As tradition had it, a rishi - Vedic scholar and seer - named Durvasa visited the king for a lengthy stay, who housed him as his palace guest. He had a beautiful young daughter named Pritha later Kunti. Once upon a time lived a Yadava dynasty king named Surasena. The most accepted version is one prepared by scholars led by Vishnu Sukthankar at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, preserved at the Kyoto Universitythe Cambridge University and various Indian universities. The manuscripts found in the north and south India for the Karna parvan book have "great divergence" in details, though the thematic essence is similar. The Mahabharata manuscripts exist in numerous versions, wherein the specifics and details of major characters and episodes vary, often significantly.Įxcept for the sections containing the Bhagavad Gita which is remarkably consistent between the numerous manuscripts, the rest of the epic exists in many versions.
The text does not belabor the details about Karna in the early sections, rather uses metaphors and metonyms to colorfully remind the audience of the fabric of a character they already are assumed to be aware of. The epic uses glowing words to describe Karna, but the presentation here is compressed in 21 shlokas unlike the later books which expand the details. The story of his young mother getting pregnant due to her curiosity, his divine connection to the Hindu sun god Suryathen his birth appears for the first time in the epic in section 1. This sets him apart as someone special, with gifts no ordinary mortal has. It is here that his earrings "that make his face shine", as well as the divine breastplate body armor he was born with, are mentioned for the first time. Karna appears for the first time in the Mahabharata in the verse 1. The oldest parts in the surviving version of the text probably date to about BCE. The work is written in Classical Sanskrit and is a composite work of revisions, editing and interpolations over many centuries. This "hearing" and "that which is heard", states McGrath makes "Karna" an apt name and subtle reminder of Karna's driving motivation. The name Karna is also symbolically connected to the central aspect of Karna's character as the one who is intensely preoccupied with what others hear and think about him, about his fame, a weakness that others exploit to manipulate him. In Book 1, again in the context of Karna, Duryodhana remarks, "the origins of heroes and rivers are indeed difficult to understand". The second meaning of Karna as "rudder and helm" is also an apt metaphor given Karna's role in steering the war in Book 8 of the epic, where the good Karna confronts the good Arjuna, one of the climax scenes wherein the Mahabharata authors repeatedly deploy the allegories of ocean and boat to embed layers of meanings in the poem.Īs a newborn, Karna's life begins in a basket without a rudder on a river, in circumstances that he neither chose nor had a say. His character is developed in the epic to raise and discuss major emotional and dharma duty, ethics, moral dilemmas.Ī regional tradition believes that Karna founded the city of Karnalin contemporary Haryana. He is a tragic hero in the Mahabharatain a manner similar to Aristotle's literary category of "flawed good man". He is a key antagonist who aims to kill Arjuna but dies in a battle with him during the Kurushetra war. He is adopted and raised by foster Suta parents named Radha and Adhiratha Nandana of the charioteer and poet profession working for king Dhritarashtra.
Kunti was given a boon to have child with desired qualities of divine gods.