Kunti’s son from Surya, Karna, was found and adopted by Adhiratha and his wife Radha. Adhiratha was a charioteer at Kuru King Dhritarashtra’s palace. The couple did not have any children, so they brought up Karna as their son, showering him with love and blessings.
Adhiratha gifted him a horse and wanted to teach him how to drive a chariot, but Karna was more interested in learning archery.
Dhritarashtra’s sons – the Kauravas – and Pandu’s sons – the Pandavas – were being trained in martial arts by Rajguru Drona. So, on Adhiratha’s suggestion, Karna went to him to learn archery.
Unfortunately, he was rejected outright!
“I only teach kshatriyas. You are a suta-putra. I cannot teach you!” Drona declared. Suta-putra means son of a charioteer, implying that Karna was of a lower caste.
A heartbroken Karna decided to approach Drona’s teacher, the greatest martial arts teacher of all, Parashurama. But again, there was a catch. Parashurama taught only brahmins!
This time Karna did not want to lose the opportunity and wore the sacred thread of the brahmins when he approached Parashurama for lessons. It worked!
Parashurama accepted him with delight. Karna turned out to be a sincere student, who learnt every martial art with diligence and dedication. Soon, he became an expert in whatever his teacher taught him.
Impressed with Karna’s progress and his commitment, Parashurama taught him all that he knew. He declared Karna to be second to none in warfare! On the final day of his training in the forest, Parashurama felt tired and told Karna that he desired to lie down.
Karna immediately sat down so that Parashurama could put his head on his lap and rest.
Everything seemed to be going well for Karna thus far, but then the story takes a turn.
Parashurama had dozed off. Karna was happy. But Indra, the king of gods and father of Arjuna, was not happy with Karna’s progress. He did not want Karna to be better than Arjuna!
Indra took the form of a blood-sucking insect and bit Karna on his thigh. It was a painful wound and it started bleeding. But Karna could not do anything without disturbing his guru’s sleep.
Slowly, the blood trickled down to reach Parashurama’s ear and he woke up. “Whose blood is this?” he asked.
“Mine,” said Karna. Then Parashurama noticed the bleeding wound on Karna’s thigh.
“You cannot be a brahmin! You would have screamed if you were. You must be a kshatriya to bear this kind of pain without wincing!” Parashurama was furious.
“Yes, I’m not a brahmin. But I’m not a kshatriya either. I’m a suta-putra. Please do not be angry with me!” Karna pleaded.
“You think you can come here wearing a false thread and deceive me into training you! I will curse you for this deceit! You will enjoy what I have taught you, but when you need to use these skills, you will forget everything, and that will be your end!”
“Please don’t do this! I had no intention of deceiving you. I’m not a kshatriya, so no teacher was willing to teach me. You were my only hope, as you taught non-kshatriyas.”
Parashurama’s temper cooled down. He said, “You shouldn’t have lied. You could have discussed it with me. I cannot take back my curse, but I can assure you that people will always remember you as a great warrior.”
The curse did not seem so bad. But then, Karna had no idea about the war he would be fighting in future, where Parashurama’s training would be needed!
One day, while practising archery in the forest, Karna shot an arrow blindly at an animal moving in the bushes. Assuming he had shot a deer, Karna went to the thicket. To his horror, he discovered that he had shot a cow!
Just then a brahmin came by. Looking at the dead cow, he started crying, “You have killed my helpless cow! I curse you that you will be killed when you are helpless like her!”
For a warrior like Karna, this curse was devastating!
Once, when Karna was on his way home, he saw a girl crying. He asked her the reason. She told him that she was carrying clarified butter to her house, and it got spilt on the way.
Immediately, Karna offered a fresh bowl of clarified butter to her. However, she refused, saying that she wanted the same butter and not any other from anyone else.
Karna picked up the soil on which the clarified butter had fallen. He squeezed the soil so hard that the butter came out from it and filled the girl’s bowl. While squeezing the soil, Karna heard a voice full of pain. It was the voice of the goddess Earth.
She cursed Karna, “You caused me pain to help the girl. Henceforth, when you will need my support the most, you will not get it!”
The three curses on Karna culminated on the battlefield of Kurukshetra and became the cause of his end, a fatal blow to the Kaurava army.
It happened on the seventeenth day of the eighteen-day battle. Karna had turned upon Arjuna. The earth shook as these two extraordinary warriors fought. As the fight intensified, the force of Arjuna’s arrows kept on pushing Karna’s chariot back.
Karna had been keeping a weapon especially to be used against Arjuna. He used it now, but, just as it came near Arjuna’s head, Krishna pressed the chariot down a little into the slushy ground. The weapon carried off Arjuna’s crown, saving his head.
Disappointed at not being able to get the better of Arjuna, Karna tried to move his chariot forward, but one of its wheels got stuck in the mud, because of goddess Earth’s curse. On top of it, Karna forgot the use of all the divine weapons that he had acquired from Parashurama as per his curse!
Karna got down from his chariot to free its wheel and asked Arjuna to give him some time. But Krishna reminded Arjuna of the way his own son Abhimanyu was killed by Karna stabbing him in the back. So, showing no mercy to Karna, Arjuna sliced off his head with an arrow. Karna died a helpless death, fulfilling the brahmin’s curse.
Excerpted with permission from Boons and Curses in Hindu Mythology, Sunita Pant Bansal, Scholastic Books.
