Karna or Arjuna?

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When we think of archery, 2 great names come to mind from the epic Mahabharata. Arjuna and Karna. They were both valiant heroes with great skill in archery and they were on opposite sides during the great war of Kurukshetra.

Arjuna was an obedient student of Dronacharya. He was able to learn a lot from his Guru, because of his Samarpan towards his teacher. This is the reason why he became the favourite student of Dronacharya. To learn something well, one must fully surrender to the teacher. He stayed in the righteous company of Shri Krishna and his brothers, the Pandavas. For this reason, he was able to easily walk the right path of Dharma. He had great character that he was loved by all. However, whenever anyone mocked his archery skills, he got furious.

Karna on the other hand learnt his archery skills from Parshurama. He was actually Kunti’s son, but was raised by a charioteer. He despised it when people talked about his humble background because he always considered himself as a Kshatriya (which he was anyway). He ended up in the wrong company of Duryodhana and Shakuni, so his righteousness was slowly fading away with time. However, he still tried his level best to always talk the words of Dharma and point out wherever Duryodhana was wrong. Also, it wouldn’t wrong to say that Karna was the ‘Unsung Hero of Mahabharata’. Before the great Kurukshetra war, Krishna personally met Karna to reveal his true identity to him. Krishna told him that he is a very special person, and probably there will be no other like him in this world ever. Karna was known as Daanveer, meaning he was great at charity work. Some of our service related work (HRSC) in the community draws inspiration from this great ‘hero’ of Mahabharata.

They were bitter enemies, but later we find out from the story that they were actually brothers. They were like two sides of a coin. Each had his pros and cons. Whom should we be like?

I think in the current era of Kaliyuga, we have more to learn from Karna. All around us there is evil and we have no choice but to live in the midst of this pullotion of the society. But like Karna, we should be able to still talk and walk the language of Dharma and correct those who are around us when appropriate.

The question remains… who should we be? Karna or Arjuna? Or a bit of both?

- Deepak Shir

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