The king of the Sindhus who seized Draupadi in the forest, won a boon to hold back four Pandavas, and used it at the gap behind Abhimanyu.
Appears in
The abduction of Draupadi — Jayadratha carries Draupadi off from the forest, leaves with five tufts of hair and a slave's oath, and goes to Shiva for revenge
The race against the sun — Arjuna swears to kill Jayadratha before sunset or enter the fire himself, and the whole Kaurava army spends a day standing in his way
Embodies
Kinship and enmity — The war is a family quarrel: across the field stand cousins, teachers and elders, all owed reverence.
Curse and consequence — A word spoken in anger by a sage, a mother or a wronged woman, and the generations it takes to run its course
Questions to explore
Is Krishna's darkening of the sun on the fourteenth day in the Critical Edition, or only in fuller manuscripts?
Why does Yudhishthira let Jayadratha go after the abduction?
