Dushasana
Duryodhana's Fierce Younger Brother
The second Kaurava brother, Duryodhana's right hand, who dragged Draupadi into the dice hall — the cruelest act in the epic, and the one that sealed the Kauravas' fate.
- Sanskrit/Telugu name: దుశ్శాసనుడు
- Also known as: Dushshasana, Duhshasana
- Vehicle (vahana): War chariot
- Weapons: Sword, Bow
- Symbols: Grasping hand
Story
Dushasana was the second of Gandhari's hundred sons and his older brother's most eager follower — whatever Duryodhana schemed, Dushasana carried out without a flicker of doubt. His name became infamous forever on the day of the dice game: when Yudhishthira lost everything, it was Dushasana who dragged Queen Draupadi by her hair into the royal court and tried to pull away her sari in front of everyone. The elders sat frozen in shame, and only Krishna's grace saved Draupadi, her sari becoming endless no matter how much he pulled. In that terrible hall, two vows were sworn: Draupadi vowed to leave her hair unbound until it was avenged, and Bhima roared that he would one day tear open Dushasana's chest. Thirteen years later, on the seventeenth day of the Kurukshetra war, Bhima kept that vow in the most fearsome scene of the epic. In many tellings — including the Telugu stage plays and movie versions of the dice-game scene that generations of Telugu families have watched — Dushasana is the picture of what happens when you follow a bad leader without ever asking, "is this right?"
Fun fact
Dushasana's name literally means "hard to rule" — the opposite of a good prince — and he lived down to it perfectly.