpa, Arjuna, Yudhiṣṭhira, Duryodhana, Karṇa, Aśvatthāman, Drupada

Bound to

Drona born in a pot; Dhrishtadyumna born from fire to kill him origin

Two Brahmashiras and the womb of Uttara origin

Ekalavya's thumb: a student's fee origin

Bhīma poisoned and thrown into the Gaṅgā: the Nāga realm and the elixir origin

The tournament of arms at Hastināpura origin

Drupada captured: Droṇa's fee origin

Places: Hastināpura, Gaṅgā, Pāñcāla

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CXXX (Kṛpa's birth, for Kṛpa as first teacher)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CXXXII (Droṇa and Drupada)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (Roy edition, archive.org full text) Adi Parva, Section CXXXIII (ball in the well; Bhīṣma hires Droṇa)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CXXXIV (Droṇa's school; Ekalavya; the first part of the bird test)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CXXXV (Arjuna's aim; the crocodile; the Brahmaśiras)

See it on the tree · All stories

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