Reading Diary A: Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita

I am reading Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita.  Within the text, I read the story of the Mahabharata.  One of my favorite stories in the reading was the story of Ekalavya.  I found that it was interesting that Drona rejected him.  Considering what had happened to Drona in the past, it seems like Drona would be more sympathetic with Ekalavya.  Instead, when Drona finds out that he had claimed to be his pupil he had Ekalavya pay a teacher’s fee and he cuts of his right thumb and loses his ability to shoot the bow.  This was all because he was a low cast prince of non-Aryan birth and it would be bad if he became better than the princes and learned all the secrets of military science.  Another story that I liked was the story of the princes attacking King Drupada at Drona’s bequest.  I found it amusing that after all the training that the Kaurava princes received, they still rushed in and did not have a good strategy, and as a result, the princes were routed.  However, when the Pandavas attack the use strategy and are able to easily defeat King Drupada.  In addition, after Arjuna had captured King Drupada the Kaurava princes were angry and wanted to sack the Panchala capital even though the Kauravas had first received the chance to capture him.  Another oddity about that was that King Drupada was able to wound both Duryodhana and Karna.  The reason this was odd was the fact that Duryodhana and Karna were almost as powerful as Bhima and Arjuna respectively.  

Ekalavya cutting off his thumb (Source: wikipedia)