Karna
requests Shalya to be his charioteer. Shalya refuses initially, but agrees
later to play that role if he has the freedom to say whatever he wants about
Karna. Duryodhana agrees. From then on Shalya keeps teasing Karna, probably to
get him angry and thus more prepared to fight. Shalya keeps remindiing that
Karna is no match for Arjuna.
In the
following sections we see the duties of the four varnas clearly defined by
Karna. Karna also talks about the in-groups who are virtuous and the out-groups
such as the mlecchas, vahlikas etc. He says that the Panchalas observe Vedas,
the Kauravas practice Truth, the Matsyas practice sacrifices and the easterners
and the southerners are “fallen” groups.
He softens his stand later and says that there
are good and bad people in every part of the earth. He says that we all know
other’s faults, but not our own.
Karna calls
Agni as the god of the east, Yama as the god of the south, Varna as the god of
the west and Soma as the god of the north. He also remembers two boons and
curses he has to deal with. One was about his Brahmastra. This is a powerful
weapon which he got from Parashurama by pretending to be a Brahmin. Later, one day
when Parashurama was sleeping with his head on Karna’s lap, a worm started biting
into Karna. Karna bore the pain and did
not move. When the teacher woke up, he noticed blood in Karna’s lap. Karna told him
what happened. Since only a kshatriya could have tolerated the pain so well,
Parashurama realized that Karna was kshatriya but did not disclose in order to get
the Brahmastra. He was upset and cursed Karna that the weapon will fail him at
a crucial moment.
Karna had
acquired another weapon from Indra and was proud of it. However, he
accidentally killed a calf of a cow intended for a sacrifice. The Brahmana who
owned the cow cursed Karna that at a crucial moment in a battle, Karna’s car
will get stuck and sink into the earth. Karna recounts these two episodes to Shalya
and indicated that these two curses are the only concerns in his mind even as
gets ready to be the Commander of the Kaurava army.
In a later
episode Karna captures Yudhistra but lets him free to keep his promise to Kunti.
He had told Kunti that his fight was with Arjuna and not with the other four and
he also told Kunti that she will always have five sons (the idea being that
either Karna will kill Arjuna or get killed in his battle with Arjuna)
One other
interesting side-story in Book 8 is that of a proud crow and a swan. A crow
happens to frequent the grounds of a rich family. He gets all the scrap from
the plates of the children. Eventually he gets the attention of the family and
he feels on top of the world. He gets arrogant and important. One day a bunch
of swans land on a nearby lake. The crow makes fun of their flight and food. He
shows them all his maneuvers and how he can climb up, swish down, make circles
and dive etc. He wonders what the swan can do. The swan says that he admires
all those special kinds of flights but they will not help the crow do what she
can do. The crow challenges the swan with false pride. They both start flying
across a vast tract of water. The swan flies with one steady motion. The crow
is not able to cope with that long flight and tries to land. Of course, he
cannot and is in danger of getting drowned. The swan advices the crow not to
boast about his skills, takes him on his back and comes back to the shore. The
moral is self-evident.
2 comments:
I thought it was Parasurama who cursed Karna for duping him about his heritage, surprised to learn it was Drona
You are correct. I made the corrections. Thanks for pointing it out.
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