Just like a moth in dark is attracted to light, Yuyutsu was attracted to Dharma despite being a Kaurava. Yuyutsu was the only Kaurav prince to fight from the side of the Pandavas. Fighting from the side of Dharma, he was the only Kaurav prince alive after the war of Mahabharata.

Dhritarashtra and Gandhari were childless for a long time. Being a King, Dhritarashtra was worried about his bloodline and heritage. After many failures with Gandhari, Dhritarashtra had a child with Sugadha, a maid of Gandhari. Sugadha had a normal pregnancy period of nine months. But with the blessing of Sage Vyasa, Gandhari gave birth to 101 children within one month. So both Duryodhan, the eldest Kaurava, and Yuyutsu were born on the same day. 

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Growing up he was given all the training and education as any other Kaurava prince. Dhritarashtra held him equal to other princes. But his brothers treated him as not equal. They often teased him for being the son of a maid. Yuyutsu was known to have a sage-like calmness to him. He was unfazed by these insults and maintained a good relationship.

Pandavas on the other hand accepted him with open arms. It was due to this friendship that Yuyutsu once saved Bheema’s life. One day Yuyutsu had seen Durodhana mixing poison in Bheema’s food. He informed the Pandava brothers about it, stopping Bheema from consuming it.

When the Draupadi incident happened, Yuyutsu was not present in the court. But when he heard about the incident he knew who was right and who was wrong. The war of Mahabharata was not a battle of families. It was a battle of Dharma. So everyone was free to choose which side to join. While the likes of Bhisma, Dronacharya, and Vikarna put loyalty over Dharma, Yuyutsu chose Dharma and joined the Pandavas.

He was among the eleven warriors who survived the war of Mahabharata. After the rule of Pandavas, Yuyutsu was given the throne of Hastinapur. He was one of the seven Maharathis (skilled enough to fight against 72000 men) of his time and ruled the kingdom valiantly.

It is believed that Yuyutsu did not feel the same jealousy and hatred for Pandavas as other Kauravas because of his mother. When Gandhari was carrying Kauravas she was filled with hatred for Kunit and his first son. The hatred obviously rises from the fact that Yudhisthira would be the eldest amongst the royal blood. This hatred was passed down from Gandhari to Kauravas.

Yuyutsu, born to a maid, had no such feelings. So the one thing that crippled him proved to be his lifesaver. All his life he was hated and discriminated against for being a child of a maid. And it was this fact that abled him to differentiate between right and wrong, dharma and adharma.
There is a great lesson in Yuyutsu’s story. We all have our very own speciality which is sometimes difficult to realize. Sometimes, others might make you despise it. But in the end, it is our little speciality that makes us special.

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