Droṇa and Drupada

In the hermitage of the sage Bharadvāja, two boys studied side by side: Droṇa, the son of a poor brāhmaṇa, and Drupada, prince of Pānchāla. They were close as boys are close, and Drupada, in the warmth of that friendship, promised his companion that when he came to his throne he would share his royal wealth with him. Boys make such promises easily; time keeps them rarely.

Drupada became king, inheriting fortresses and treasuries and vast armies. Droṇa took the harder road, of scriptural austerity and poverty; he married Kripī, sister of Kripāchārya, and had a son, Ashvatthāmā. And poverty fell heavy on his house. When his little son cried for milk and had never tasted it, and cruel neighbours mocked the child with flour stirred in water in its place, Droṇa was stung to the heart, and remembered his friend's old promise, and went to Drupada expecting to be received in love.

But Drupada, seated in his royal state, looked upon the thin, dust-covered brāhmaṇa with contempt. A king can be a friend only to a king, he declared; friendship is only between equals; a poor beggar cannot claim the companionship of a monarch. And he dismissed his old friend with a cold offering of charity. Droṇa refused the coins and walked away in silence, his heart burning with a quiet and terrible resolve.

Here is the whole poison of pride born of possession, and the story lays it bare. Drupada had not changed in worth, nor Droṇa; only Drupada's fortune had changed, and it had changed his heart, and taught him to measure a man by his wealth rather than his soul. To build our sense of another's worth upon so passing a thing as riches is to live inside an illusion, for wealth comes and goes and the soul it wraps is the same soul whether it is clothed in gold or in dust.

Drupada looked at his friend and saw only poverty, and so lost the friend and gained an enemy; and Droṇa carried away from that hall a wound that would one day split Pānchāla in two. He went toward Hastināpura, keeping his purpose hidden, waiting.