death of tragic hero karna

personally my fav mahabharat character is karna...i call him the tragic hero as he was unfortunate all his life...for one he is son of surya which actually makes him belong to highest caste (as far as i know)...but he always lived life of charioteer's son and was ridiculed for the same...

secondly he was actually born as undefeatable...he was born with armor and bangles...but indra in disguise of beggar asked for those and he had to gv away since he was at that time praying sun god and cudnt refuse because of a previous promise made by him that he cannot let go anyone empty handed during his prayers...he kept his word even though he was pre-warned by sun god of indra's intentions...thus he was stripped of his protective armors only so that he cud be defeated by the pandavas...

he was cursed by parashuram as he had lied of being a brahmin...his curse resulted in his forgetting all his learning at the time he needed most...but ironically he was son of surya which means he was even more pious than a brahmin...another tragedy...
another time he was cursed by a brahmin for killing a cow which was accidental...as a result of this his chariot's wheel sunk wen fighting with arjuna...

and then kunti came and wanted to make him promise not to kill the pandavas (knowing very well that wud mean death of karna)...kunti acted as that selfish mother who wanted to save only her "legitmate" children...but then karna promised to save all but arjuna...

and finally in the so called dharamyudh...krishna used all kinds of treacheries to kill him...first forcing him to use his most powerful weapon so that it cud not be used on arjuna...
and then letting arjuna kill him wen he was weaponless...

i found his death even more tragic because it was not only cheating but actually krishna broke the rule of the war...in ramayana laxman killed inderjit wen he was weaponless and for that laxman has always been criticized...

well...karna's death was tragic and i loved how they portrayed his death in this mahabharat...i loved it wen krishna said that he will be killed wen he will hv no weapons and will forget his learnings...so that itself means he is the most powerful warrior making him more powerful than arjuna...

i fail to understand one thing...both sides used innumerous treacheries to win the war...then how come any one side can be called the side of dharma...in wat way is kurukshetra a dharamyudh...

just my thot...although i remain silent but i read all the discussion threads...some of u write such awesome facts and perceptions about MB...i feel so gud reading them...actually i hv learnt a lot by joining this forum...
for me kurukshetra was nothing but krishna's ploy to make his divyashakti come to the fore by making arjuna see his vishwaroop...i guess it is only arjuna who saw this roop...

but i somewhere read that krishna had let karna see it too at his dying moment...but i am not sure of that...

God always supports the righteous side and the Pandavas' side was more just, because they have been bullied and abused by the Kauravas their whole life. I don't have the energy to go into it all over again as I've debated this fact so many times in the forum. Just read through the former pages.

Originally posted by: ..RamKiJanaki..

God always supports the righteous side and the Pandavas' side was more just, because they have been bullied and abused by the Kauravas their whole life. I don't have the energy to go into it all over again as I've debated this fact so many times in the forum. Just read through the former pages.

first of all thanx a lot for explaining so many things...i did not really expect such a reply since like i said in the end that i hv been reading everything u ppl write...i just made this thread to share my perspective of karna as an MB character...he will always be a tragic hero for me and so his death so wonderfully portrayed by so called starbharat...that i cudnt resist making this post...

I've always disliked calling Karna a "tragic hero", because media has exaggerated the tragedy of his life, when in reality he had a happy life with kind parents and siblings. He had the friendship of Hastinapur's royal family and was gifted a kingdom for free. Yes, he struggled, but his life was not all tragedy. Calling him a "tragic hero" is actually an insult to him.

i guess our pespectives will differ here...i dont deny he had a happy life with his foster parents...its not about wat he got in life...its about how much more he actually deserved but never got...

Moreover, Karna was not a perfect character. He did have good qualities, and he was a better than Duryodhan in personality, but he was also the one who instigated Duryodhan to disrobe Draupadi by calling her a wh**e who slept with five men at once. He was also one of the six warriors who had disarmed and killed Abhimanyu.

well...ppl's characters r built according to the company he keeps...the pandavas instigated by dronacharya refused to accept him which made duryodhana offer his friendship albeit for selfish reasons...but the fact is that karna was befriended only by the kauravas who were from upper castes and was also gvn a kingdom for free...therefore karna speaking and behaving like the kauravas was a natural thing for him...i dont excuse him for wat he said to draupadi but i am just considering the circumstances of his life...how karna behaved under the kauravas' influence was not his actual self...his actual self can be depicted in all the other examples that i gave...

The Pandavas too had faults and committed mistakes, but they were very devoted to God and obeyed Lord Krishna without question at every moment of their life. That is why God protected them and aided their cause. God is always on the side of his devotees.

if it is about obeying god...then i dont think karna ever disobeyed god (if i am not wrong)...as for not choosing krishna...well that was also krishna's doing...he shud hv let duryodhana make the first choice since he had arrived first...but we all know krishna never wanted duryodhana to choose him so made the excuse that he saw arjuna first...everything in MB is so fraught with lies, deceptions and manipulations that personally i hv no respect for this saga...since each and every character is flawed i view the characters according to their circumstances and not their actions...

God too used illusion to kill the Kauravas not because they were invincible (who can be invincible for God anyway), but because they deserved it. Remember, Lord Krishna's motto always was "tit for tat" which is basically another term for karma. Those who defeat/kill others using unrighteous means also meet their end the same way, and the Pandavas were simply Krishna's tools to eradicate the world of evil. Bhishma, Dronacharya, Dushashan, Shakuni, Karna and Duryodhan all killed their opponents unethically, so they too met their end in an unethical way. It was their karma playing out. Saying they were invincible is meaningless, because not even Ravan, who was the strongest rakshasa in all the three worlds, was a match for Lord Ram. How could any of the human kings of dwapara yuga be too invincible for Krishna?

Karna being invincible with his kavach and kundal does not portray him in a great light. It can be compared to Vali's necklace in the Ramayana. It was said that Indra Dev had given his son Vali a necklace which would make him invincible when he wore it. That is why Lord Ram made him take it off and give it to Sugriva before he died. He said that it's unethical to fight with objects that give one an unfair advantage over their opponent. So Karna had to lose his kavach and kundal, or else people would have said he needed them in order to fight Arjuna, when in reality both were pretty evenly matched in terms of skill.

i agree with this that he had to lose those kavach and kundal...i just gv this as an example to exemplify his strength of character...

Also, Kunti never asked Karna to spare the other Pandavas and sacrifice himself. She asked him to switch sides and join with his brothers, but Karna told her that was impossible. Still, since she had come to ask him something at sunrise time, he could not deny her completely, so he said he'd spare four of her sons but not Arjuna, and in the end of the war, she would have five sons, whether the fifth be Karna or Arjuna. While Kunti committed mistakes as a mother and did act selfishly at times, she was not that evil that she'd tell Karna to go die and spare his brothers. She was a flawed mother, but she was still a mother who mourned the fact that one of her sons would die.

here i must apologize since i got the facts wrong...yes now i remember (since i dont watch every epi of starbharat)...she asked him to switch sides and not save her sons...personally i consider in case of karna who never got anything from his blood relations...for a person like him frienship with duryodhana will always come first...

Btw, Lakshman never killed Indrajit weaponless in the Ramayana. Indrajit was completely armed, and they both fought for a long time before Indrajit tried to use divine astras on Lakshman. When they all failed to kill Lakshman, Lakshman used a divine astra to kill him, but Indrajit was still with weapons.

this is wat i know about indrajit's death...indrajit was undefeatable because of indra's blessings...so laxman used treachery...indrajit had his prayer room just beside his room of arsenal...he took a bathe and was praying weaponless...the weapons were in the other room...laxman stealthily entered the prayer room...indrajit requests him to wait till he finishes his prayers and gets his weapons...laxman waited till he started his prayers and then attacked him from behind...laxman broke two rules...first he attacked someone who is weaponless and second he attacked from back...
i hv always known this story although i dont remember wat was shown in doordarshan's ramayana in 1987...

One cannot compare the Ramayan and Mahabharat wars. Lord Ram acted ethically at every point of the Ramayan war, because even the demons of Ravan's army had ethics. They hardly fought an unrighteous war themselves, so Ram was able to fight a righteous war with them. On the other hand, the warriors of Mahabharat fought unethically from day one. They were worse than the demons of Ramayan, so Lord Krishna too used illusion and trickery to bring about their end. Like I said, it's tit for tat.

i never said and will never say that lord ram was unethical in any way during the battle with ravana...wat laxman did he did that widout informing ram...later on wen ram learnt of this he reprimanded laxman (i dont know whether he was punished or not)...

thanx once again for replying...

One point on Karna ...

Originally posted by: bobbiswas

One point on Karna ...

Yes he gave his Kavach and Kundal knowing that it was Lord Indra. But it was not a donation .. It was a sell (barter system). He asked for Shakti ashtray in exchange. So he sold his kavach and kundal against Shakti ashtray. Pure donation would have made him Mahan. But he just wanted to kill Arjuna knowing that he is his brother and then he hide those facts from Duryodhana, who actually trusted him most. He could actually kill all the other 4 pandavas, but spared them. Now that was something real 'bishwasghatak' to Duryodhana. Since Duryodhana was an evil we all didn't mind what he did.

Why Parashuram cursed him? Because he lied to his guru for getting ashtray sisksha. Parashuram used to hate Khastrias, so he would have never been his teacher (though I wonder why did he trained BHeeshma then !!!!). So again karmaphal.

Yes there was pure injustice with Karna and that was done by Kunti. It was a kind of paap which is beyond any mercy. But pandavas should not pay for this. They were not at fault.

Now Arjuna killing Karna when he was weaponless ... So form which angle it became rule that only Pandavas need to follow all process?

yes thatz y i said "everything in MB is so fraught with lies, deceptions and manipulations that personally i hv no respect for this saga...since each and every character is flawed i view the characters according to their circumstances and not their actions"...i never said only pandavas did treachery...

Remember this same Karna was part of killing weaponless Abhimanyu ... a young brave kid ... killed by so called 6 Maharathis when he was weaponless. So this was his Karmaphal.

One thing which Starbharat showed, but not part of original MB was the Thakshak stuff. No Karna never asked Takshak to help him kill Arjuna. It was Ashwashen, Thakshak's son, who without telling Karna entered his arrow. Next time again he wanted to enter his arrow but that time Karna straight away refused and he went to killed Arjuna on his own, when Arjuna killed Ashwashen.

another thing also is being shown in starbharat which is not in original MB (as far as i know)...i never knew there is a second dice game played btwn shakuni and krishna...as far as i know there was only one dice game which was the root of this so called dharamyudh...

So Karna apart form being abandoned by Kunti never had any hurdle to face, He was a jealous person with sole ambition to prove that he is the best. He became king, knowingly kept on supporting all evil deeds of Duryodhana (never tried to rectify his friend). Told so many bad words to Darupadi and then finally ditched Duryodhana as he gave Kunti promise ...

i hv very limited knowledge about MB...but since karna is my fav i try to read all about him...

@TM- Nice post. Glad to see another Karna admirer here.For other replies, I really dont think I would bother now to reply and have discussion on right and wrong of it. Had it enough in past 8 months and not really fond of writing same thing again and again.All I can say is Karna is a tragic hero who was sacrificed in this battle of Dharmayudh.

Completely agree with you that Karna is a tragic hero and quite the most fascinating character in the epic. Quite apart from the fact that he fits the literary notion of a tragic hero, whether classical Aristotelian or otherwise, it's really how his character and his stor stays with you over time.

Karna didn't sold his Kavach , it was indra who thought of gifting him and he first refused to take anything from Indra

Karna is really an best char

Originally posted by: bobbiswas

One point on Karna ...

Yes he gave his Kavach and Kundal knowing that it was Lord Indra. But it was not a donation .. It was a sell (barter system). He asked for Shakti ashtray in exchange. So he sold his kavach and kundal against Shakti ashtray. Pure donation would have made him Mahan. But he just wanted to kill Arjuna knowing that he is his brother and then he hide those facts from Duryodhana, who actually trusted him most. He could actually kill all the other 4 pandavas, but spared them. Now that was something real 'bishwasghatak' to Duryodhana. Since Duryodhana was an evil we all didn't mind what he did.

Why Parashuram cursed him? Because he lied to his guru for getting ashtray sisksha. Parashuram used to hate Khastrias, so he would have never been his teacher (though I wonder why did he trained BHeeshma then !!!!). So again karmaphal.

Yes there was pure injustice with Karna and that was done by Kunti. It was a kind of paap which is beyond any mercy. But pandavas should not pay for this. They were not at fault.

Now Arjuna killing Karna when he was weaponless ... So form which angle it became rule that only Pandavas need to follow all process?

Remember this same Karna was part of killing weaponless Abhimanyu ... a young brave kid ... killed by so called 6 Maharathis when he was weaponless. So this was his Karmaphal.

One thing which Starbharat showed, but not part of original MB was the Thakshak stuff. No Karna never asked Takshak to help him kill Arjuna. It was Ashwashen, Thakshak's son, who without telling Karna entered his arrow. Next time again he wanted to enter his arrow but that time Karna straight away refused and he went to killed Arjuna on his own, when Arjuna killed Ashwashen.

So Karna apart form being abandoned by Kunti never had any hurdle to face, He was a jealous person with sole ambition to prove that he is the best. He became king, knowingly kept on supporting all evil deeds of Duryodhana (never tried to rectify his friend). Told so many bad words to Darupadi and then finally ditched Duryodhana as he gave Kunti promise ...