Karna the tragic hero of Mahabharat - Page 7

Karna - King Shalya, the wheel is stuck. Go out and pull the wheel out.

Shalya - I am not your slave. You pull the whell out.

By saying this, Shalya threw the reins and left Karna's chariot. Karna, now was trapped. Karna shot mohestra arrows with agnito mantra and made the Pandav warriors unconscious. After that Karna got out of the chariot and tried to pull the wheel out. The curse was strong and Karna could not pull the wheel out, even though he used his great strength. Baghwan Krishna saw this and used miracle to wake Arjun.

Krishna - Arjun, shoot Karna now.

Arjun - Krishna, how can I shoot him. He is not holding weapons in his hands, and he is on the ground.

Krishna - Arjun, he is out of his chariot. Indra has given him a boon that as long as he is in his chariot, he cannot die. Shoot now, if he gets back in his chariot, you will not be able to kill him.

Arjun placed a shakti mantra on an arrow and shot it at Karna. The arrow hit Karna in the chest and Karna fell. Karna kept on praying to Ram and Krishna while he fell. When seeing Karna fell, Duryodone and his brothers ran away from the battlefield. Pandav army was standing by the sthumb and were declared the winner for that day.

Now it was almost night time but Karna even though wounded was still alive. A Brahmin approached Karna.

Brahmin - Are you Karna, the great dann veer?

Karna - I am Karna and whatever you may want you can take it from my chariot.

Brahmin - Look at your chariot, thieves have already taken everything except your weapons. What can I do with your weapons? I need some wealth. If you are a true dann veer, give me some wealth.

Karna - My father Suryadev had told me that in my teeth there are diamonds. I can give you those diamonds in daan.

Karna takes a small stone and hits inside his mouth with it and breaks his teeth. Karna gives it to the Brhamin.

Brahamin - You have taken these diamonds out of your mouth. Will you give an unclean daan?

Karna - Sorry, Brahmin devata. Give me water so I can wash these diamonds.

Brahmin - There is no one around in this battlefield. The water is worth more than your diamonds. If I give you water, it is trading not giving daan.

Karna - Sorry, give me my weapons and I will wash the daan.

Brahmin - You are making me do the work.

Karna is unable to get up because he is wounded. Karna slides on the ground with difficulty and reaches his chariot. Karna grabs his chariot and goes inside. Inside the chariot, Karna finds his bow and arrows which Karna takes and comes out of the chariot very slowly. Karna comes where the Brahmin by moving very slowly on the ground. Karna takes an arrow and places ganga astra mantra on it and shoot it on the ground. ( Same as Arjun, who shot it to give water to Bhisma ) ( In this version, Karna's curse was not to forget the knowledge, but to fall on the battlefield on the second day so he still knew the mantras. ) Ganga water came out of the ground and Karna washed the diamonds and gave it to the Brahmin.

As soon as Karna gave the diamonds to the Brahmin, the Brahmin turned into Lord Krishna. ( When Karna was ready to donate his body to Krishna, he had asked for a boon that let me see you at the time of my death )

Krishna - Karna, you are the greatest dann veer, I have seen. Ask me anything you want.

Karna - Lord, I do not wish to ask for any maya. I wish to ask for 5 things.

Krishna - Go ahead, you may ask for anything you like.

Karna - Let me have a tilak from Brahmins. ( In Kaliyug, people like to place tilak by themselves to show off. The right tilak is placed by Brahmin for giving them donations or performing a seva )

Karna - Let me receive food from mother's hand. ( In Kaliyug, people forget motherly love and enjoy it more if girlfriends or wives surve. )

Karna - Let son cremate in next life. ( This way Karna knew that his son was alive to take the responsibility of the family )

Karna - In my body, please reside there all the time. ( Baghwan is also inside us, not just in temples. )

Karna - In this life, please cremate my body yourself and for next life give me your bhakti.

Karna did not ask for moksha because the great bhakts do not ask for moksha but bhakti from Bahgwan. Krishna showed Karna the virat form. ( same as the one he showed Arjun. ) ( Earlier on Devki, Vassudev, Nandji, Yasodha, Uddhav, Arjun, Rukmani, Balram had seen his virat form ) Karna felt great as seeing Krishna in his virat form and freed his soul from his body. Krishna sent his soul to Vaikunth and took Karna's body on his shoulder. Krishna stopped at Tapi river, near Surat and cremated Karna's body. ( There is a small temple at this site stating that Karna was cremated by Krishna here. )

This was all taken from: Karna Parva 17th Day: Gujrati Version

http://thekarna.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/karna-parva-gujarati-version-2/

@RJ1234

Originally posted by: RJ1234

not to mention that lord krishna himself did the cremation of karna's dead body, as it Karna's last wish.

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

This is a regional version? Okay.

B'cos in the original Mahabharata, the reason Kunti felt obliged to confess the truth about Karna was that nobody seemed to be there to give him a proper funeral, and so her guilty conscience pricked her, and so she had to confess in order to get the Pandavas to do it.

Originally posted by: Justlikethat1

A very well written post👏

But I am going to have to disagree,.. Who should be called a hero? That is one of the main questions that one needs to answer before calling some like Karna, raavan or Duryodhan a hero.

Does difficulties in life, skill and talent alone make one a hero? No.. A hero is born when he stands up to certain principles that befit humanity as a whole.

I have no disagreement with regards to karna's skills. I have no questions about his generosity. I agree that he faced adversities in life and life find give him a load of pain right from birth. But again, no one in Mahabharata lived life happily all the time. Each and every character had to face difficulties at various stages of their life. The strong ones came out shining by not compromising their basic decencies and principles. Certain characters chose a path that led them down the path if adharam and Karna was one such person.

Comparison with Arjun always happens. Karna did have an Astra that would have defeated Arjun in the war. But if that is the only criteria that is going to make him better than Arjun, then no.. I disagree. I consider Arjun and Karna to be equivalents and in war, the victory can only be to one side. Lord Krishna knee this. When he helped Arjun, he was increasing the possibilities if Arjun's victory. Thus does not mean that Arjun could not have handled Karna. Infact after the 13 years of exile ended, Arjun single handed lye defeated the kauravas army, Duryodhan and Karna. He sent them packing without help. So does it mean that Arjun was better than these two! Yes., in this face off.. The same applies to Karna too. He had the upper hand in kurushetra because of the nagaastra.

Now as a friend, I do not rate Karna high. Someone who sees his best friend make glaring mistakes and yet in his need for revenge,, just instigates his friend more without actually bring the wise spoke in the equation, cannot be termed as a great friend.

Let me not even go to the vasthraharan or the killing of abhimanyu.

So no. Karna was no hero. At best he was grey with a lot of vices that overshadowed the better half of his nature. He was indeed unlucky. But that is no excuse for other things he did..

Originally posted by: TheWatcher

i dis-agree with you, Karna was a HERO, I read somewhere in Mahabharata Krishna told Arjuna when karna and arjun's battle was about to happen ,or something like that, Krishna told "he is the foremost of heroes" and did you forgot the time when kishnna himself praised karna when he was moving arjun's chariot 1 step back and arjun was moving karna's chariot 10 steps back krishna told arjun that HE(krishna) himself is sitting with him(arjun) with the weight of the whole universe and hanuman was too sitting on arjun's chariot still he was able to rock it by his force he achieved what no other warrior could have achieved and arjuna was only able to defeat karna along with 3 curses, indra's efforts, kunti's (requests ,which lessened his hatred towards his bros) and krishna's efforts ( arjun had met a certain death when karna fired a arrow ( i have forgotten the name i am no scholar in these things but i have researched about arjun vs karna ) and krishna lowered the chariot so that arjun was not hit by the arrow and lets not forget the fact that in the whole mahabharat he was demotivated by drona,bhishma ,krishna,indra. In whatever version i read KARNA will always stay arjuns superior