Dhritarashtra’s Family Tree

About Dhritarashtra →

Family

• Gandhari(spouse),Duhshala(child),Duryodhana(child)— Marriage

  Dhritarashtra married Gandhari of Gandhara, who blindfolded herself for life upon learning of her husband's blindness. Together they produced a hundred sons — the Kauravas, led by the firstborn Duryodhana — and one daughter, Duhshala, whose birth was attended by ill omens of jackals howling and fires blazing.

• Ambika(parent),Vyasa(parent)— Consort

  Vyasa fathered Dhritarashtra through niyoga with Ambika, widow of his half-brother Vichitravirya, but Ambika shut her eyes in terror at the sage's appearance, and so her son was born blind.

Guarded by

• Bhishma

  Bhishma, bound by his oath of celibacy and lifelong service to the Kuru throne, served as regent and protector of Dhritarashtra and Pandu after their father Vichitravirya's death, raising both princes and defending the kingdom until the blind king could govern in his own right.

Rules over

• Hastinapura

  Dhritarashtra ruled Hastinapura as regent for years despite his blindness, having been passed over for the throne in favor of his younger brother Pandu, and then governing in Pandu's name and eventually in his own right after Pandu's death in the forest.

Associated with

• Kunti

  After Pandu's death, Kunti raised her sons in Dhritarashtra's court under his nominal protection. She later voluntarily joined Dhritarashtra and Gandhari in forest retirement, and all three died together in the forest fire.

• Kurukshetra

  Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Hastinapura, sanctioned the Kurukshetra War by failing to restrain his son Duryodhana. He received a divine narration of the entire battle from Sanjaya, who was granted celestial sight by Vyasa to describe the war in real time.

• Sanjaya

  Sanjaya, granted divine sight by Vyasa, narrated the entire Kurukshetra war to the blind Dhritarashtra in the palace, his voice carrying every blow, every death, and every divine intervention to the king who could see nothing but felt everything.

• Vidura

  Vidura counseled Dhritarashtra with unflinching dharmic wisdom throughout the Mahabharata, urging him to check Duryodhana's ambition and deal justly with the Pandavas, only to be dismissed and finally banished from court for speaking truths the blind king refused to hear.