Revisiting Mahabharata

I wanted to put my views forward on some of the controversial instances in the epic and a few cases of misunderstanding some characters.

Please don’t watch these mythological TV shows, they are full of twisted stories and some of them are biased. 

There’s no point of Vyasa’s Mahabharat being biased as claimed by some people because it was written by the father of Pandu and Dhritarashtra himself and that makes him the grandfather of both Kauravas and Pandavas. For instance, Ramayana can be questioned if it presented the whole picture because it was first written by Valmiki. It was Valmiki's cottage where Sita spend her later days and therefore it might be more inclined towards the side of Rama and Sita.

1.

        Stockholm’s Syndrome at its best, people mistaking Karna of being the “Tragic Hero”.

 It is only the strangeness of the human mind, that it has sympathy for the aggressor. This syndrome of supporting the evil is called as "Stockholm's Syndrome" in Medical science. Those who are weak at mind, have a tendency to sympathize or feel sorry for the evil person if they are treated wrongly even for 1 moment, meanwhile completely forgetting what all wrongs the evil persons did all throughout their life.

You may come with a point that Karna actually had more good attributes than bad. Yes, that is true but giving him the title of “the greatest warrior” or even “one of the greatest” is nothing but something done out of sympathy. He had better weapons, better skill sets, and fighting skills which would make him the “most powerful (it is not same as being a great warrior)” behind Bhisma (Krishna is almighty).

What makes a warrior is his war ethics along with skillset. How could someone like Karna who claims to love and respect his mother “Radha” so dearly would not hesitate even a bit to call out Draupadi to be nothing more than “a prostitute”? People should really start realizing the fact that he got all those curses because of his own faults and neither we must forget that everybody used to get cursed for their deeds, it was not just Karna.

But the instance where I lost all my respect for his “DaanVeer" (one who does charity )” and “the greatest example of a true friend” image was his attack (not kill) on Abhimanyu against the law set for the war on the eve of the war by Bheesma (His own ex-Commander in chief) himself. I don’t want to make Karna look more disgustful by pointing out Abhimanyu to be just 16 of age because at war, opponents are just opponents. Some people will question the death of Drona, Duryodhana and Karna himself to be unfair but let me remind you that it was a result of their own act of “Drona, Duryodhana, and Karna (along with Dushashan, Aswathama, Kripacharya, Shalya ) being the first to break the rule by attacking an Armless warrior and Seven warriors against one; both of which were against the rule. Once, the rule was broken by the Kauravas themselves, Pandavas were left with no obligation to obey the rules.

Once Karna became the third commander in chief after the fall of Drona, at one instance, he spared Arjuna’s life as didn’t pull the string of his bow as the sun was already set and if this was to prove that he is a man of honor and fall of Abhimanyu was not under his command, then he is no great warrior because he could have protected the law of war by not letting the attack on armless Abhimanyu by a group of “Rathis” and “Maharathis”  and instead should’ve had one to one fight with Abhimanyu which he didn’t do because he knew it was impossible for anyone to defeat Abhimanyu single-handedly.

Drona deciphered Abhimanyu as an incarnation of Rudra (the God of war), he elucidated, that Abhimanyu will slay them all by the time they plan to kill him. Thus, the illicit stratagem to kill Abhimanyu was chalked. Drona, Kripacharya, Aswatthama, Karna, Salya, and Bhoorisrava were circumorbital & attacked Abhimanyu. His killing was unjust and changed the course of the war, as the killing of a hero this unjustly made Pandavas go far beyond boundaries as well and rules were finally put to an end.

Therefore, Karna is no great warrior and neither the deserving of our sympathy. But the world will remember him for being the epitome of “charity" and “friendship”, we can’t that take away from him. Sunlight would've deserted the sun and even Duryodhana's shadow would've left him but Karna wouldn't.

Second, on the line is;

2. If you've read Mahabharata and got some serious understanding skills then you will realize the greatest trickster, Krishna himself fell prey to Shakuni's trickery in a bigger picture.

stay tuned!