01A broken friendship
Drupada, son of King Prishata of Panchala, grew up in Bharadvaja’s ashrama with the sage’s son Drona, and the two boys played and studied together. Years later Drona, poor and with a hungry son, came to King Drupada’s court and greeted him as a friend. Drupada told him that friendship lasts only between equals; a king has no friend in a man without wealth. Drona went away in silence to Hastinapura. When his pupils finished their training he asked for Drupada as his fee, and Arjuna brought the king to him bound.
02The yajna for a son
Drona laughed, gave back his old friend the land south of the Ganga, and kept the north with Ahicchatra for himself. Drupada went home with half a kingdom and no peace. He wandered among the ashramas looking for brahmins who would perform a sacrifice to give him a son who could kill Drona. The sage Upayaja refused him for a year; then sent him to his elder brother Yaja, who agreed. From the fire rose Dhrishtadyumna in armour, and after him Draupadi. A child born to him earlier as a daughter, Shikhandini, had been raised as a son by a word of Mahadev.
03Father-in-law of the Pandavas
Drupada had set the hard target at his daughter’s svayamvara hoping Arjuna was alive to win it, and when the brahmin who won her turned out to be Arjuna, he was glad, though five husbands troubled him until Vyasa told him of Draupadi’s past birth. From then on Panchala stood with the Pandavas. Before the war he sent his own purohita to Hastinapura as the first envoy, and brought an akshauhini to Kurukshetra. On the fifteenth day, fighting Drona one last time, he fell to his old friend’s arrows, with King Virata beside him.