(literally, white) is the name in Hindû mythology of the father of the Pandavas (q.v.), and the brother of Dhritarashtra. Although the elder of the two princes, he was rendered by his "pallor" — implying, perhaps, a kind of disease — incapable of succession, and therefore obliged to relinquish his claim to his brother. He retired to the Himalaya Mountains, where his sons were born, and where he died. His renunciation of the throne became thus the cause of contest between the Pandayas, his sons, and the Kurus, or the sons of Dhritarashtra.