Kaurava

Kaurava (Sanskrit कौरव Kaurava ) is the name of a descendant Kurus, that legendary Hindu king, who is called the ancestor of many protagonists of the Mahabharata.

In the Mahabharata, even the term has two different meanings:

• Generally, it refers to all descendants Kurus, the Kauravas; this includes the Pandava brothers, and this significance is mainly used in earlier parts of popular versions of the Mahabharata.
• In the narrower and generally more common sense, however, refers to the Kaurava descendants of the firstborn son of King Kuru. This limits the meaning to the children of King Dhritarashtra, as his lineage to Kuru is the oldest. Even this interpretation includes the children of the younger brother Pandu, as its offspring its own name - the Pandavas - bears.

The children of King Dhritarashtra and his wife Gandhari are sometimes called Dhartarastra instead of Kaurava. The stubbornness of the largest of Dhritarashtra's sons, Duryodhana, is the cause of the conflict between the Kauravas and Pandavas, which culminates in the Kurukshetra war, which in turn is the main subject of the Mahabharata.