Originally posted by: Sabhayata
Sir thanks for the wonderful analysis
Could you also please share your opinion on Karna as a tragic hero
I have discussed Karna's charcter with many people over the years and many of them are of the view that Karna's tragedy is exaggerated.Because he did become a king and led a royal life and didn't struggle much in life because he did get parashuram as his teacher ultimately.
Personally i still think of karna as tragic hero becuase he was born a kshatriiya yet struggled to get a place in the royal world that was rightfully his.Because he hated his own brother's his whole life and when the truth was revealed it was too late to do anything much.In my humble opinion this is the tragedy of karna's lIfe.Had his identity been revealed at right time his life would have been very different
SO just was curious to know if some one as knowledgeable as you do you view karna as a tragic hero?
Certainly Karna is a great tragic hero. Indeed, he is in a sense the greatest tragic hero of the MB (surely more so than Duryodhana), just as Bheeshma is the greatest abnegating hero of the epic. In my book, there is one chapter which is titled 'Exalting Tragedy', with reference to a comment by Edith Hamilton (the classicist) that the pioneering Greek tragedy of Aeschylus has the 'strange power to exalt and not depress'. MB in general, and Karna in particular eminently qualify in that classical test of a great tragedy and a great tragic hero. Karna, as I earlier mentioned, is the one shining example of
purushakara in MB - a self-made man, whose whole life was one great struggle against an unconscionably cruel fate. Cast away at birth (in a basket) like the Biblical Moses, Karna, like Moses, carved an exalted place for himself in the galaxy of the world's most illustrious heroes. Ironically, for all the insults heaped on him by the Kuru royalty, his name figures with solitary splendour (vi-a-vis all his epic contemporaries) in the genealogy of kings given in the Vishnu-Purana. Karna's greatest tragedy perhaps was that he was, as was alluded to by Krishna, the right man on the wrong side'. He placed
mitra dharma (duty as a loyal friend to benefactor Duryodhana) above the ultimate
dharma (of aiding the righteous side). His glaring lapses - like the abominable part played by him in the humiliation of Draupadi, or in the collective slaughter of Abhimanyu - are also due to this tragic confusion of duties; otherwise he was too noble a person to stoop to such uncharacteristically low levels. At times he also seems conceited and arrogant. But that conceit, that arrogance, was the reaction of a heroic but sensitive soul to a prejudiced society's dismissive rejection of his exceptional abilities. And in the final hurly burly of war, his punctilious Kshatriya ethics (in refusing the fortuitous help from the vengeful serpent Ashvasena) put to shame the lack of it on the part of the Krishna-Arjuna combine. Karna's death is arguably one of the noblest among all the world's tragic heroes, as is strikingly validated by this wonderful verse on his decapitation in MB: "Then, the exquisitely handsome body of Karna of generous acts, who was worthy of perpetual happiness, let go of that head (of solar refulgence) with the kind of extreme reluctance that is evinced by a wealthy person in leaving his own prosperous home, and by a saintly one in forsaking virtuous company."
Edited by abhijitbasu - 11 years ago
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