The Story of Ekalavya

Once upon a time, there was a cruel king called Venu who wanted everyone to worship only him and no other. The Brahmans were aggrieved on hearing this and killed him with their powers of Vedic chants. To teach him a lesson, they churned his lower body and created a short, dark and fierce man and ordered him to live in the forests. The race of Nishadas (a forest tribe) descended from him.

The king of Nishadas,  Hiranyadhanus had a son, Ekalavya. One day, he observed Dronacharya, a guru teaching the art of archery and weaponry to the princes of Hastinapur (Pandavas and Kauravas). He developed a keen interest to learn the art in the gurukul and requested Dronacharya to accept him as his student. Dronacharya denied him as he was given shelter by the Kuru kings and he can't accept a Shudra by caste and teaches only Kshatriyas.

Though dejected by the rejection of Dronacharya, Ekalavya was very strong-willed and determined to learn archery. He went into the forest and prepared a statue of Drona with clay and practiced archery daily for years without any deterrence.

One day, the Pandava princes were out in the forest and noticed a dog which was unable to bark as its mouth was covered with arrows without a single drop of blood oozing out. Dronacharya too was amazed at this skilful way of archery and was looking around for the archer and saw Ekalavya coming towards them. He asked Ekalavya who has taught him archery and Ekalavya replied 'You are my guru, I have learnt archery under your guidance' and showed him the mud statue. Dronacharya was surprised but felt that this great talent was misused on a harmless creature and thought that if the talent is retained it may cause more harm to others as well, in the future. He also wanted to maintain the order and stability of only Kshatriyas having such a knowledge. Hence, he says to Ekalavya 'A student should be willing to offer Guru Dakshina to his guru'. Ekalavya says 'All I have is yours, please ask.'  Drona then says 'Give me your right hand thumb'. Ekalavya without even thinking took out his knife, sliced his thumb and offered it to Drona.' Ekalavya knew that he won't be able to use the bow and arrow without his right hand thumb but even then his respect for Drona was so great that he gave the thumb without any hesitation.

Later, Ekalavya worked in the army of Jarasandha who is an adversary to the Hastinapur kingdom. Rukmini was in love with Krishna and wanted to marry him, however her father, Bhishmaka wanted her to marry Shishupala. On the request of Jarasandha, Ekalavya acted as a messenger between Shishupala and Bhishmaka. Lord Krishna however takes her away from the swayamvar to marry her and during this fight Ekalavya gets killed by Lord Krishna hit by a rock.

Even today, Ekalavya is known as an example for self-learning with a meditative mind without physical presence of a Guru.