MORE ON KARNA AND ARJUNA

Commenting on the post “Why did Karna Want to Kill Arjuna?”, Mr. Confusedclarity observes that friendship with Duryodhana alone couldn’t be a strong enough motive for Karna to be so determined to kill his brother Arjuna. What he says is eminently reasonable, but Sarala’s narrative seems to suggest that for Karna, friendship was indeed an overwhelming consideration. In Sarala Mahabharata Karna clearly tells his mother Kunti that he would not betray his friend. Why was she persuading him to abandon Duryodhana, he pleaded with her: karna boila maye go emana kimpe kahu / maitra karjyare thile prana pache jau (Why are you saying such things, mother, said Karna / Let my life end while working for my friend) (Udyoga Parva).

But could there be something more to it, which Sarala might not say so explicitly, but which would be in consonance with the spirit of Sarala’ narrative? Karna had blessed Yudhisthira for victory. Was it merely a formality? But in Sarala Mahabharata a blessing articulated in such specific terms is not a formality; I suppose the same would hold for Vyasa Mahabharata too. When one blesses the enemy for victory, at least one meaning of it is clear, namely, that one thinks that the enemy’s stand is morally correct. If that is the case, then why did a virtuous person like him choose to fight for a side that was morally wrong? Couldn't he have decided not to participate in that War, as had Balarama done.

Consider in this context the case of Aswasthama. Although he was close to Duryodhana and was one of his advisers, he had no role in the exile of the Pandavas. He was in no way a party to Draupadi’s humiliation and did not play any role in Duryodhana’s decision to choose the option of war against the Pandavas. He had no ill feelings towards the Pandavas and he too had blessed Yudhisthira for victory when he sought his blessings, as the son of his guru. True, he was jealous of Arjuna when they were learning weaponry from his father, Drona, but there is no evidence that he continued to be jealous of him in later life. At that time he had not liked that his father had given Arjuna, but not him, the knowledge of brahmashira, the special divine weapon. Subsequently he had forced his reluctant father to impart the same knowledge to him. However for him, it was not merely a matter of Arjuna. Aspiring to be the most powerful in the world, and knowing that the most powerful weapon was Krishna’s sudrshana chakra, he requested Krishna to give it to him in exchange for brahmashira astra. Krishna said that he could take his chakra without any exchange, but Aswasthama could not even lift it and left the matter at that. This said, he didn’t participate in the Kurukshetra War to prove that he was the greatest warrior. He was fighting for Duryodhana because his father was fighting for him. It was not his war until the killing of his father by the Pandavas through mean deceit.

Now could one raise the same kind of question in Aswasthama’s case, as in the case of Karna? That is, could one say that his decision to fight on behalf of the Kauravas was not determined solely by his father’s decision to fight against the Pandavas?

As far as I am concerned, one important reason for them both and for even Bhishma, Drona, Kripacharya and Bhurishrava  was that they were fighting for their king, Duryodhana, and fighting for the king was an act of dharma  for the subjects, even when the king was in the wrong. Responding to Yudhisthira’s call to the warriors on the Kaurava side to join him if they wanted to support the cause of justice, the virtuous Durdasa did abandon his king and brother, Duryodhana, and joined the Pandavas, but he was only an exception, and there is no evidence in Sarala Mahabharata that his act was held up as an example of virtue. In terms of Sarala Mahabharata, the succession issue was quite complex (see my Introducing Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata for some detailed discussion) and the claims of neither Yudhisthira nor Duryodhana could be dismissed as untenable. In any case, Duryodhana had become the king of Hastinapura when people in that kingdom got to know that the Pandavas were alive and had escaped the fire of the lac (wax) palace. 

The tragedy of the unfortunate Karna was that he fought with his hands and feet bound, as it were, by the word he had given to his mother and could not do what he could have done for Duryodhana and for the great Kaurava forces that he commanded. Just imagine what would have happened had he killed Yudhisthira or Bhima or for that matter Nakula or Sahadeva, each of whom he had defeated and could have killed or imprisoned! 

ON THE INVOCATION IN SARALA MAHABHARATA

Krushna Singh, the king of a small kingdom in what is today’s Southern Odisha, retold Vyasa’s Mahabharata in Odia, which is popularly known as “Krushna Singh Mahabharata”, more than two centuries after Sarala had composed his magnum opus. Noting that the great Sarala had deviated considerably from the classical narrative, he wanted to give the Odias a feel of Vyasa’s composition. He began his Mahabharata with the following observation: one who wants to write Mahabharata, must first pay one’s obeisance to Narayana, then to Nara, after that to goddess Saraswati and then to the poet Vyasa, and then start narrating the story of jaya (victory). This could be viewed as his disapproval of what Sarala had done. Sarala had chosen to commit an act of almost sacrilege; he had set aside a traditional ritual. Singh did not mention Sarala by name, but it is very obvious that it was he who he had in mind. Sarala had made no mention of any of the above-mentioned – Narayana, Nara, etc. - in his invocation (which, incidentally, one would think a bit too long for an invocation); he had substituted them with god Ganesha and goddess Sarala.

By then Ganesha must have come to be accepted in Odisha as vighnaraja (the remover of obstacles), who must be given the first worship; so he offered prayers to him first as part of his invocation and then he prayed to Sarala, his village deity, whose staunch devotee he was and of who he would say more than once in his Mahabharata that she was the real composer of the narrative. He only wrote what she composed. This is reminiscent of Vyasa dictating the slokas (couplets) of his Mahabharata to Ganesha and Ganesha writing them down. But here the scribe was the devotee and the composer, the object of his devotion. By mentioning goddess Sarala in his invocation, as he set aside the tradition, the poet Sarala foregrounded the personal and the local. 

Could his invocation be also seen as his message for his audience that he was going to take liberties with the classical narrative? Thus for Sarala, the celebrated sage, Vyasa, was a character in the story; the one who created the Mahabharata narrative was the seer Agastya (Agasti). The seer told the story to Baibasuta Manu. Many, many hundred years later, Sarala was telling this story to his audience.     

   

WHY DID KARNA WANT TO KILL ARJUNA

when in Sarala’s narrative he knew right from his childhood that he was his brother? Why was he so focused on killing him? In the Kurukshetra War brothers didn’t kill brothers; cousins were the targets. Incidentally in Vyasa Mahabharata too Karna was no less determined to kill Arjuna. It is just that he got to know of his relationship with him in this narrative much later, but still before the War. As is well known, in Vyasa’s version, Arjuna had always been Karna’s target. He hated him. Things had already become far too complicated before he knew that Arjuna was his brother.

In any case, in Sarala Mahabharata Karna’s story is rather different. When they were all small, Kunti herself had introduced her sons to him and told him that they were his younger brothers. She made them prostrate at his feet as younger brothers should do to their eldest brother. Karna was upset that Kunti had given the status of her eldest son to Yudhisthira knowing that he was her second son. The hurt child told his mother that now he would get back his status as her eldest only after killing Yudhisthira. Kunti was distressed and disappointed and left with her three sons (Nakula and Sahadeva were not born yet) but no harsh word was said to Karna by anybody. In any case Arjuna did not figure at all in that exchange between the mother and her eldest son.

Later, Karna, the Pandavas and the Kauravas became guru Drona’s pupils. So was Drona’s son, Aswasthama. King Drupad had sent his sons, Dhristadyumna and Shikhandi (after she became male by the grace of a Yaksa), to Drona for their education. At that time there was no rivalry between Karna and Arjuna. The rivalry, which was really one-sided, was between Aswasthama and Arjuna. Aswasthama was jealous of Arjuna and he resented it strongly that his father imparted knowledge of some very special divine weapons to Arjuna alone. Incidentally Drona had never said that he would make Arjuna the greatest archer, nor had Arjuna ever sought or even expected such a commitment from him.

In Sarala Mahabharata there was no situation – there couldn’t simply be - where Karna was humiliated or discriminated against on account of his caste because everyone knew that he was Kunti’s son. True, he was called “Sutaputra” (roughly, son of a charioteer) but that was because he was brought up by a Suta. He went to Draupadi’s swayambara to win the princess, not for himself, but for Duryodhana and participated in the archery test but failed to hit the target. He was not a party to Draupadi’s humiliation in the Kaurava court. He had no role at all in the first or the second game of dice and the subsequent exile of the Pandavas. He neither encouraged nor discouraged Duryodhana to fight a conclusive war against the Pandavas. He did not play any role in the deliberations when Krishna came to the Kaurava court as Yudhisthira’s emissary. Before the Kurukshetra War, there were battles he had fought against Arjuna and there were battles too when they had fought together against their enemies. But there was never any particular hostility or jealousy, let alone enmity, between them. In fact in the narrative the only example of such lingering enmity fed on intense hatred from time to time was between Bhima and Duryodhana. Karna wished for the Pandavas’ victory in the War and for Yudhisthira to be the king. But he had no intentions of making things easy for him in this respect.

It was another matter that circumstances arose which forced him to do precisely that. On the eve of the War Kunti extracted a promise from him that he would not kill Yudhisthira, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva. She said she would accept it if he killed Arjuna or Arjuna killed him. About this promise to his mother Kunti, Karna never told Duryodhana. He honoured it in the battlefield. Although during the War, when he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Kaurava army, he defeated each of the four and could have easily killed them, he did not. The War might have taken a different turn, or at least the situation could have been notably different, had he killed them or even any of them. In any case, his promise to his mother severely narrowed his option in the War; he had to focus on Arjuna and Arjuna alone. He must have persuaded himself, at least after giving his word to his mother, that Arjuna’s death would decide the War against the Pandavas.

But wasn’t he focussed on Arjuna even before his mother extracted that promise from him? Didn’t he collect divine weapons to kill Arjuna specifically? As far as I can recollect (the text is not with me right now) it was not really so in Sarala Mahabharata. However, granted for the sake of argument that it was indeed so; is there anything surprising? On the Pandava side only Arjuna had divine weapons. Karna being an honourable man, would he have attacked his other four brothers or Drupada and his sons or Virata and his sons with divine weapons? The only one he could have used them against was Arjuna!

He was committed to Duryodhana. They were friends from childhood. As mentioned earlier, Kunti’s visit to him when she told him that he was her eldest born and introduced her sons to him did not end in a pleasant note and in any case it was a bit too late for forging emotional bonds between him and his brothers. He did not grow up with them. His mother did not take him with her but left him in Radha’s house when she went back after that visit. When Duryodhana became king, he became one of his key advisers. When he went to war against the Pandavas, Karna knew that he depended on him. Karna was an honest person, a virtuous person. He fought most sincerely for his friend to win.  

WHAT DID SARALA SAY ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF HIS COMPOSITION?

He said more than once in his Mahabharata that he was born to write Vishnu Purana. He repeatedly called his composition “Vishnu Purana”. For him the story of the Kurus was worth telling because it gave him the opportunity to describe the lila of Vishnu in his avatara as Krishna. His Mahabharata incorporates episodes from Srimad Bhagavata, Harivansa and Skanda Purana. Thus in a sense composing Mahabharata was never an option for him, not something he had decided to do; doing it was his destiny! And what did he do? A number of times he said in his narrative that it was goddess Sarala who really composed and told him the couplets and he simply wrote them down. He wasn’t therefore the creator of the narrative, he was merely the scribe. Saying these, he was probably protecting himself from attacks of the Sanskrit-knowing scholars, the brahmins, who constituted the powerful educational authority of his days. A non-brahmin, he had not merely composed (or rather “dared to compose”) Mahabharata in Odia (this was the first time any classical text was composed in Odia), he had the temerity to deviate from Vyasa Mahabharata to such a significant extent.   

It is said about the sixteenth century Odia poet Jagannatha Dasa that he wrote Srimad Bhagavata in Odia language so that his mother who did not know Sanskrit would understand this sacred composition and gain religious merit (punya). Nothing of this sort has been said about Sarala Dasa. Surely those who came to listen to his composition did not know Sanskrit and were excluded from the educationally privileged section of the society. They were in his mind when he retold the story; one’s audience is always in one’s mind when one narrates a story. But he made no mention of it in his narrative. May be we can conclude that Sarala’s narrative purpose was the purpose of every creative artist, namely to express himself, and as a teller of a puranic story, his purpose was the same as the composers of all puranas, namely to delight, edify and spiritually elevate his audience.   

Incidentally in Sarala Mahabharata there is no mention of sarpa jajna (snake sacrifice). There is no mention of the curse on King Parikshita, his death on account of that curse and his son, Janmejaya’s revenge. In Sarala’s retelling, the sages of Naimesharanya were not the listeners of the Mahabharata story from Suta, which he had heard at the sarpa jajna of King Janmejaya. Here sage Agastya (better known in the relevant literature as “Agasti”) was the narrator and the great king Vaibasuta Manu was his listener. After worshiping him, the King prayed to the great seer to tell him how to attain moksa and in response the sage began his narrative, which was about moksa, not jaya (victory). For Agastya, for Sarala by implication, listening with devotion to the lila of Narayana is what would bring moksa to the listener.

If Mahabharata, i.e., Vishnu Purana, is to be the narrative of moksa, could it be most appropriately contextualized in a violent situation, where a grieving and angry king was seeking revenge on the killer of his father through a terrible jajna that would destroy all snakes? Isn’t a shishya seeking the marga (path) to moksa from a guru, who was a seer, a more appropriate context for Visnu Purana?

 

 

 

 

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS, COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Some of my friends and well-wishers, quite a few of whom I have not yet had the opportunity to meet, have asked me questions and made comments and observations on Sarala Mahabharata in their correspondence with me over a period of time. I am grateful to them for their interest in Sarala Mahabharata and for the points they have made. I am trying to respond to some of these and am posting my responses in this blog.

YUDHISTHIRA IN SWARGA

When Yudhisthira reached the top of Himagiri, he saw around him four distant, tall, snow-clad mountains which, he had heard from the sages, were sacred: one was associated with the Sun god, the other three with Indra, Ananta Narayana and Shiva.  Above him was the sky, and above the sky was swarga. The top of Himagiri was as far as a human could reach. No one knew how to reach swarga from there but that was not something that troubled Yudhisthira’s mind. The poet does not tell us whether – to be unfair to Yudhisthira - the eldest Pandava had ever secretly wished for a life in swarga after his days in the mortal world were over. But in Sarala Mahabharata one thing is certain – Yudhisthira never worked for it. He did not think that one should live a life of dharma in order to attain swarga. To him a virtuous life must be lived because there is no alternative to it. But if one had to mention a reward for choosing to act in accordance with dharma in preference to what one would be inclined to do, then it was this, which is what Yudhisthira said so often to his brothers: katha rahithiba (word will remain). After doer was gone and the deed absorbed into the past, the word will remain - people would talk about the virtuous deed. This is the kind of immortality he seems to have most highly valued. 

The eldest Pandava was not interested in avoiding death. He was never troubled by death. He had no desire to go to swarga in his mortal form; in fact such a thought never even occurred to him. Sarala says that it was Krishna’s wish that he remained untouched by death; no wonder death could not touch him. When Gandhari, the mother of ninety nine dead sons, failed to consume Yudhisthira with the yogic fire of her eyes, Krishna reproached her saying that the man of dharma could not be killed because dharma could not be killed. After the departure of Krishna from the mortal world, living became pointless for Yudhisthira, a deep sense of void assailed him: se jebe prana bisarjana ambhara kisa bratiba (if he gave up his life, what sense is there in our living), is how Sarala expressed the virtuous Pandava’s mood. Besides, after Krishna’s passing away, the aeon of darkness had arrived and Yudhisthira did not want to live in a world under the siege of adharma. So in the coldest part of winter, ignoring Draupadi’s pleas not to go to the Himalayas, he went there with her and his brothers, with the sole intention of submitting themselves to death in those regions hallowed by the footprints of the gods: ye himavanta parvate prana bisarjiba (we will give up our life in these snowy mountains). When they had decided to die, what sense would it make for them to seek relief in some comfortable place, he asked Draupadi. Then there was the prospect of some wondrous gain too: if they reached the top of Himavanta, they would be able to see swarga from there and also the gods, he had told his family. That would be the place to die, he must have thought. But the mountains were inhospitable and the weather hostile, and climbing extremely difficult. Except for Yudhisthira no one was composed and in control. He was the only one who was in control and was full of hope. 

Once on the top of the mountain he felt lonely, utterly lonely. He was all alone, left with only memories. He remembered his brothers who had served him so devoutly and because of whom he had ruled the land as emperor, he remembered his wife Draupadi and he remembered too his Kaurava brothers and also his relatives. Everyone was dead. As always in the past, he considered himself responsible for the Kurukshetra War in which his Kaurava brothers had perished. He had always felt guilty that his desire for the kingdom had caused it all. As for his Pandava brothers, he had failed to stand by them at the time of their need. He had always been harsh on himself and now he rated himself as subhuman: a manusa janmare nohilain lekha ((I will / can) not be counted as human). So far he had pronounced judgement on his wife and his brothers and now, disappointed with himself, he was pronouncing judgement on himself. Alone on the mountain top, it was not swarga that was in his mind, but the losses he had suffered. “I have no one with me”, he was saying to himself, “where shall I go?” He felt lost. Wasn’t it a kind of narka (hell) that he experienced?

From the top he looked down and what he saw could be thought of as a bit of narka; he saw a well in which he saw a large number of kings in agony. But the moment they saw him, they were released from that well, for he was no ordinary mortal. He was the one before whom the avatara himself used to prostrate himself. Sarala Mahabharata embodies the idea that dharma is supreme and the avatara is its protector. Now for the kings to get their release from narka, Yudhisthira had to see narka, thereby experience narka. Isn’t it like Narayana undergoing a mortal existence so that the burden of Mother Earth is reduced? In passing we might observe that there is a difference though. Yudhisthira experienced narka on account of his karma; Narayana does not take avatara because of karma. 

Why did he have to experience narka, asked the yugapati (lord of the aeon) Manu, interrupting the great sage Agasti’s narration?  In the manner of a shishya, the great Manu had sought the marga (way) to moksa from the great sage and the sage responded by narrating Visnu Purana, which is what Sarala said about his own retelling of the Mahabharata story. The sage told him that the one papa the eldest Pandava had committed in his life was telling a lie to his guru, Drona, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, when the guru had asked him whether his son Aswasthama was dead. 

Agasti resumed his narration. Brahma, the Creator, sent god Indra to bring Yudhisthira to the abode of the gods and offer due worship to him. The lord of the gods arrived with his divine chariot and told Yudhisthira that he had come to take him to the loka (land) of the gods. Yudhisthira offered him prayers. He was on the point of ascending the chariot with the dog on his lap when Indra protested. Swarga is no place for a dog, an inauspicious creature. Did he not know, Indra asked the virtuous man, that even a touch of a dog would pollute?

Yudhisthira had no idea where the dog had come from. As he was mulling over his situation on the top of Himagiri, he saw a dog near him. He wondered where he had come from to that cold, desolate place. But he was in no mood to give much thought to it. He had felt good that he had someone with him now. He had all - brothers, relatives, wives, he told Indra, but at that time there was no one with him, except the dog. And he was not leaving him behind. The one who had left everyone behind, was unwilling to leave the dog behind in that Himalayan solitude. He would rather be with the dog in the mortal land than go to the abode of the gods without him, he told the lord of the gods. This is no common attachment which goes by the name moha. This is compassion. Yudhisthira was a compassionate person throughout life, but it was compassion which deserted him when Draupadi and his brothers fell to their death one after another. Everyone would face death on account of one’s karma from the point of view of Swargarohana Parva but that would surely not have excluded saying a kind, comforting word to the dying. In that episode, dharma and compassion were unallied; in the dog episode their symbiotic relationship was restored.

Unable to persuade Yudhisthira to abandon the dog, Indra told him that the dog was not really a dog, but someone else. Couldn’t he recognize him, he asked. He was god Dharma from whom Kunti had got him, Indra said. Yudhisthira told him that he had the eyes of the mortals and was unable to see the reality behind the appearance. The dog disappeared and God Dharma’s voice could be heard from the sky. He told Yudhisthira that as he was feeling lonely where his dharma had brought him, he had gone to him to give him company. He should tarry no more and go to swarga where his brothers were waiting for him. 

Indra said many words of praise to Yudhisthira. Krishna was born in the mortal world but even the avatara could not return to his own abode in his mortal form. Now he, Yudhisthira was going to swarga in his mortal body, the lord of the gods said. In Indra’s chariot, accompanied by Indra himself and offered worship by gods themselves, Yudhisthira entered swarga. He was ushered to his throne in the assembly of gods and as he sat there, he looked majestic. His brothers readily came and served him. He saw Duryodhana and his brothers too who were serving him. He saw Sanjaya, Abhimanyu, Ghatotkacha, Lakshmana Kumara, Draupadi’s children and Alamusha, and he also saw Drupada, Shikhandi, Dhristadyumna and other relatives, who had fallen in the battlefield. He saw the soldiers who had fallen in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. He noticed that everyone was happy. Soon they were joined by those who were their spouses in the mortal world. Among them was Yudhisthira’s the Odia wife: Suhani. In other aeons, says the poet, there would be other wars between the forces of dharma and of adharma and they would then return to the mortal world to participate in the same. Stories will begin again. Swarga is no place for stories. Martya is where stories are created. 

Yudhisthira noticed that Bhishma, Drona, Salya and Sakuni had become stars. Just one person he did not see in swarga loka and that was Dhritarastra. Sarala gives no clues as to how we might view this. Unlike Vyasa’s Dhritarastra, Sarala’s was more an onlooker, often a helpless one, than an agent, not even the weak agent that he is in the former. With just that about Dhritarastra, the celebrated sage Agasti completed his narration. The grateful listener, Baibasuta Manu, offered him worship and the sage then went to Brahma loka. The narration over, poet Sarala offered prayers, in an uncharacteristically small number of couplets, to Narayana as he folded up his retelling, in which he said he retold the story of the Kuru clan as part of his narration of the leela of Krishna: ye mahabharata ye bishnura purana (this is Mahabharata, this is the celebration of the leela of Vishnu).

THE KILLING OF KARNA

In a significant sense his mother Kunti had killed him before the Kurukshetra War started. Indra had done so even before. In the guise of a brahmin. Responding to the pleadings of his son, Arjuna, he had taken away from him his divine protections, which were part of his body. He had to tear open parts of his body to give them to him, as dana (ritual gift), which made Indra’s asking an act of mean robbery. Impressed with Karna’s sacrifice (hopefully ashamed of himself too), he had given him an infallible weapon with which to target whosoever he liked. But this was hardly compensation. 

 

Now, on the eve of the War she was sent by Krishna and the Pandavas to get two infallible divine arrows from him: Neela bana (arrow named Neela) and Bhuja bana (arrow named Bhuja). These were given to him by Krishna himself in a certain situation, details of which do not concern us here. He would remain invincible as long as he had those arrows. Kunti had joined Krishna and her sons who were discussing matters about the impending War and she asked Krishna who would fight who in the War. He told her. How could her sons, Arjuna and Karna, fight against each other, she asked him. Besides, Arjuna was a mere child with respect to Karna, who was an accomplished and experienced warrior, so how could he fight Karna, she asked Krishna. The mother’s anxiety for her younger child’s safety was exploited by Krishna to disempower Karna.

She should go to Karna at once and ask for those divine arrows, Krishna told her. He told her that those two arrows tilted the scales heavily against Arjuna. Karna had hidden them inside his body and as long as they were with him, he simply could not be killed. Besides, those were the arrows made of a piece of bone of the bodies of Krishna (Neela) and of Shiva (Bhuja) and they could not be neutralized or destroyed by any weapon. Yudhisthira told his mother to tell Karna that as the eldest of the Pandava family, he should join the war on behalf of his brothers and after the victory was won, become the king, which was his right. Sahadeva added that in case Karna decided not to leave Duryodhana, he should not kill Yudhisthira, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva in the War. She must ask for this too as dana from Karna, he told her. A celebrated dani (giver of dana), Karna would never disappoint anyone asking for a dana. He had once pleased Krishna himself with his dana - he had pleased the one, Narayana, who could never be pleased, be it with dana or gnana or bhakti, as Sakuni often said. 

Kunti went to Karna. She requested her brother-in-law, Vidura, to accompany her. The wise man told her that Karna would never fight against Duryodhana, his close friend from childhood, but she was determined to meet her son and persuade him to join his brothers, and Vidura went with her. Karna prostrated himself at her feet. Soon they started talking about the War and realizing that her son would never leave the Kauravas, she asked a dana from him, in accordance with the plan. He would give her whatever she asked of him, he assured her. She wanted his word that he would not kill Yudhisthira, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva. As for Arjuna, she said that she would accept whatever be the result of their engagement. Whether Arjuna died or he died, she would be left with five children.  

Dana is incomplete without dakshina. Therefore Karna asked her to name her dakshina. Kunti asked for Neela bana and Bhuja bana. Karna asked her how she knew about these arrows. Nothing was a secret for Sahadeva, said the mother.  Why she told him a lie – recall that it was Krishna who had told her about these arrows – the narrative does not tell us. The one who had once killed his son to appease the hunger of the guest who had asked for food – the guest, Krishna in disguise, was so pleased that he not just restored his son to life, but hailed him as the greatest dani - was disappointed. Says Sarala: karna boila mata go tu jugate garvadhari mohari/ kincita chatripana thila ailu taha mari (Mother, said Karna, you bore me in your womb / Now you deprived me of whatever little power I had). She wanted nothing of all that she had asked for, she told him; all she wanted was for him to join his own brothers in the War and rule the kingdom afterwards. Why was she saying all that, he told his mother, he would rather die for the sake of his friend than desert him at the time of his greatest need: maitra karjyare thile prana pache jau. He then tore open his right thigh and took out Neela bansa and then he tore out his left thigh and took out Bhuja bana. He gave them to his mother. Kunti gave them to Krishna. He gave them to Arjuna. Arjuna was happy. Karna’s loss was Arjuna’s gain; the former’s disempowerment was the latter’s empowerment.

During the War, Krishna saved Arjuna from Karna’s infallible weapon given him by Indra. Krishna had anticipated – rather “knew”, what did he not know! – that he would attack Arjuna with that weapon. So he asked Ghatotkacha to stand behind Arjuna’s chariot. The young warrior did what he was asked to do. He couldn’t think of asking the avatara why he was asking him to do such a strange thing. As that divine weapon despatched by Karna to kill Arjuna was about to hit its target, Krishna swiftly moved his chariot sidewise a little, exposing Ghatotkacha to the fast advancing weapon. It hit the young warrior and that was the end of Ghatotkacha. Indra’s weapon could not be used twice. The avatara destroyed yet another of Karna’s protections. Doesn’t it amount to the third killing of Karna?

It was then the snake Shoshaka’s turn to harm, in fact, kill, Karna. The snake had escaped the fire during the burning of Khandava forest, in which he had lost his parents and relatives. The snake hated Arjuna intensely. Revenge was always in his mind. He sought protection from Karna and requested him to keep him in his quiver as a weapon and promised him that he would kill Arjuna when he would use him against him. His years of waiting were over when Karna used him unwillingly against Arjuna, yielding to pressure from his charioteer, king Salya. As the terrible snake arrow came hissing, Krishna asked Hanuman on Arjuna’s chariot to help and Hanuman, the one without an equal, pushed the chariot down into the nether world. Thinking that the snake had swallowed Arjuna and Krishna, as he had all the arrows that Arjuna had sent to destroy him, the Kauravas were jubilant. After a while when the chariot reappeared in all its glory, the snake realized that he had missed his target. He prayed to Karna to use him again but the great archer wouldn’t use the same arrow twice. So he refused to oblige and silenced his insistent pleadings by abusing him and condemning himself for using a mean snake, always considered inauspicious, in the War. Greatly disappointed, hurt and angry, Shoshaka cursed him as he left the battlefield: his chariot would sink into the ground for two dandas (danda is a small unit of measurement of time) at midday on that very day, but for some inexplicable reason added that if somehow he survived those two dandas, he would be invincible.  

Soon his curse materialized. Karna jumped down from his chariot and tried to lift it. Salya asked him to counter Arjuna’s shower of arrows, instead of working on the chariot, which he did, but from a static position, on the ground, he was ineffective against the arrows from Arjuna’s bow coming downward from all directions, as his chariot, at a considerable height, moved swiftly from one position to another. He needed to lift his chariot from the ground. In the name of judhdha dharma (right action in the context of fight) Karna asked Arjuna to wait for a while as he was not in a position to fight. Arjuna stopped attacking him. He would not attack one who was helpless and without weapons and bring disgrace to himself and the ksatriya dharma. Krishna insisted that he must take advantage of Karna’s plight and kill Karna, but Arjuna flatly refused to do such a heinous thing. He said he would wait. Krishna mocked at Karna’s invoking dharma. He listed many evil doings of the Kauravas against the Pandavas and told Karna that by keeping quiet, he had been complicit in all those adharmik acts. Krishna’s outburst was as much to provoke Arjuna as to dishearten Karna. He reminded Karna of the vicious and entirely unethical killing of Abhimanyu. Arjuna was greatly provoked.

Then Krishna said something that proved decisive. He told Arjuna about Shoshaka’s curse and that one danda had already passed and if he did not kill Karna in the remaining danda, Karna would never be defeated. That was when Arjuna decided to choose victory over judhdha dharma. But Karna could not be killed so easily. As Arjuna’s arrow cut off his head, a new head appeared in its place. He used the infallible pasupata, but the same thing happened. Krishna asked Sahadeva about that strange happening. He told Krishna about the depositories of amrita (nectar) in three different parts of his body. That was god Sun’s blessing for his son, he said. Those repositories of amrita would have to be dried up so that there would be no flow of amrit in his body. He advised Arjuna that he must attack him, at the same time, with three powerful divine arrows, babala, pasupata and neelachakra, aiming at his heart, navel and shoulders respectively. This was what Arjuna did, as Karna stood unarmed and defenceless. Those three arrows tore him into three pieces. The greatest hurdle on the Pandavas’ victory path was removed. But it was a victory that brought the celebrated archer disgrace that nothing could ever wipe out.

As Karna died, his father, god Sun, wept piteously. His brave son had been killed unjustly, in a manner that was entirely unworthy of him – without a fight. The fond father recounted the doings of his pious and illustrious son. His friend, Duryodhana, was inconsolable. He remembered with great gratitude the doings of his friend, lying dead in front of him. No loss till then had pained him as much as this.

The Pandavas were celebrating. Including the son of Dharma, known as the very embodiment of virtue on earth, who had gone to Karna for his blessings on the Kurukshetra battlefield and had received his blessings for victory, and who had always said that as Kunti’s eldest, Karna would be the king and they would all serve him. Had seventeen days of bloody, merciless killing deadened his sensitivities and made him see Karna only as a formidable enemy? As Karna lay dead, that was the moment for him to remember his elder brother and pay tribute to him with his tears. But he was celebrating. As for Arjuna, there is nothing in Sarala Mahabharata that he was ashamed of his adharmik act. Krishna had told him that just one danda stood between Pandavas’ victory and their defeat. Arjuna chose victory, as Yudhisthira had done earlier by consenting to tell a lie to his guru. But why couldn’t Arjuna shed a few tears to honour his eldest brother now that he was no more?

Incidentally, for the respective choices that Arjuna and Yudhisthira had made, there is no point in implicating Krishna. That would be against the spirit of Sarala Mahabharata – the avatara’s doings, leela, cannot be judged from the human perspective. From another point of view, which is not in dissonance with the spirit of Sarala’s narrative, Krishna persuaded, provoked, counselled Arjuna to act in a certain way, but he did not take away from him the choice to reject it. Destiny tempts humans with alluring alternatives but it is for the human to choose from among them. That choice both is and becomes his karma. 

Where were the mother’s tears? There weren’t any. The mother, her mind firmly fixed on revenge and comprehensive victory in the War, which alone could quench that wild fire, seemed to have gotten distanced from Karna. She seemed to have forgotten that he was her son. In her eyes he seemed to have become nothing other than an enemy of her sons, a hindrance to her aspirations. Even his death did not seem to change her perspective. If it had, she would have rushed to the battlefield to see her dead first born. She did not. 

The Great War was over and her son, Yudhisthira, had become the king. This was what Kunti had always wanted to happen. She had worked for it in many ways. But the Queen mother was no more at peace. The mother in her had asserted herself. What she had lost stole her sleep. She remembered her grandchildren: Abhimanyu, Ghatotkacha, and her relatives. And she remembered Karna. He was in her mind when she was awake and he was in her dreams when she was asleep. When she decided to join her brother-in-law Dhritarastra and sister-in-law Gandhari for vanaprastha, she condemned Arjuna, called him papistha (sinner) who had killed her virtuous (satyavanta) son. The mother seemed to have been redeemed through suffering. As for the son, Sarala restored his mother to him in death.