the first pandava

in the indian epic 'mahabharatha' by maharishi ved vyas, karna is considered the greatest warrior by krishna and bheeshma. a warrior whose life inspires humanity 'not to loose heart in the struggles that one may face in life'.

loss of identity: pleased by kunti's hospitality, sage durvasa decides to bless her. the sage is able to foresee her future of having an impotent husband, and so, he grants her a mantra with which she could call upon any god of her choice and beget a child. still unmarried, kunti, out of curiosity, invokes the mantra calling upon sun-god surya. the sun-god appears before her and grants her a son, as radiant and robust as the god himself. the baby was born with kavacha (armor) and kundala (earrings). surya assured her that she would still remain a virgin. fear of shame, kunti places the child in a basket and floats it into the ganges. in this way, the child who was supposed to be the first pandava; who should have lead the pandavas to victory at the war of kurukshetra; who was more righteous than yudhistra, more valiant than bhima, a better warrior than arjuna - was deprived of his identity.

quest for knowledge: more than riding the chariot, karna was interested in the art of warfare. he requested dronacharya to teach him. but drona refused him because he only taught kshatriyas and karna was the son of a charioteer. karna was the first prince and had all the rights to learn the warfare from the best possible teacher but destiny didn't give him a chance. had he been aware of his lineage, his mother would have refused him. karna approached parashurama who had a hatred to wards kshatriyas and taught only brahmins. karna approached him as a brahmin and trained to become such a diligent student that parashurama considered him an equal.

respect for elders: when parashurama was asleep on his lap, karna did not move when a scorpion stung him. it was a deep wound and blood flowed out of his thigh, but still he did not move. parashurama realised that karna should be a kshatriya for being able to withstand such pain. in his anger, the guru cursed him that his martial skills would fail him when he needed it the most. karna's plea of mercy softened parashurama but the curse could not be reoked. instead he gifted karna with the celestial weapon, bargavastra and his personal bow vijaya. it is assumed that lord indra had taken the form of the scorpion to reveal that karna was a kshatriya.
misuse of talents: after his education at parashurama's karna set out on a journey during which he practiced the 'shadbavedi vidya' (hitting target by observing sound) and accidentally killed a cow mistaking it to be a wild animal. the brahmin who owned the cow cursed him: like he killed a helpless animal, he would be killed when he would be most helpless. karna was excited at having completed the art of warfare, though he got cursed he gained the weapons of his guru. he was excited and like his mother, used the knowledge he gained at the inappropriate moment.

helpful and righteous: karna found a girl crying over a pot of spilt ghee since her evil step-mother would be angry at her carelessness. unable to pacify the girl, karna takes the ghee mixed with soil and squeezes with all his strength, extracts the ghee and pours it back into the pot. but bhoomidevi (goddess of earth) angers at the pain that karna caused for the sake of a mere child and so, curses him that just as he held the soil, the goddess would hold his chariot wheel during battle, making him vulnerable to the enemy. karna helped the girl but did not bother to realise that he might be, unknowingly hurting others. there are times when one might face blows in life but that does not mean that one should stop doing good.

value for friendship: when karna challenged arjuna at the hastinapura open archery tournament, he was denied the chance because he was not a prince. kunti who was seated in the gallery did not have the courage to acknowledge that karna was the first pandava. duryodhana, the eldest of the kauravas and arch-rival of the pandavas, saved karna from humiliation by making him the king of a small kingdom requesting only friendship in return. this developed a strong bond between karna and duryodhana, two warriors who should have been rivals. both of them were the eldest of the warring families and would never have developed a friendship. they should have fought against one another in the finals - the 17-day kurukshetra. his friendship with duryodhana earned him intense rivalry with his unknown brother arjuna and enmity in general with the five pandavas, of whom he was the eldest.

standing up for principles: though he was a loyal friend to duryodhana, he expressed his dislike of shakuni to him. he continuosly advised duryodhana to use his prowess and skill to defeat enemies rather than resorting for deceit or trickery. when the kauravas fail in their attempt to kill the pandavas by setting fire to the house of lac, karna chides duryodhana telling him that cowards are doomed to fail. he exhorts duryodhana to be a true warrior.

pioneering efforts: duryodhana forcefully carried away the princess of chitragandha when she refused him at her swayamvar. the other kings pursued duyodhana and karna defeated them single-handedly. karna was able to defeat jarasandha by finding out his achilles heel during the battle. krishna came to know about it and he later helped bheema in defeating jarasandha by exploiting the achilles heel that karna had initially found out.

generosity: upon becoming a king, karna took an oath that anyone who approached him with a request at mid-day (when he would be worshipping the sun) would not go away with the request unfulfilled. when it was decided upon the kurukshetra war, the king of the gods, indra who was also the father of arjuna feared that karna might end up killing arjuna. it was the kavacha-kundala that would make karna invincible and immortal in battle and so indra decides to take them from karna. the sun-god surya warns his son of indra's intentions. indra disguises as a poor brahmin and approaches karna during his mid-day worship and asks for the kavacha-kundala whichkarna gives off readily by severing them from his body. humiliated by his generosity, indra gives karna the boon to use indra's most powerful weapon - vasavashakthi, but only once.

egoistic complex: at draupadi's swayamvar, karna was easily able to wield and string the bow and he would have gone off with her, if she had not humiliated him by calling him a 'sutputra' (son of a charioteer). his words hurt him and he failed. he was the righful person to claim draupadi, being a true warrior and being the first pandava. but the words had hurt his ego. he could not make himself realise that he was a king. he could not make himself wield and restrung the bow.

moment of weakness: karna was against duryodhana's plan to defeat the pandavas in a game of dice with trickery and deceit. just to please duryodhana, he is present at the game that leads to draupadi's 'vastraharan'. when the kauravas start to strip her, karna insults her saying that 'a woman with more than four husbands is a whore'. the whole incident makes arjuna vow to kill karna. while it can be argued that karna's part in the strip was the cause of his downfall, his act can also be justified since it was draupadi who had unjustly humiliated him during the swayamvar.

loyal and honorable: when krishna fails in peace negotiations with the kauravas, he approaches karna, the finest warrior. krishna reveals to karna his identity as the eldest pandava and requests him to join his brothers; moreover, the pandavas would be ready to accept him as their brother and future king. karna refuses the offer citing his loyalty to duryodhana. he also reveals that, since krishna is with the pandavas, defeat is certain for him and the kauravas and he was ready to accept it. krishna accepts karna's sense of loyalty and accepts his decision. he promises to keep karna's lineage a secret and bows down to him - maybe the only time when the divine krishna bows down to the mere human. later, kunti meets karna in person and reveals him as her first son. she asks him to join the pandavas and become the future king. karna refuses citing his unflinching loyalty to duryodhana. he promises her that he will not kill any of the pandavas except for arjuna which will, in either way leave kunti with five sons. he also requests kunti to keep his royal birth a secret. upon her request, he also promises her that he would not use any divine weapon more than once during the war.

the war within: bheeshma could not accept the leadership of the son of a charioteer. so, karna enters thebattlefield on the eleventh day after the fall of bheeshma. on the thirteenth day, his act of killing the unarmed and outnumbered abhimanyu (son of arjuna) is considered the reason for the damage of his image as an honorable warrior. on the fourteenth night, karna uses the vasavashakthi (the boon from indra) to slay ghatotkacha, the half-asura son of bhima. with the use of the weapon, krishna was sure that victory could now be theirs. on the sixteenth day, karna almost killed arjuna with his powerful nagastra but was saved by krishna. he could have used the nagastra a second time and slat arjuna but he stuck to the promise he made to kunti. it was towards sunset that karna could kill arjuna a third time on the same day, but he remembered the law of the battle laid forward by bheeshma that killing after sunset was morally wrong. on the seventeenth day, arjuna's arrows pushes bcak karna's chariot by several feet while the latter's arrows pushes back arjuna's by a few inches, so he is surprised when krishna praises karna. krishna explains that karna's chariot bore only the weight of karna and the charioteer while arjuna's chariot had the weight of the whole universe (krishna was the avatar of lord vishnu) in them and despite that, karna was able to move them by many inches. karna praises arjuna on his ability to deftly restring the bow. it seemed that both of them were well-matched and equal. then the earlier curses on karna started to rise. his chariot wheel sinks into the loose soil (bhoomidevi's curse); he finds himself unable to remember the incantations of the divine weapons (his guru parashurama's curse); and finally when he seeks the permission from arjuna and krishna and gets down from the chariot to remove the sinking wheel, krishna forces arjuna to bend the rules of the battle and kill karna when he is helpless (the brahmin's curse). when karna came to know that the pandavas were his brothers, his hatred towards them had vanished and just to be loyal to duryodhana, he went along with the war whereas the pandavas, his enemies were unaware that karna was their elder brother. arjuna is able to slay karna using a normal arrow. the death of karna made the most righteous woman in the epic, gandhari, the mother of the kauravas, to curse krishna.

despite being on the evil side, karna is considerd a formidable warrior, a courageous spirit who braved impossible odds on life. he is adored for his generosity. he is considered an example of how misjudgement can waste all the fine qualities of an individual.

karna never got his dues but he never stopped trying...

in the beginning, man created god

the british humanist association has decided to broadcast their viewpoints and for that they have purchased advertising space on the buses that sway through the streets of london. now, to their viewpoints - atheism. the 'atheist bus campaigns' have spread to usa, canada and other parts of europe. the campaign started with 40 buses and a target of 5000 pounds and has now crossed 200 buses with a collection of 150, 000 pounds. the church complained to the advertising regulatory that the ads would hurt religious sentiments but the complaint was rejected on the right for 'freedom of expression'.

slogan of 'you don't have to believe in god to be a moral or ethical person' was met with 'there definitely is a god. so join the christian party and enjoy your life'. the transport authorities made a lot of moolah. the atheist associations have achieved their objective and if the church should dare the church to authenticate their claims, the church will be challenged to prove their case. phew!!!

what surprised me was - 80% of the british and 90% of the americans are 'believers'. the usa is probably the only country that proclaims its faith on its currency - it is imprinted on the dollar - 'in god we trust'. then how did the campaign get to be success. is religion losing its glamour??

the thought that scared me - what would happen if this campaign came to india? there won't be any buses left on the streets. the buses, bus stations, workshops, transport corporations and even the transport minister would be castrated.

but then, india is the birth-place of three religions that deny the existence of god. gautham buddha asked his followers not to accept even his teaching if it failed to pass the test of reason. buddha's argument was that, if god is omnipotent, why is there so much evil all around? jainism, following the teachings of mahavira propound the concept that 'god is a mithya'. mahavira believed that the universe had no beginning and so, no creator. hinduism accepts that atheists can continue to be hindus with brihaspati being the presiding deity of the atheists.

so, basically all the religions that sprouted out of india were tolerant and gave importance to atheists, but the followers of the 'atheism-supporting' religions are not tolerant.