Karna : Unlucky or Deceived ?

Who is Karna ? Sure, he is the son of Kunti, brother to the Pandavas and Arjun's nemesis. But is that all ? Or is there more to this phenomenon history acknowledges as the 'Son of the Sun God' ? 

Karna isn't just another character in the Mahabharata, he is perhaps the unluckiest character in Indian mythology. His detractors might feel otherwise, but no one has or ever will doubt his ability. He had everything going for him but somehow everything managed to work against him. He had all the elements of a hero, but was never allowed to be one ; first by his mother, then his teacher, his brothers and even God.

Karna, is only biologically the son of Kunti, as his sorry tale begins with her. Back when she was princess Kunti, letting her curiosity get ahead of her she decided to summon the Sun God(Agni Devta) using the magical powers bestowed upon her by a sage. Upon being summoned, and appearing before the princess, the sun God was compelled by virtue of the magical formula she used, to present her with a son, and this marks the birth of Karna, the boy wonder. Apprehensive of the societal allegations she might have to face for being an unwed mother, she decides to save face and wash her hands off this child. She wraps him with a cloth, puts him in a basket and just blatantly leaves him afloat to a river's whim. Destiny played its part and Karna would end up at a Shudra household, at a charioteer's house to be exact. There lies the second injustice Karna was subjected to, He was a Kshatriya who had to live the life of a shudra just because his birth mother decided to leave him at the devil's mercy. Unfair, don't you think ? Anyway, Karna being the son of the sun God, was born with divine powers, most notably a natural body armor and blessed earrings, which made him invincible. He was conned out of that too, much more on that later.

 Anyway, thanks to the Indian social hierarchy, Karna was supposed to stick to the rigid rules of the caste system, and live like a shudra. This was something Karna found hard to digest, and rightly so. He was a warrior at heart, and a warrior by birth too. Determined to be regarded no less than anyone else, Karna approached the revered teacher Dronacharya, who blatantly shut out the poor kid telling him to stick to his caste rules. Once again this was injustice, for who really gets to decide Karna's caste ?  Whose lineage does he belong to ? Is it the sun God, who impregnates his mother, is it King Pandu, his mother lawfully marries, or is it the shudra charioteer whose house he just happens to reach. There are many unanswered questions when it comes to Karna, further validating the injustice he was subjected to. 

Anyway, proceeding with the tale of this wonder of a man, Karna driven by a desire to learn from the best and to be the best there is, proceeds to the ashram of the great Kshatriya warrior Parushurama, under the disguise of being a Brahmin. Parusharama had this rule of teaching anyone but a Kshatriya. One day while Parusharama was resting on Karna's lap, a bee stung Karna who withstood the excruciating pain, just so that Parushurama doesn't wake up. Upon waking up eventually Parusharama seeing the immense pain Karna tolerates concludes he is a Kshatriya by birth (as only ones belonging to the warrior class had the ability to withstand such pain and suffering) and hence accuses Karna of deceiving him. He goes on to curse Karna that his mind would prove futile to recall everything he had learned just when he would need it the most. This again, is open to subjective interpretation. Karna was indeed a Kshatriya, his natural armor testimony to that fact , but his lineage wasn't accepted at any other time, he lived the life of a shudra, subjected to the hardships that befall a shudra. Its difficult to not symphatize with Karna, he must have felt pretty hard done by fate and life.

But the apathy doesn't end there. Legend says, the Earth itself cursed Karna, who one day seeing a hungry girl sucked milk out of the ground and fed it to her. This enraged Mother Earth who would go on to curse Karna that one day, the earth would suck the life out of him. This actually has an ironic impact during a later phase of his life. Once again, Karna was punished by the Earth for helping a child of the earth. His was surely a life of irony !

Determined to carve out a niche for himself, Karna goes to Hastinapur, to participate in a archery tournament where the young princes, the hundred Kauravas and five Pandavas showcased their skills. Kunti, on spotting her son by virtue of his armor, decides to let things slide by and doesn't reveal her pre marital exploits to anyone. Karna emerges triumphant, upon which his foster father, the charioteer runs and embraces him. This is a crucial juncture in his story, as his identity is revealed and his respect goes down the drain.  He was born a Kshatriya, but he lived the life of a shudra. At such a time, the only one who really embraced Karna was the Kaurava prince Duryodhan. He made him the prince of Angana, he acknowledged him on his merit. The Kshatriya by birth, was now a Kshatriya by merit. This is a turning point, as it made Karna swore his loyalty to Duryodhan. He chose to remain silent and oblivious to all of Duryodhan's actions, including the public disrobing of Draupadi. This, I must admit was one of his only fallacies. This enraged Krishna, who lamented Karna for not reacting such a heinous crime. The Draupadi-Karna angle has been subject to a lot of speculation. One school of history believes she was actually in love with Karna, and that it was Krishna who had influenced her to not marry Karna. The other, more popular version records the events that went down at Draupadi's swayamvar, whereby she insulted him calling him a "Suta-Putra"and deemed him unfit of her. Karna, despite technically being a crown prince,was still the perennial outsider. He was the one guy no one wanted to be associated with; no one except Duryodhan. Even Bhisma detested him so much that when war finally broke out, it wasn't until after the tenth day when Bhishma died, that Karna was allowed to enter the battlefield. But once he did, he was unforgiving and menacing. He was a storm which had taken the Pandavas by surprise. He was the Kauravs's trump card, he would win them the war. 

This is when, the last straw in Karna's life, Krishna,comes into the equation. Krishna was a master strategist, he foresaw and anticipated things in advance. He was to Pandavas what Karna was to the Kauravas. He was the difference maker, the X-Factor. He approached Karna just before war began to side with the Pandavas, to be on the good side of the aisle. Karna's unwavering loyalty to Duryodhan meant Krishna's attempts of luring Karna were unsuccessful. This made Krishna approach Kunti. He asked her to reveal to Karna his real lineage, the truths of his life. This was a mother being used against her son. The purest relation in all of mankind reduced to that of a bargaining deal. I guess its true what they say, "All is fair in love and war". Kunti then drops the bombshell on Karna revealing the truths of his parentage. She goes a step further to offer him the throne if the Pandavas won, with Draupadi, beside him as his Queen. Not only has fate and luck and social animosity, all contributed to the apathy in Karna's life, here was his own mother, his own flesh and blood conspiring against him, lobbying for her other five sons, never for a moment having any love for Karna. Karna, totally aware of his mother's actions, vows to not kill any of her sons except Arjun. All his attempts proving futile, Krishna pulls out his trump card, taking the help of the Gods. He asks Indra, the King Of Gods to help extract from Karna his armor, thus rendering him vulnerable. Indra, under the guise of a sage, goes to Karna asking him in charity his armor. Karna, philanthropic by nature, donates his armor without a moment's hesitation. Astounded by his charitable nature, offers him the "Spear Of The Gods", a weapon so powerful it never misses its mark. But Indra placed the condition that it could only ever be used once. Karna, who intended to save it for his showdown with Arjuna, is compelled to use it against the demon son of Bheema, Ghatotkach. It is as if the Gods are conspiring against him. Krishna was using all the tricks in his arsenal to weaken Karna. He knew till Karna was alive, the Kauravas had the upper hand; he was scared of Karna's ability, he spotted his excellence, and acknowledged his brilliance. At the height of the Great War, the moment finally arrived; Karna and Arjuna come face to face. There was an eerie kind as of a silence, its almost as if the world was overwhelmed at the sight of these two great titans, face to face, ready for battle. The two biggest dogs in the fight were ready to battle it out, this was going to decide the fate of the war. And speaking of fate,  needless to say, it was Karna's worst enemy. Taking advantage of the moment Krishna instructed the earth goddess to exact her revenge which she gleefully accepted, sucking into the earth Karna's chariot just as he had sucked milk out of it. This was irony at its brutal best. Compounding his problems, Parashurama's curse also manifested at the exact moment rendering Karna's brain completely blank. His knowledge had deserted him. A frustrated Karna got off his chariot,went down on his knees and tried to lift his wheel of the ground. This was quite the setting, a Kshatriya who was born to the sun god, raised by a shudra charioteer,  wronged by bis mother, fighting against his brothers, conned by the Gods was on his knees, defenceless, waging a lone battle against the forces of the universe just like he had all his life. Krishna knew this was the one moment, this was Arjun's window of opportunity to win the war. He instructed Arjun to shoot his arrow at Karna. Hesitant at first and unwilling to break the Kshatriya code, Arjun, upon being goaded by Krishna hesitantly pulled his arrow and shot Karna on his back. And just like that, Karna was dead. The Boy Wonder was no more, a rather unceremonious death for perhaps the greatest warrior of the era. Destiny played itself out, Karna was defenseless, just like once Draupadi was.

 Karna wasn't to die that day, he was made to die. A life full of irony and unfairness had come to an end in the most unpleasant of ways. So, every time the Mahabharata is mentioned, Karna's will come up, and the question would pop up, " Was Karna deceived by the Gods ? ", was his death more to do with the deceitfulness of his contemporaries or was it just fate ? Was his fate really that bad or did the Gods conspire to make his fate seem so harsh ? The questions shall remain unanswered and Karna shall remain a subject of speculation and subjective opinions. Say what you may, but Karna was wronged, from the moment he was born to the moment he died. There was and will always be one Karna, the Boy Wonder who lived the life of the outsider, the all powerful yet the most ridiculed. His life and his death were testimony to the fact that "KALYUG WAS INDEED HERE".