Duryodhana’s Achilles’ Heel

The Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem written by Homer, an eighth century, Greek poet. The Iliad describes the long fought out battle between the Greeks and the Trojans.

Achilles was an exceptional warrior, one of the greatest Greek heroes, and a central character of the Iliad. Achilles’ death is not a part of the Iliad, but his death caused by Paris (the prince of Troy) by an arrow shot at his heel, the only vulnerable part of his otherwise invulnerable body, made him immortal with the eponymous phrase Achilles’ heel.

Legend has it that his mother held him upside down and dipped his body in the river Styx, making him invulnerable except for the one heel that she held him with.

Many styles of story-telling typically use the concept of a ‘tragic flaw’ of the character/s, that is, the one weakness that brings about their downfall. While Achilles’ heel is technically not a tragic flaw, it most certainly did result in his defeat and death.

The Mahabhaaratha

The Mahabhaaratha is an epic composition of VedaVyaasa, written in Sanskrit. A part of the epic describes the eighteen day battle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas.

Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava prince, was an exceptional warrior as his name implied. His mace-wielding prowess was only matched by Bheemasena, the Pandava.

Gandhari was the mother of the hundred Kauravas. Amongst her nameless 90 odd sons (the names of a very few are well-known), she was most fond of her eldest son Duryodhana. Torn by her maternal instinct to protect her son, although her heart knew that he was not on the side of dharma, she made a peculiar request to Duryodhana, before the Kurukshetra war commenced.

The act of giving up sight voluntarily (like a penance) by blind-folding herself, since the day she heard about her impending wedding to the blind Kuru king Dhritarashtra, had granted her a divine power. Wishing to use this to protect her first-born, she asked Duryodhana to stand in front of her stark naked, while she would remove her blind-fold and her gaze would travel all over his body, making him invulnerable.

As Duryodhana was readying to carry out the order, the kapata-naataka-sutradhaari Krishna, appeared out of nowhere and planted a seed of doubt/embarrassment in Duryodhana’s head about his nudity. Duryodhana, who had never ever listened to Krishna, chose this moment to do so, ironically.

When Gandhari took off the cloth that kept her eyes closed and looked at Duryodhana, she was appalled to find his groin covered with a banana leaf. Thus, the area covered with the banana leaf remained vulnerable, even as the rest of his body became fortified by Gandhari’s gaze.

On the last day of the battle, when Duryodhana was challenged to a fight by Bheemasena, he warded off Bheema’s onslaught resulting in a stalemate. Krishna who had orchestrated the vulnerability of Duryodhana, struck his thigh reminding Bheemasena of his terrible oath made in the court of Kurus, years back, when they were (the Pandavas) wagered and lost and helpless, and their queen Droupadi was dragged into the court, and was beckoned by Duryodhana to sit on his lap (the left lap being exclusively for a wife to sit upon). To the horror of all those assembled there, Bheemasena made two oaths…that he would tear apart the arms of Dusshasana, the arms that had dragged Droupadi by her hair and attempted to disrobe her; and that he would break the thigh of Duryodhana, which he had patted, to humiliate Droupadi.

The first oath was completed and it was time for the second one, which technically went against the rules of war. Yet, sanctioned by Krishna, Bheemasena swung his mighty mace and smashed the thigh of Duryodhana, bringing about the end of the last of the 100 Kauravas.

Bheema’s mace had found Duryodhana’s Achilles’ heel!