The son of the philosopher Vyasa and queen Ambika in the Mahabharata, the later of the two major Hindu epics.
After Shantanu's son Vichitravirya died without heirs, Dhrtarashtra and his stepbrother Pandu are the outcome of a desperate endeavor to maintain King Shantanu's royal dynasty.
Satyavati, Vichitravirya's mother, instructs her eldest son, Vyasa, to sleep with Ambika and her sister, Ambalika, in the hopes of conceiving the ladies.
Vyasa is said to be incredibly ugly, and when he comes in a woman's bed, she responds reflexively.
Ambika closes her eyes, blinding her son Dhrtarashtra, while Ambalika becomes pale, giving her son Pandu an unusually pale skin.
Dhrtarashtra succeeds to the kingdom despite his infirmity after Pandu's resignation; the latter renounces the world after being cursed by the sage Kindama.
Dhrtarashtra and his wife Gandhari produce one hundred sons, collectively known as the Kauravas, while Pandu's two wives have five sons, known as the Pandavas.
The Mahabharata's ultimate cause of strife is the rivalry between these two royal lineages, each of which has a legitimate claim to reign.
Dhrtarashtra does nothing to avert the conflict.
He is often represented as a nice guy, but he is also weak and unable to control his oldest son, Duryodhana's ambitions.
Dhrtarashtra's blindness is not only real, but also symbolic, since he lacks the vision and clarity that would have enabled him to see and prevent the breach between these two families.
His infirmity puts him on the periphery of everyday life, but it also shows that he is unable to change the course of events, no matter how strongly he feels about them.
When he provides boons to Draupadi (daughter of King Drupada) after her humiliation by Duryodhana and his brother Duhshasana, she regains freedom for herself and her husbands, and this is one of the few instances he truly exhibits force.
Dhrtarashtra does not participate in the Mahabharata battle because to his blindness, but he gets frequent reports from his poet Sanjaya, who has the capacity to view events from afar.
After the Kauravas are destroyed, he joins Gandhari and a group of others in the forest to dwell in isolation.
He gets murdered in a forest fire six years later.
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