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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Greatness of Daanvir Karna

Karna was the one of the greatest warrior of Mahabharata.

In an incident which took place during the war between Karna and Arjuna, Ariana's chariot was hit by Karna's arrows and was displaced a few meters backwards from the impact of the arrows. At that time Lord Krishna, who was driving Ariana's chariot, praised Karna for his feat. Arjuna, whose arrows had displaced Karna's chariot by several hundred meters, was shocked at Krishna's praise for Karna and questioned him. Krishna said "Arjuna, I myself who own the whole weight of the entire Universe am sitting on your chariot and your chariot is covered by the blessing of Lord Hanuman. Without these two factors, Karna's arrows would have hurled your chariot off the Earth."

It is further mentioned that Karna was capable of defeating Jarasandha in single combat whereas Bheema defeated Jarasandha with the help of Krishna. Karna was the first one to expose the weakness of Jarasandha.

Finally, Parashurama, before cursing him, had mentioned to Karna that he was his (Parashurama's) complete equal.

Also, Karna had promised Kunti that if, he dies or Arjuna dies, she will always have her five children alive. This might be one of the reason why Karna in spite of King Shalya's suggestion to hit Arjuna on his chest, opted to hit Arjuna on his head, because even Karna knew very well that Sri Krishna will defend Arjuna hence the arrow directed toward the head of the Arjuna could be diverted. Indirectly Karna might be helping Arjuna to escape his arrows. Hence he might be just pretending to attack Arjuna because as per Karna's oath that he would not allow anyone to hurt Duryodhana until he is alive but this oath did not contains a clause that Karna cannot forgive Duryodhana's enemies hence there could be chances that Karna pretended to Kill Arjuna but he would have strictly never allowed Arjuna or any other warrior to kill Duryodhana hence along with being loyal to his friend Duryodhana he could also defend his brothers, indirectly.

Indirectly speaking he sacrificed his life for his friend and for his brother so that there will always be five children of Kunti alive apart from him as it was very well known that he was Dhaanveera so there is no doubt that he can even donate his life for his brother Arjuna. While assuring to Kunti, Karna told that either he or Arjuna will remain, this might be a political statement because Karna who was fighting from Duryodhana's camp cannot directly assure Kunti that he will spare Arjuna hence he might have given her an indication that he will not harm Arjuna because he hinted her that her five childrens will remain alive and at that point of time every one knew that Kunti had only five children, also he rejected her offer to adopt him as her first son because he was obliged to his foster parents to whom he owed the debt of rescuing him and raised him as their own child, also he did not wanted to hurt the dignity of Kunti of bearing a child before marriage hence he asked to remain quiet about his relationship with her like how she was quiet till now. This all indicate that Karna himself accepted death as his future.

7 comments:

  1. Jai Sri Rama
    Respected Sir/Madame
    I am an ardent Karna admirer and he is my favorite character in the mahabharata. I have read various versions of Mahabharata ie Gangulys version, C. Rajgopalacharis version but never came across this incident ie Krishna praising Karna when Arjunas chariot was hit by Karna’s arrows and was displaced a few meters backwards from the impact of the arrows. and Krishna said “Arjuna, I myself who own the whole weight of the entire Universe am sitting on your chariot and your chariot is covered by the blessing of Lord Hanuman. Without these two factors, Karna’s arrows would have hurled your chariot off the Earth.” If you could tell me where this incident is written and in which authors translation I would be indeed greatful.
    best regards
    Niraj

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Niraj,

    There are lots of folk stories are also present which are related to Mahabharata. And Vyasa had described things at very high level as you can see in Mahabharata he never described emotions of characters. On what decision how they felt. I cant provide you source of this story but I heard it many times. And I am just collecting information on Karna and other characters. May be they are not authentic in your eyes but they provide details like how people feel about character of Mahabharata.

    Regards
    Mr. Dhruv Gaba

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jai Sri Ram.
    Yes Shri Dhruv. You have made your point very well. I follow the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. He too has glorified Karna. There are 5 holy places in India 1. Vishnu prayag 2. nand prayag 3. Rudra prayag 4. Dev Prayag and 5th Karna prayag. At Karna prayag Karna is said to have meditated on Surya devta here and got some blessings its also said he had a vision of Lord Shiva and goddes Ganga. Swami Vivekananda did an 18 day meditation here and acknowledged it as a holy place. However there is no mention of Karna doing any tapasya in both gangulys version and in C. Rajagopalacharis version. Swami Vivekananda has attained the state of Nirvikalpa samadhi hence him acknowldging both this incident and Karna speaks volumes. Even in his summary on Mahabharata Karnas name comes along side Bheeshma and Dronas name who were the spiritual giants of Mahabharata

    Best Regards
    Niraj Sharma

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ Niraj , well the story of karna moving arjuna's chariot by his arrows in not available in KMG or rajaji version , it is not a folk lore too, it is available in many north indian versions, we have it in Gujarathi version which is 6000 pages , we also have an expert in gujarathi version he will write in this blog shortly .

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Neeraj,

    Swami Vivekananda is one of the greatest people of India. And its good to know that they also like Karna.
    Please let me know book publisher name in which Vivekananda wrote about Karna.
    Thanks and Regards

    Dhruv Gaba

    ReplyDelete
  6. Respected Sir. I got this information from internet. At a certain distance from my home there is an Ashram dedicated to Swami Vivekananda. I had met one of the swamis there and he too confirmed above information.
    Best Regards
    Niraj

    ReplyDelete
  7. Shri Gandharva
    Thanks for above information. I will be looking forward to read about the extracts from the Gujrati version from the expert you have mentioned above.

    Best Regards
    Niraj

    ReplyDelete