Birth and Early Life
Drona was born a Bharadwaja brahmin, in 9000BC Dehradun. Drona implies that he was not gestated in a womb, but outside the human body in a droon (vessel or a basket).
The story of Drona's birth is recounted dramatically in Mahābhārata, Book I: Adi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Section CXXXI. Bharadwaja went with his companions to the Ganges to perform his ablutions. There he beheld a beautiful apsara named Ghritachi who had come to bathe. The sage was overcome by desire, causing him to produce a reproductive fluid. Bharadwaja captured the fluid in a vessel called a drona, and Drona/Dronacharya himself sprang from the fluid thus preserved. Drona would later boast that he had sprung from Bharadwaja without ever having been in a womb.
Drona spent his youth in poverty, but studied religion and military arts such as archery, in which he gained expertise, together with the then prince of Panchala, Drupada. Drupada and Drona became close friends and Drupada, in his childish playfulness, promised to give Drona half his kingdom upon ascending the throne of Panchala.
Drona married Kripi, the sister of Kripa, the royal teacher of the princes and other children of the kings born out of maidservants in Hastinapura. Like Drona himself, Kripi and her brother had not been gestated in a womb, but outside the human body (see Kripa page). Kripi and Drona had a son, Ashwathama.
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