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Chapter 34: Karna - the Doomed Hero

Posted by Arun Mohan ~ on ~ 0 comments

Kunti fainted during the competition held by Drona because she recognized the youth with golden armour in chest and earrings as her first son. He was born before marriage, hence abandoned.
Flashback of Kunti’s first born child:

Pleased with her services during Durvasa’s visit in Kunti's hermitage, the sage Durvasa had given a magic formula to invoke gods for getting child. The curiosity after getting the magic formula made her to invoke Surya and that she had a child by the sun. He was born with a pair of earrings attached to his ears and golden armour that clung to his chest. In order to save her reputation and also to avoid her premarital liaison, she dropped the son of surya into flowing water by putting inside a basket. This basket was found by Adiratha who served the Kuru clan of Hastinapuri as a charioteer. Adiratha and his wife Radha were childless, so they raised the child as their own. They named the child, Karna.

As the years passed, Karna grew up and his great desire was to become a warrior. He even approached Drona for studying, but Drona refused and advised him to learn father’s trade. But his mother, Radha, encouraged him to become a warrior. Thus he approached Parashurama, masked as a Brahman for studying the martial arts. Parashurama, who was always willing to teach martial arts to Brahmans to stand up against the Kshatriyas, Soon, Karna, learnt all the martial arts from Parashurama.

One day, Parashurama was sleeping with his head on Karna’s lap. When he woke up, Parashurama found Karna’s thigh was soaked in blood. A worm had eaten into his flesh. Warm blood, however, trickled down his leg. Parashurama became sad on the agony suffered by Karna. Karna however said that he don’t want to disturb his guru’s sleep by waking up. So he suffered the Pain. But Parashurama realized the lie of Karna, that he was a Brahmin. Since only a Kshatriya is strong enough to suffer such pain in silence. Karna who did not know of his true parentage, tried to convince Parashurama. But Parashurama lost his temper and cursed his student that his knowledge would fail him when it was most crucial. But however due to Karna's pleading and also due to his best student, Parshurama gave him the celestial weapon, Bhargavastra and personal bow, Vijaya. Then he drove Karna away.

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