| Karna Learns Archery
The Roots of War
 Not all situations in life are amenable to everyday logic. Sometimes life plays unkindly games. One needs guidance and counselling at such times. But the person left with no resources to seek a guide tends to decide on his or her own. More often, he or she finds a short cut to salvage the best from a bad situation. Many times that is the only solution that seems to be available. Nonetheless, guidance and counselling may prove otherwise.
Karna’s foster father Adhiratha gifted him with a chariot and horses on his sixteenth birthday. Adhiratha, a charioteer and carpenter, by profession had found the baby floating on the waters of Ganga. Born with armour and earrings, the baby was the treasure of the couple, Adhiratha and Radha, though they were blessed with children later. Karna was the most endeared of all their children and was known by the
matronymic, Radheya.
However, Karna had no desire to drive the chariot. Instead, the urge to hold a bow and arrow filled him. That desire had always haunted his dreams, right from his childhood. He had not spoken about it until now to anyone. Not interested in driving the chariot gifted by Adhiratha, the sixteen-year-old lad went to his mother, Radha. ‘Ma, the gift of chariot does not interest me. I don’t know why; but I find this desire to hold the bow and arrows and to fight great battles is ever growing in me. It haunts my dreams.’
Radha embraced the boy. She narrated the past to him. She told him of his uncertain parentage. ‘The desire to fight must be innate. The desire to learn archery is inborn, my dear son,’ she told him. Karna decided to learn archery and he approached Acharya Drona who was teaching the Pandavas and Kauravas at that time. This must have been much later. Going by the events, calculations show that Karna was elder to Yudhisthira by about twelve years.
Acharya Drona had his own preferences about imparting the skills of archery. Archery was considered as the best of all martial arts and Drona went by the family background to accept or reject a student who sought training from him. Born to sage Bharadwaja, Drona received his training in archery from his father. Later, he was trained by Parasurama, the annihilator of Kshatriyas. Drona was not interested in accepting a student who did not belong to the Kshatriya clan. Karna knew that he was not the son of the charioteer. But he did not have the information on his parentage and that stood between him and his goal.
That disappointment was too painful for the young Karna. That he could not learn what he desired from the bottom of his heart was too much for the boy. It is not that all the masters went by the family background of the aspirant to impart knowledge. The story of Jabala Satyakam is an example of masters who went only by the thirst for knowledge of the aspirant rather than his birth. But that one is for another day.
Karna’s undiminished desire to master the bow and arrows took him to Parasurama. Now, Parasurama was the son of sage Jamadagni, to avenge for whose killing Parasurama proclaimed a war against the Kshatriyas and killed twenty-one generations of them. Karna knew very well that he would not receive his training in archery from this great master, if he introduces himself either as the foster son of a charioteer or as a person of unknown parentage.
It is not that Parasurama did not train Kshatriyas at all. There were exceptions to his preference, considering the fact that Bhishma - the young Devavrata, son of Ganga - was his direct disciple. But Karna did not know how to go about it. He was left without a guide. His desire to get trained by the best in the field was uppermost in his heart. The poor lad could not find any other way than utter falsehood to realise his goal of becoming one of the very best archers.
He fell at the feet of Parasurama and introduced himself as a Brahmin boy. Parasurama was pleased with this boy and began the training. The time that he spent in the ashrama of Parasurama was perhaps the best period in the life of Karna. His education began. Karna forgot the pain caused by the uncertainty of his birth and the mockery that went with it. His mind was set only on the skills that he thirsted to acquire. He won the heart of his master and very soon - in a matter of months - came out successful in the most difficult and dreaded of all astras, the Brahmastra.
The lie took him to the peak. That lie served him well in achieving what he desired. But did it help him in every way? We will continue next week.
Hari Krishnan
harikrishnan@vsnl.net
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