Ekalavya
Topic: Society in Early India: Kinship, Varna-Jati, Women · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"
Meaning
Ekalavya is a character in the Mahabharata. He was a nishada, a forest-dwelling hunter-gatherer, outside the varna order. Brahmana authors used stories like his to teach that a person's status and calling are fixed by birth. Historians use the story to show how the varna order was enforced.
Example
Drona was the guru of the Kuru princes, and he refused to teach Ekalavya. So Ekalavya made a clay image of Drona and taught himself archery in front of it. He became so skilled that Drona feared he would beat Drona's favourite pupil, Arjuna. As his teacher's fee, Drona asked for Ekalavya's right thumb. Ekalavya cut it off without hesitating, and after that he could never shoot as well.
Don't confuse with
- Karna: another Mahabharata figure kept down because of his birth. He was raised by a charioteer's family and was not a forest nishada.