Karna, the Courageous

Karna is perhaps the most skilled and valiant warrior in the Kurukshetra war fought between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Having said that, Karna was also undoubtedly the most ill fated or unluckiest character in the epic Mahabharata.

Bad luck struck him right from the time of his birth. Karna was in fact the eldest of Kunti's (Mother of Pandavas) sons. The story of his birth goes like this - When Kunti was young and still unmarried, the sage Durvasav happened to visit her father's palace. She served the sage with utmost care throughout his stay at the palace for an entire year. Pleased at her hospitality and foreseeing her future that she wouldn't have children after her marriage to Pandu, Durvasav granted her a boon to call upon any God of her choice and beget a child. The sage advised her to use the boon only after her marriage. But out of curiosity and the enthusiasm of her young age she invoked the mantra and called the Sun God. And thus Karna was born. Being the son of the Sun God, Karna was born with a magical armour and  pair of ear rings attached to him, which could shield him against the deadliest of the weapons ever made. Though Kunti retained her virginity, she was not confident to face the world as an unwed mother. And so with the help of one of her maids, she placed Karna in a basket and set him aloft on the holy River Ganges in the hope that her child would be taken in by another family.

But as fate would have it, the child in the basket was found by a charioteer of King Dritharastra, father of the Kauravas. Though fostered by a charioteer, Karna showed interest in learning the art of weapons. Watching Drona training the Pandavas and the Kauravas, Karna once approached the master and requested him to take him as his disciple. Being the teacher employed by the royal house exclusively to train the princes, he refused to take Karna for a student. But this didn't tamper with Karna's desire to train in arms and he, with the help of his brother Shona, started to train himself. Since, according to the tradition, every student needed to have a Guru (Teacher), Karna considered the Sun God (Karna didn't know about his parentage yet) as his Guru. Within no time, he trained himself to be a great archer and a wielder of sword. He soon reached a point where the need of a real Guru was inevitable to further polish his skills. And so he went to Parashurama, who was the Guru of Drona. But Parashurama had vowed to train only Brahmins (Higher castes) and had taken an oath of vengeance towards all existing Kshatriyas (royal family members). Now, that's a different story...

And so, Karna pretended to be a Brahmin boy and took lessons under Parashurama. No sooner, Karna became an exemplary archer and a great warrior. Towards the end of his stay with Parashurama, bad luck or ill fate, which kept following Karna all through his life struck another blow. Once when the both of them where loitering in a nearby jungle, Parashurama said he felt tired and wanted to rest. Karna offered his lap as a pillow for his Guru. Soon as the Guru slipped into a deep sleep, there came a giant bee and stung Karna's thigh. As he didn't want to disturb his Guru's sleep, Karna bore with all the pain and sat still. The bee further bored into his thigh and the wound began to bleed. Parashurama soon woke up and coming to know about this, deduced that Karna was not a Brahmin, for only Kshatriyas were capable of bearing with such agonising pain. Without waiting for any further explanations, Parashurama cursed Karna that he'd forget all that he learned and acquired when he most needed them. Karna defended himself by telling his Guru the truth, as he knew it (you shold note that Karna was still not aware of his real parentage), that he was not a Kshatriya but a member of a lower caste and that it's only his genuine and immense desire to learn the art of weapons that made him lie. Calming down, Prashurama took pity on Karna. But the curse cannot be taken back and so to compensate that he gifted Karna with a celestial weapon called the Bhargavastra and his own personal bow called Vijaya and blessed him that in the end, Karna would achieve what he wanted the most - everlasting glory and immortal fame.

On another occasion, while practicing Shabdavedi Vidya (Hitting a target by just observing the sound), Karna mistook a cow for a wild animal and killed it. The owner of the cow was a poor Brahmin and the cow was his dear possession. In a fit of anger and agony, the Brahmin cursed Karna that he too will be killed in the same way when he was most helpless and vulnerable.

Bad luck struck Karna yet another time when he was charioting past a country side. He came across a little girl crying over a pot of spilt ghee. She said her step mother would get mad at her for her carelessness. Being generous, Karna said he'd send her a fresh pot of ghee but the girl refused. She said she will only take the ghee spilt on the soil. And so Karna took the soil in his fist and squeezed the ghee out of it with his utmost might. Suddenly he heard the agonized voice of a woman and upon opening his fist, he realized that the voice was that of Bhoomidevi - Goddess Earth. She got furious at Karna for hurting her for the sake of pleasing a child and cursed him that during a major battle in his life she'd trap the wheel of his chariot thereby making him vulnerable to the enemy.

Though Karna was, in fact the eldest of the Pandavas, he had to take the side of the evil Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas. And the reason for this goes like this - Once when all of them were still in their youth, Drona conducted a competition to award the best archer. The feat was to hit the eye of a parrot hung on the bark of a tree. Arjuna, undoubtedly achieved this with ease. But then came Karna who surpassed Arjuna and went on to challenge him for a duel. But according to the rules and tradition only a prince can duel another prince and so Karna was disqualified. Further, the Pandavas made fun of him and cajoled him for showing the audacity to challenge a prince when he was just the son of a charioteer. Shamed and humiliated, Karna stood with his heads down. But Duryodhana, seeing that Karna is the strongest chance he can have against the more powerful Pandavas, came to Karna's rescue. Duryodhana immediately offered Karna, the throne of Anga kingdom, thereby making him a king and hence eligible to duel Arjuna anytime in future.

One another event worth mentioning is the Swayamvar (A process of letting the girl choose her bride from a group of assembled young suitors who will be asked to perform certain heroic deeds) of Draupadhi. Karna was in fact an unmatched suitor for Draupadhi. He easily accomplished the task to win the princess. But Draupadhi insulted him by calling him a "sooth-putra" (son of a charioteer). And later Arjuna accomplished the same task and won the hands of Draupadhi. All these events in Mahabharata marked the rivalry between Karna and the Pandavas as a whole and Karna pledged his complete allegiance to Duryodhana.

Karna, as soon as he was crowned the King of Anga, took an oath that anyone who approached him with a request at midday, when he offered his prayers to the Sun, would not go empty-handed. This practice contributed to Karna's fame as well as his downfall. Just before the beginning of the Kurukshetra war, Lord Indra took the form of a beggar and approached Karna on a midday and asked for his Kavacha (body armour) and Kundala (earring), which were fixed to his body from the time of his birth and acted as his shield against any powerful weapons. The generous Karna gave away both the things without a second thought, little knowing that it was a trick to make him more vulnerable on the battle field.


Though Karna was a loyal comrade of Duryodhana, he at times advised Duryodhana against any cunning or unfair means to do away with the Pandavas. He even called Duryodhana a coward when the later tried to mass murder the Pandavas in a castle of lac. So righteous, brave and courageous was Karna and it was only his ill fate that he had to fight on the wrong side.

It was during the time of battle that Karna came to know about his real parentage through Lord Krishna. Krishna tried to lure him to the side of Pandavas by telling him that he was the eldest of the Pandavas and upon winning the battle, the righteous Yudhishtira, the eldest of the Pandavas (supposedly) would only be happy to crown Karna as the King of the Indraprastha dynasty. The knowledge of Pandavas being his younger brothers, though wiped out all the enmity that he had towards them, Karna still refused to abandon Duryodhana. To Karna, his genetic ties to the Pandavas was not enough to eclipse his loyalty to Duryodhana. Besides, he told Krishna that if he were to take the side of Pandavas, the side of Truth and Dharma, Pandavas would certainly win the battle. Besides Yudhistira being a very righteous man would most certainly give away his throne to Karna, which he will have to give away to Duryodhana because of his loyalty to him. And this, according to Karna was unfair because Duryodhana, though Karna was fighting on his side, did not deserve the throne of Indraprastha because of his evil deeds and villainy. This reflects a very essential side of Karna - a man who stood for moral courage and Dharma.

During the battle of Kurukshetra, Karna was indeed the toughest opponent that the Pandavas had to fight. But all his curses came into play which ensured that Karna fell a prey to Arjuna's deadly arrows. Firstly, his  chariot wheel got trapped in the ground and when he was trying to pull it out, Krishna ordered Arjuna to kill Karna. It was actually against the rules of war to attack an unarmed opponent. But knowing that, even without his magical armour and earring, Karna would be a tough match for Arjuna once he's back in his chariot and armed, Krishna had no other choice than to ask Arjuna to take the life of the greatest warrior the world has ever seen, when he was not on his guard!

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On a personal note, I wonder why God's always got things through unfair means. The justification anyone has for this is that God knew better and besides in Krishna'a own words, "End justifies the means". The defeat of Kauravas was undoubtedly the right thing to've happened, I agree. But why slay off greatest of the greatest warriors like Karna and Bhishma (That's be my next edition) and that too by unfair means!