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Mahābhārata The History of the Great India
<< 57 The Rivalry of Drona and Drupada >>
 |  | The brahmana said:
Near the gateway of the Ganges [where the sacred river begins her earthly course] lived a mighty saint and ascetic named Bharadvaja, who was most learned and faithful to his religious vows. Once, when he had come to the Ganges to bathe, he saw a chaste apsara named Ghrtaci, a dancing girl from the heavenly planets, who had come there first and had just taken her bath. Just then, as she stood on the river bank, the wind came and stole away her clothes.
| | | Seeing her without any covering, the sage could not help but desire her. Though he had carefully practiced celibacy since childhood, his mind was now entangled with the goddess. In his excitement, semen spilled from his body. The sage placed his seed in a pot, and Drona took birth from that pot as the son of the sage. As a child Drona thoroughly studied the Vedas with all their branches.
| | | Bharadvaja had a friend named Prsata, a king who had a son named Drupada. Young Drupada would always go to the sage's retreat, and the powerful prince played and studied with Drona. Then Prsata passed away, and Drupada became king.
| | | Drona heard that Lord Parasurama, having retired to the forest, desired to give all his wealth to the brahmanas. So Drona, the son of Bharadvaja, went to him and said, "O noble twice-born, I am Drona, and you may know that I have come in need of money."
| | | Lord Parasurama said, "All that is left to me now is my own body and my weapons. So, brahmana, you may select, either my body or my weapons."
| | | Sri Drona said, "Sir, it is best that you give me all your weapons and the technology to engage and withdraw them."
| | | Lord Parasurama, born in the Bhrgu dynasty, agreed to the request and presented all his weapons to Drona. Drona was jubilant, for he had received from Parasurama the most highly regarded of all weapons: the brahmastra. He now excelled mankind in weaponry.
| | | With his fierce new power, the son of Bharadvaja was a tiger among men. Approaching King Drupada he said, "I am your old friend."
| | | King Drupada said, "An uneducated man cannot be a friend to a learned man, nor a man with no chariot to a chariot warrior, nor a non-king to a king. What need is there for a friend of the past?"
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