Bhagavad Gita · Mahabharata Codex

The Kauravas

कौरव · kaurava

The hundred sons of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari, led by Duryodhana

A hundred brothers follow the eldest into a war that not one of them will survive.

Both families descend from King Kuru, so strictly the Pandavas are Kauravas too. By custom, though, the name is kept for the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra. The Gita calls them the Dhartarashtras, 'Dhritarashtra's sons'. Duryodhana is the eldest and Dushasana the second. Arjuna's grief in chapter 1 is about them: they are aggressors, he says, but they are also his cousins, and killing them would destroy the family.