A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.2206.1

c5.2206.1

YUDHI-SHTHIRA. The eldest of the five Pāndu princes, mythologically the son of Dharma, the god of justice. With the Hindus he is the favourite one of the five brothers, and is represented as a man of calm, passionless judgment, strict veracity, unswerving rectitude, and rigid justice. He was renowned as a ruler and director, but not as a warrior. Educated at the court of his uncle, Dhrita-rāshtra, he received from the family preceptor, Drona, a military training, and was taught the use of the spear. When the time came for naming the Yuva-rāja or heir-apparent to the realm of Hastinā-pura, the Mahā-rāja Dhrita-rāshtra selected Yudhi-shthira in preference to his own eldest son, Dur-yodhana. A long-standing jealousy between the Pāndava and Kaurava princes then broke forth openly. Dur-yodhana expostulated with his father, and the end was that the Pāndavas went in honourable banishment to the city of Vāranāvata. The jealousy of Dur-yodhana pursued them, and his emissaries laid a plot for burning the brothers in their dwelling-house. Yudhi-shthira’s sagacity discovered the plot and Bhīma frustrated it. The bodies of a Bhil woman and her five sons were found in the ruins of the burnt house, and it was believed for a time that the Pāndavas and their mother had perished.