Episode 85 - Remembering Karna

Episode 85 - We begin the Book of Peace, the Shanti Parva.  After boasting to his uncle about his special clairvoyant powers, Yuddistira is blindsided by the news that he & Karna shared the same mother.  Now the Dharma Raja has learned that he killed his own brother-- aside from killing one's parents, perhaps one of the worst things a person could do.

The brothers spend a month outside in the city walls as a sort of penance, and are joined by the great sages of the ancient world.  Narada comforts the brothers by telling stories of Karna's past.  The sage argues that Karna's life & circumstances were custom-designed to spark this war and ensure its completion.

We finally learn of Karna's tutelage under Rama Jamadagnya (Parasurama), and we get the story of how he was cursed for killing a Brahmin's cow.  

Episode 84 - The Book of the Women

Episode 84 - Vidur & Vyasa tell a few parables to help Dhrtarastra pull himself together.  When the king is finally pacified, he leads all the bereaved women of Hastinapur in a great procession to deal with their fallen men.  They march along the banks of the Ganga to Kurukshetra, where they encounter Ashwatthaman, Krpa & Krtavarman, who are still on the run after killing the Pandava's sons & allies.

Ashwatthaman heads of to Vyasa's ashram, Krpa goes home to Hastinapur, and Krtavarman also heads for home.

The procession later meets up with the Pandavas, fresh from Ashwatthaman's downfall, and together they proceed to the battlefield.  Following the great cremation, a memorial is conducted on the banks of the Ganga.  Kunti joins in and tells her sons to honor their fallen brother-- this is the first time the Pandavas were told they had a brother!

Episode 79 - Kurukshetra, Day 17: Down with Dushasan/Killing Karna

Episode 79 - This is a big day in the war.  Bhisma fulfills one of his oaths by killing Dushasan and drinking his blood.  Now he will be gunning for Duryodhana.

Arjun & Karna finally get busy with their final showdown.  The whole universe apparently took sides in this conflict, with everyone choosing a champion to cheer for.  The pair begin fighting with conventional weapons, but soon escalate to magical weapons.

At one point, Arjun gets the upper hand, and strikes Karna until he's lost his wits and drops his weapons. Arjun then allows his opponent to recover somewhat before they resume fighting.  Krishna scolds Arjun (not for the first time!), for failing to strike the enemy when he's down.  Arjun has quit arguing with Krishna over these things, so he resolves to kill Karna at the next possible opportunity.

At this point, Fate and Mother Earth have had enough and they intervene directly.  Mother Earth seizes Karna's chariot wheel, bringing her enemy to a halt.  Karna jumps down to pull free the wheel, but it won't budge.  He asks Arjun to think of the Warrior Code, or his Dharma, and not to fire until he could fix his chariot and get moving again.

This annoys Krishna, who scolds Karna for even bringing up the subject of Dharma.  Where was his Dharma when Draupadi was molested?  This speech both shames Karna and enrages Arjun, who finally obeys Krishna's orders and kills his enemy.

There's that wheel again!  What does it mean that in the course of this war, we've had a Wheel Formation (that killed Abhimanyu), and Arjun's son dies using a Chariot wheel as his only weapon, and then Karna dies, clinging to a wheel which was stuck in the earth.  Is there some deeper meaning to the image of a wheel in this war?

Episode 77 - Kurukshetra, Day 16: Karna's in charge

Episode 77 - Drona is dead and a new commander is needed.  Ashwatthaman proposes that Karna be given the position and everyone else agrees.  Karna leads the army through a rather desultory day of fighting and then complains that what he is missing is a good driver.  Shalya is drafted to be his charioteer.
Shalya had promised to cause trouble should things come to this pass, and he lives up to it by constantly bickering with Karna.  For some reason, Karna chooses this moment to confess how he deceived Rama Jamadagnya in order to obtain the Brahma weapon.  When Rama finds out Karna is just a Suta disguised as a Brahmin, he curses Karna.

Episode 53 - The Temptation of Karna

Episode 53 - This episode is devoted to the classic scene of the Mahabharata in which Krishna reveals to Karna his true descent.  He never was the Son of a Suta, which everyone called him with scorn.  No, he was in fact the eldest of the Pandavas-- the original Partha.  Now that the truth was out, all Karna needed to do was embrace his Dharma, join his brothers, and assume the title of King of India.

Poor Karna, always the victim of bad timing.  It was way too late for such an offer.  Perhaps if Kunti had stood up and claimed him as her son during the Pandavas' first military exhibition, he might have come around then, but now there was too much water under the bridge.  Karna had been tossed out as a baby like the day's garbage, and had been scorned as a Suta when he tried to display his Kshatriya nature.  His modest Suta parents and the evil Kauravas had been the only ones to come to his aid, and he would never give them up.

Krishna failed in turning Karna, but somehow he allowed Sanjay to know of the entire conversation, so the story of Karna's descent and temptation was made known to all the Kauravas.  Kunti caught wind of the encounter, and she made a go at turning him.  She also failed, but she at least got the promise that he would spare her other sons, and should Arjun die, Karna would take his place as her fifth son.

Episode 50 - The Kauravas React

Episode 50 - Sanjay returns to Hastinapur with messages and intelligence from the Pandava camp.  The king's charioteer delivers this information before the royal assembly, while Dhrarastra, Duryodhana, Bhisma and Karna argue over the significance of these threats.

Having gone a good long while since Karna last washed his feet, the mess must have started getting to him, because he finally blows his top at Bhisma and swears he will not fight until Bhisma is dead.

In the course of this debate, we get hints at some other tales that we are yet to hear about.  One of these involves Bhisma and Sikhandin.  We only get a few tantalizing hints at their back story, but we are told that this warrior is destined to kill Bhisma.  Rest assured that Bhisma will tell the full story a little later in the current book.

The other unfinished tale involves Karna's enrollment as Parashurama's student.  Again, we only get a brief summary, but we hear that Karna had lied to the old Brahmin about his birth, saying he was a fellow Brahmin in order to learn the secrets of the Brahma-head missile.  When Parashurama discovered Karna's deception, he cursed him, saying that the weapon would fail him when he needed it the most.  I'm not sure when we will get the full version of this tale, because it does not show up in the Book of the Effort, and I do not have an index for the books to follow.  It's a good story, so I hope we get to it soon!

Karna is kind of a pitiable figure.  While Arjun is getting magical weapons by the cartload heaped on him lovingly by the best of the Gods, poor Karna is forced to sacrifice his natural-born armor for a single measly arrow from Indra, and must compromise his reputation and sacrifice his spiritual tapas in order to get the Brahma-head missile.  Despite the sacrifices, both weapons are fatally flawed, since Indra's weapon cannot be used against the Pandavas, and the Brahma-head has been cursed to fail in its objective.  Poor Karna-- he never seems to be able to catch a break!

Finally, in a more private setting, Sanjay reveals that he has converted to a new religion!  Krishna and Arjun are beginning shed their human aspects and increasingly appear as divine beings.  The charioteer was quick to notice the transformation, and he appears to be an early adopter of the new cult of Krishna-worship.  With Vyasa present to endorse his newfound religious zeal, Sanjay presents the king with the first tenet of Bhakti worship.  Duryodhana remains obstinate, but the king & queen both become converts.

Episode 44 - Karna cuts a deal

Episode 44 - We finish off the Book of the Forest with a couple of the more famous vignettes from the epic.  The first is the classic tale in which Karna is forewarned that Indra will come to beg from him his magical armor & earrings, but Karna refuses to prevent it.  He lives up to his claim of complete generosity and literally flays the armor off of his body and hands it all over to Indra.

Since transactions with Gods usually go both ways, Karna for his part demanded the "Never-failing Spear", which he figured would be good enough to take out his nemesis Arjun.  This spear will get used, but the outcome will be quite unexpected.

The second story is probably equally famous-- Yuddistira is tested by his father, who is disguised as a yaksha pretending to be a duck.  Yuddistira passes the test with flying colors, and is granted in return the assurance that he and his brothers would not be discovered during the year in hiding.

Next episode, we'll get started on Book 4, the Book of Virata.

Episode 41 - The Golden Plough

Episode 41 - This one covers Duryodhana reaction to the humiliation of being captured by the Gandharvas and then released by the valor of his hated cousins the Pandavas.  Unable to face his clan after the ignominious defeat, the prince resolves to sit down and starve himself to death.

This decision sets off alarm bells in Hell, where the Daityas and Danavas have big plans for Duryodhana.  They summon a genie and have her deliver Duryodhana to them, and they tell him about the cosmic nature of this conflict, that powerful Asuras have already taken their places for the great war, and only he can see it through to victory.

Duryodhana returns, his old attitude back, and he leads his brothers back to Hastinapur, as if they had just conquered half the world.  But the boy's ego was a fragile thing, and when Bhisma scolds him, he needs something to cheer him up.  Karna first proposes another Rajasuya, but that is limited to one per family, so they must settle for the Vaishnava ritual, which involves a golden plough, which Duryodhana would use to plow a sacred enclosure.

The episode ends with Duryodhana once again feeling bad about himself, and Karna going to ever greater lengths to keep his patron happy.  This time he swears to never wash his feet again until Arjun is dead!  This will probably contribute to some of the trouble he has later one while in command of the Kaurava forces!

Episode 9 - Burning down the House

Episode 9 - This episode begins with Drona's revenge against King Drupada for reneging on a promise to share his wealth with his former schoolmate.  The princes have come of age, and perform a demonstration of their battle skills.  The pageant is interrupted by a mysterious Suta, son of a charioteer, named Karna.  Karna has an inexplicable resentment for Arjun and challenges him.  Duryodhana is delighted with the turn of events, and quickly befriends Karna. 

When the battle is about to commence, the master of ceremonies asks him to recite his lineage.  Karna reveals that he is from a lower class, so Duryodhana rectifies the situation by making him King of Anga.  The day is over by then, so nothing is settled between Karna and Arjuna.

Later, Duryodhana schemes to have the Pandavas sent to a neigboring town, and has a house built for them that is highly flammable.  The house burns down, but the boys escape with their mother.  While in the woods, there is a brief episode where Bhima fights with a Rakshasa and kills him.  Bhima marries the Ogre's sister and fathers a powerful half-breed son.

The brothers then wander off incognito, until they settle down in a small town called Ekachakra.  We leave them there until the next episode!