01Born in a vessel
The sage Bharadvaja saw the apsara Ghritachi bathing in the Ganga, and his seed fell; he kept it in a vessel, a drona, and from it the child was born. Drona studied with Drupada, a prince of Panchala, in his father’s ashrama, married Kripi, Kripa’s sister, and had one son, Ashvatthama. He was poor. Hearing that Parashurama was giving away all he had, he went to him, found that only his weapons were left, and asked for those, and learned them all. Then he went to his old friend Drupada, now king, and was told that a king and a poor brahmin cannot be friends.
02The ball in the well
He came to Hastinapura quietly. The Kuru princes were playing with a ball that fell into a well, and none of them could get it out. A dark, thin brahmin laughed at them, dropped his ring in after it, and fetched out the ball with a chain of grass blades, each piercing the end of the one before, and then the ring with an arrow. Bhishma knew who he was and made him teacher of the princes. Drona asked one fee: Drupada brought to him in bonds. Arjuna did it. Drona gave Drupada back the southern half of his kingdom and kept the north. When the Nishada boy Ekalavya, who had learned from a clay image of Drona, proved better than Arjuna, Drona asked for his right thumb, and the boy gave it.
03Five days in command
After Bhishma fell, Drona led the Kauravas. He promised Duryodhana to capture Yudhishthira alive, and never managed it. On the thirteenth day he formed the chakravyuha in which Abhimanyu died. On the fifteenth he killed his old enemy Drupada, and Virata with him. He was burning the Pandava ranks with divine weapons when the rishis came to him from the sky and told him his time was over. Then Yudhishthira said that Ashvatthama was slain. Drona put down his bow, sat on his chariot in yoga, and his spirit went up like a blazing star. Dhrishtadyumna, born from Drupada’s fire to kill him, cut off the head of a body already empty.