Suryadeva, Rishi Durvasa and abandonment - what should they have done? - Page 10

Originally posted by: JanakiRaghunath

Yes, exactly. I am not denying that she probably did love the Pandavas more, which is natural for any mother since she raised them from birth and she did not raise Karna. Her partiality towards the Pandavas is not unjustified or unrealistic, but that doesn't mean she had no love for Karna. I want to ask any of the mothers in this forum, if they could ever hate or dislike the children they gave birth to. Granted, you probably did not give up your child so that they could have a better future elsewhere (or maybe you did), but there are many mothers today who do give up their children for adoption, and yes, I would say that Kunti gave up Karna for adoption, because she never simply abandoned him.

How can you compare leaving a child in basket in flowing river with adoption? She ABANDONED the child clearly . I have really not heard about Surya dev promising to take care of that son.. but if you say so...i believe then...

She entrusted him to Sutrya Dev and only floated Karna on the river when Surya Dev had assured her that he would protect the baby. Karna did have a better future with Atiratha and Radha, because even if he was known as Suta putra, it was a far far better reputation than being known as an illegitimate child, which was 1000x worse in those days than it is now. People think Karna would have enjoyed luxury and royalty had he stayed with Kunti, but I highly doubt it. Unlike the Pandavas, he was born illegitimate and would have had to carry that reputation with him for life. Kunti would never have gotten married and might even have been exiled from her father's kingdom. She and Karna may have had to live in poverty with a bad rd heputation to carry with them forever. Being known as a suta putra was far better than that.

Well this is part of your imagination.. what if after pandu had confessed he cant have children..she cud hav told abt her first child.. To be honest I do understand that she felt society pressures and kept secret hidden for long...but when after so many years she came to know of her son... why didnt she confide among her sons or tell karna then...she wanted to do that during war right...She cud have done that after rangbhoomi itself..

I am not denying that Kunti made mistakes. Who in Mahabharat did not? But to call her evil and selfish is a bit too much. Lord Krishna would never have respected her had she been an all out adharmi.

I dont think many of us who blamed her thinks she is evil... like you only we believe that as a human she committed mistakes... and Mahabharat had so many people making mistakes ultimately leading to War...

Kunti coming to Karna in the end may have had two purposes: 1) To save her other 5 sons, or 2) To bring all 6 of her sons together before it was too late. We cannot say what was going through her mind, and we cannot fault her for wanting to bring her six sons together, because even when war was inevitable, a mother's mind thinks differently. A mother's mind always craves to see her children happy, and Kunti never asked Karna to get himself killed in place of her other five sons. She asked him to join them so that all six brothers could finally be together. Not only did she not want to lose the Pandavas, it also saddened her to think about losing Karna, and this was her last chance to spare bloodshed between brothers. It was Karna who gave her the promise that he'd spare everyone except Arjuna.

Only reason she went to karna was for pandavas... I dont think she was concerned for karna's well being...He was that sacrifice that she was willing to make...and like she had already done years ago ... She was happy to save 4 sons lives.. thus even while going from there ..she reminds karna to keep his promise in battle...

People blame Kunti for not being a mother to Karna, but I also do not think she had any right to. She had given him up to Radha and Adiratha already. He was legally their son. How could she break a family and bring sorrow to them by claiming her son back?

Just in para above you said that kunti went to karna to get all 6 brothers together... then with what right she went there...if she didnt have intentions of claiming herself as Karna's mother..

Didnt she think about Radha when she told karna that he is kaunteya...

Moreover, the label of suta putra he was suffering would have been replaced by the worse reputation of being an illegitimate son. Karna's life would not have been a joy ride had Kunti told everyone he was her son. 1) He would have gotten a worse reputation and 2) He was not her son any longer. He was Radha and Adiratha's, so Kunti no longer had any right on him. Isn't this the case in today's adoption also? Kunti's actions towards the end when she revealed the truth to Karna was an attempt at damage control. The secret she had hid for so long for both the Pandavas' and Karna's betterment seemed insignificant when faced with the possibility of her six sons' death in war, and as a mother she tried to do the best she could. She may not have done enough, and she may not have done the right thing, but she was NOT evil.

Finally I do agree with this last part at bold though.😊

Originally posted by: medha00

Kunti gave up the child the day he was born, and while doing so she also gave up any right/claim to the child.And with that she also discarded any responsability/duties as a mother to him.He belonged to only his adopted parents and only radha was the mother to him.Kunti failing in her duties as a mother to him is not valid here.

Originally posted by: ...Diala...

Suryadev: Expecting him to behave like a father of Karna itself is not right though he actually did rarely.. His assigned job was done that day.. So it will be purely the mother's call what to do with the child and whom to announce to the world as their father.. As Sabhayata pointed, he saying that Karna was his son without revealing the mothers identity is almost like he saying 'I will not tell you that Kunti is his mother'.. I remember Suryadev agreed to Kunti's call to float the child but nowhere I read that he will save the child nor did he request Ganges to slow down till the baby reached Adiratha..

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

Karna never knew that Kunti was his mother, wasn't interested or curious about it, and had no issues w/ being the son of Adiratha/Radha.

I don't think you get why Kunti gets all the opprobrium. It's well deserved, and here's why

• After the tournament, even if she was at a loss of what to do then, she had ample opportunities to fix things: she was no longer a kid. It's not like she never had any private moments w/ her sons. She could have sent for Karna privately and revealed to him the circumstances that she had to abandon him, and request him not to make enemies of her other sons. In lieu of that, she could have offered him a respectable status within the family, at least as her acknowledged son, if not Pandu's. Similarly, she could also have summoned Pandu's 5 sons and told them who Karna really was, and that they should apologize to him. At that stage, Karna was not in Duryodhan's debt - he could easily have thanked him, returned Anga, and join Yudisthir in his attempts to bridge the gap b/w the Pandavas & Kauravas
• Since she made no attempts to do that, she had no business approaching him at all. The only reason she approached him b4 the war was one of 2 possibilities, depending on how charitably one wants to look at her
• She wanted to save her other 5 sons from him, knowing that he was the only one capable of killing them. She didn't care about him at all
• She wanted to demoralize him (like Krishna did) by revealing to him this secret (she didn't know that Krishna had already done it for her) so that while her other sons would fight him wholeheartedly, he'd fight them less willingly than he was to date
• She wanted to give him his rightful part of Pandu's inheritance.
• Since she had given him nothing throughout his life, approaching him like a beggar particularly reflects badly on her, given that in the war, every one else - all her bahus (except Chitrangada) had lost their sons, but she didn't lose any of hers, thanks to Karna's gift. But she apparently had no issues w/ her grandsons getting killed - be they the Pandava sons, or Karna's.

The point that Karna sympathizers have is that if Kunti wanted Karna to recognize her as a mother, the least that he deserved from her was her caring about him. But the truth is - notwithstanding all the serials - that she never did. Given that fact, which is hard to contradict based on the evidence, Kunti had no business approaching Karna for anything.

Another thing - as a kshatrani, Kunti knew that one of the duties of her sons was to fight & die in battle. Far more innocent warriors than her sons, who might have had a bright future had they survived, died - Sveta, Uttar, Abhimanyu, Iravana, Kshatradharma, et al. So what was so special about her that all her sons had to be kept alive after the war, even if they lost each of their kids? What sort of a grandmother was she? Since her sons were kshatriyas, they ran the risk of dying in battle. Did Draupadi, Subhadra, or anyone else approach the killers of their sons b4 the war begging them not to kill their sons?

It's true that people sympathize w/ Karna for being discarded as a newborn. It's also true that he had loving parents in Adiratha & Radha. But that would be relevant in today's society, not that era's. It's the equivalent of a baby being born to a millionaire, being put up for adoption and adopted out to a family that can barely pay for his livelihood. Let's say that that kid grows up and through his own genius becomes a tycoon that then competes w/ and puts his biological parent's company in the red. Would the birth parents of that kid then have the right to go to him, reveal his original parentage and then beg him not to do a leveraged buyout of their disintegrating business empire?

Remember, Karna had to put up w/ being insulted as a sutaputra, not merely being called one. He was denied knowledge of the Brahmashira even though it was given to Arjun, just on the basis of caste. For those who think that he didn't have the right temperament, neither did Ashwatthama, but Drona gave it to the latter b'cos he was a Brahmin Dhritarashtra. Honestly, does anybody believe that had Karna successfully remembered and used the Brahmashira against Arjun in a manner similarly to Ashwatthama, that he would have diverted it at the wombs of the Pandava womenfolk? I for one don't for a minute, b'cos Karna was nowhere as vile as Ashwatthama, as Bheeshma & Drona apologists might like to believe.

Nonetheless, despite getting nothing from Kunti, Karna did the best he could from what he learnt from both Drona & Parashurama, and as a result, not only did he get Anga as a gift from Duryodhan, he also got Champa/Malini as a gift from Jarasandha. So he was hardly complaining. But one can blame Kunti for Karna not being eligible to even contest for Draupadi (she'd still have had the rights to choose if both Karna & Arjun had successfully won the competition).

In short, Kunti was not judged for merely abandoning Karna, that by itself would have been fine. If you notice, nobody ever blames Vishwamitra & Menaka for abandoning Shakuntala. What makes Kunti a real loser is her going back to that son that she abandoned and begging him to spare her other sons' lives. As a kshatrani, she should have been willing to risk losing all her sons, as far more innocent women than her in the war did. 😡

P.S. Re-reading your post, I recognize that you're trying to hold Durvasa & Surya-dev responsible for what happened. But that's really giving Kunti a pass, which she didn't deserve.

Surya-dev couldn't do anything as long as Kunti wasn't willing to own up to paternity of Karna. I generally despise Durvasa, but even he couldn't have blown her secret, w/o her permission. Yeah, he could have promised her a boon just b4 her marriage, or made the mantra conditional that it would only work post marriage. But I don't see what Surya-dev could have done, given her unwillingness to fess up about it to the world.

Yeah, Durvasa might have warned her against experimenting w/ the boon, while Suryadev - could devas just appear on earth and declare that _____ was their son?

Oh, and one more thing - Kunti knew from his armor and earrings who he was at the tournament itself. The Pandavas knew him from b4 that @ Drona's gurukul, but didn't know that he was their half-brother.

Originally posted by: Sabhayata

Reagrding Suryadev none of the pandavas father's the gods did anyhting much for them except Indra who did a few things for Arjuna I dont think Vayudev ever even interacted with Bheem so suryadev is no exception since none of the other father's did much.I guesss going as per shastras' pandu was their father hence none of them played any fatherly role in their lives

Originally posted by: Sabhayata

Medha:let me rephrase so that you can understand i am trying to say in her duties as a mother to Karna she failed miserably and horribly

smrth:Agreed completely.About pandavas and nakul and sahdev as well she was a wonderfull mother to them she even loved nakul and sahdev a lot who werent her sons at all and she deserves all the respect in the world for that but that doesnt mean i will ignore what she did to karna.If i appreciate her for bringing up pandavas in such an excellent manner i will also criticize her for miserably failing in her duties towards karna.I think its possible to do both see both positive and negative side of a character.Like i said i wont just see one part of the coin and ignore the other but if someone wants to see just one part of the coin that is their choice but personally for any character i will see both positive and negative not just one side.I repsect kunti for panadavs but not for karna