Who is Duryodhana?

The eldest of a hundred

Duryodhana was the first of the hundred sons born to Gandhari and Dhritarashtra. On the day he was born, jackals howled and wise men warned the king to give the child up. Dhritarashtra could not.

Duryodhana grew up believing the throne should be his, since his father was the elder brother. The Pandavas, especially strong, teasing Bhima, stood in his way.

Jealousy and schemes

With his uncle Shakuni, Duryodhana tried again and again to get rid of his cousins: poisoning Bhima, building a house of lac to burn them alive, and finally the game of dice that took everything they had. When the Pandavas returned from thirteen years of exile and asked for just five villages, he answered that he would not give them land enough to hold the point of a needle.

A complicated villain

He is not simply evil. Duryodhana was brave, generous to his friends and loyal to the end. When everyone mocked Karna for being a charioteer’s son, it was Duryodhana who made him a king on the spot, and Karna loved him for it.

How Duryodhana’s story ends (spoilers)

By the last day of the war, all his brothers and allies were gone. Duryodhana hid in a lake, then came out to fight Bhima with maces. Losing, he was struck on the thigh, below the belt, against the rules, and fell. He died the following night. Surprisingly, in the epic’s last book, Yudhishthira finds him in heaven: a warrior who never ran from his duty as he saw it.