Eklavya

Eklavya is a character that is less mentioned in Mahabharata story but had great contribution. His biological father was devshrva and the foster father was Hiranyadhanus, the most powerful commander of that time. Hiranyadhanus was the brother of Vasudev. So Lord Shri Krishna and Eklavya was cousins in terms of relationship. 

He belonged to lower caste family that is why no any teacher wanted to teach him at that time but Eklavya had eager to learn Arrow 🏹and wanted to be Archer. He roamed around anywhere. He went to meet almost every teacher. But he was disappointed by everyone. 

Eklavya alone couldn't change the system of society. One day he saw Guru Dronacharya was providing trainings to Princes of Hastinapur. Eklavya assumed Dronacharya as a teacher and made his statue. With staying nearby teacher's statue he learned bow arrow at night time after seeing Dronacharya's teaching by hiding somewhere at day time.

One day Arjun and his friends were returning at Kuti, one animal was targeted by arrow from somewhere. Arjun was shocked by merismerizing shot by Eklavya. In this way, Arjun started to search who was there and found  Eklavya and Dronacharya's statue. After some time, Arjun told Dronacharya about anything he saw there. Dronacharya went to there immediately and asked "who are you child? " and he replied " I am Eklavya gurudev (teacher) " Dronacharya was surprised by eklavya and said " I haven't teach you anything, why are you saying me teacher?" Dronacharya test his education about arrow and found it was better than Arjun's skill.

Arjun was favourite student of Dronacharya and he vowed to arjun that he will make him world's best archer or bowman. Dronacharya couldn't see Eklavya better than Arjun because he was bounded by promise to Arjun. Guru Drona told eklavya  that since he learnt knowledge indirectly, he should pay "Guru Dakshina"( type of payment). Eklavya was ready for it and said " Gurudev as much as I can do, I am totally ready to give you a payment." Dronacharya said " Give me a thumb of your right hand". Without any further delay Eklavya cut his thumb and devote to Dronacharya's foot ( "pada" in sanksrit)

Without his right thumb he couldn't use arrow afterwards. 

Many years later, Eklavya was killed by God Krishna on the war.