Mahabharata : Karna demystified
Mahabharata : Karna demystified is a compilation of the contents appearing in the great epic Mahabharata about Karna, a highly discussed character. The broader topics are: Conception & birth, Entry into arena & challenging Arjuna, Active role against Pandavas, Karna & Sri Krishna, Karna & Kunthi, His valour & battles fought, Mahabharata war, Karna Vs each of the Pandavas, Other’s opinion of Karna, Karna’s opinions, His practice of daan, Curses on him, and Other interesting facts/Episodes.
This extract from the original Mahabharata epic will clear many wrong beliefs about Karna. It is important to note that he was considered a prominent member of the group of evil four (dushta chatushtaya) which planned and executed every evil scheme against Pandavas.Karna was also the only person whom Duryodhana trusted completely and hence Karna placed his loyalty to him above fair treatment of Pandavas. The compilation is not exhaustive in the sense that every para appearing in the great epic about Karna is not included here for the sake of limiting the size of this document. But still most of the key or representative passages have been compiled here which gives a clear & complete characterization of Karna.
I have extracted these contents from my other comprehensive & unique work on Mahabharata called Mahabharata–Spectroscope and further expanded it. Whereas the material in that was included in the order in which it appears in the original epic, in this compilation I have grouped them by meaningful Topics & Sub-topics thus making it much more useful to the student/scholar of this subject.
I hope the readers will find the document of some use in their study of Karna.
You are welcome to send any feedback to me at gh.visweswara@gmail.com
You can download the PDF here: (53 pages, 1.69 MB)
For other Topic based Compilations from Mahabharata see under Menus Mahabharata and More Compilations.