Bhagavad Gita · Mahabharata Codex

Dhritarashtra

धृतराष्ट्र · dhṛtarāṣṭra

Blind king of the Kurus; father of Duryodhana and the hundred Kauravas

He asks the first question of the Gita, and it shows whose side he is on.

Dhritarashtra was born blind and for that reason was passed over for the throne in favour of his younger brother Pandu. He ruled only after Pandu withdrew to the forest. He knows what is right and says so, but he cannot refuse his eldest son Duryodhana anything. He speaks a single verse in the Gita, the first, asking what 'my sons' and the sons of Pandu did. He does not call them all his own.