Arjuna and the Fish Eye

Guru Dronacharya wanted to test his students. He placed a wooden bird on a high branch of a tree and asked his pupils to aim at the bird's eye. Yudhishthira was called first. Dronacharya asked what he could see. Yudhishthira replied that he could see the tree, branches, leaves, and the bird. Dronacharya asked him to step aside. Then Duryodhana, Bhima, and other princes were asked the same question. Each one described seeing extra things — the sky, clouds, bark of the tree. Dronacharya dismissed them all. Finally, it was Arjuna's turn. When Dronacharya asked what he could see, Arjuna replied that he could see only the eye of the bird — not the tree, not the branch, not the sky, just the eye. Dronacharya smiled and told him to release the arrow. Arjuna let his arrow fly and it struck the bird's eye perfectly. Dronacharya declared that Arjuna was a true archer because his concentration was fixed entirely on the target and nothing else could distract him.