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| Why Did Karna Have To Suffer So Much? |
Most netizens got emotional the other day seeing Karna’s (the warrior's character played admirably well by Pankaj Dheer) death scene in B.R Chopra's Mahabharat, currently being aired on DD Bharti. Well, Daanveer Karna is undoutedly one of the most popular, charismatic and complex characters in the entire epic and he is seen with empathetic eyes by many. In fact several followers of Hindu mythology have always wondered about why he had to suffer so much, right from his birth!
But then, it is also believed (and probably rightly so) that everything happens for a reason. And unpleasant situations in anyone's life are actually the ramifications of past-life karma. No one can escape his/her karma; one will suffer or prosper accordingly. If one couldn't clear his/her karmic debt in the previous life, he/she has to take rebirth(s) to clear the debt. Same was the case with Kaunteya Karna.
Karna in his previous birth was apparently an asura named Dambhodbhaba. That was in Treta Yug. Dambhodbhaba wanted to become immortal, for which he did kadi tapasya of Surya Dev for several years. Surya Dev was pleased with his devotion but granting someone the boon of immortality was outside the scope of Dev syllabus 😛. So Surya Dev asked him to resubmit his application after editing it 😁
So Dambhodbhaba craftily edited his earlier insistence, this time asking to be protected by 1000 armours (sahasra kavach) - accompanied by a "** Terms and conditions apply" statement - that said:
(a) no one other than a mortal would be able to break his sahasra kavachas ; and that too, only if he would have done tapasya for 1000 years,
(b) even if the mortal succeeds, he would be able to break only one kavach at a time (i.e. 1000 years of tapasya to break 1 kavach, another 1000 years of tapasya to break the second kavach and so on),
(c) and the moment he breaks even a single armour of Dambhodbhaba, the mortal should die immediately thereafter.
The boon was granted 🤦🏻 and Dambhodbhaba came to be known as "SahasraKavacha".
But like it often happened, soon after getting the boon, Dambhodbhaba filled with pride and arrogance, unleashed a reign of terror everywhere around. All the Devas were worried, and after deliberating for a while with Brahma, Sri Vishnu and Maheswara, it was decided that Shri Vishnu would manifest himself as 2 mortals (one would be Narayana himself and the other would be his companion Adi Sesha - the thousand headed snake) and they would be the reason for Dambhodbhaba's death. Meanwhile, Raja Daksha's (who was Lord Shiva's father-in-law) daughter Murti had gotten married to Dharma (the manas purtra of Lord Brahma), so they was blessed with twin sons - Nara and Narayana (Nara being Adi Sesha and Narayana being Lord Vishnu himself) who grew up into young rishis. As had been planned, they began to meditate steadfastly praying to Lord Shiva.
As time went on, Dambhodbhaba came to know about the two rishis and how they had successfully vanquished the armies of devas and asuras even without fighting, solely through the force of energy generated by their meditation.
So he went to the forest at Badarika where the two rishis had been meditating and challenged them for a fight (after all his ego had been hurt.. "sab kuch karne ka lekin ego nahin hurt karne ka" 😁)
The two sages Narayana and Nara initially were reluctant to fight with Dambodhbhaba because they didn't want to stop their meditation midway (but this reluctance was actually just a ploy by Narayana to put forward his conditions for the fight). Finally they agreed to fight with Dambodhbhaba but upon the condition that only one of them would fight with him at a time while the other rishi would continue to meditate. Dambodhbhaba had no objection.
After a firece battle that continued for 1000 years, Nara was able to break the first of his sahasra kavachas (because he was deriving all his strength from 1000 years of meditation done by Narayana) but the moment Dambodhbhaba's kavach broke, Nara dropped dead. Narayana, his brother, went running to him and by uttering Maha Mryutyunjaya Mantra in his ears, brought Nara back to life.
Narayana then took over fighting with Dambodhbhaba for the next 1000 years while Nara began to meditate all through the duration. Thus continued the fight -- one kavach would be broken after every 1000 years and just as one brother would die, the other would revive him through Maha Mryutyunjaya Mantra.. this continued for years until 999 kavachas were broken. Now that Dambhodbhaba had only one kavacha left to protect him, he ran to Surya Dev seeking his protection. Surya Dev couldn't refuse his ardent devotee and so absorbed Dambodhbhaba into himself. And thus Dambhodhbhaba couldn't be killed.
In Dwaparyug however, Dambhodbhaba was reborn as Karna with his last remaining protective kavach and earrings. And to complete the unfinished task, Nara and Narayana too took rebirth as Arjuna and Krishna respectively.
Please Note:
Dambhodbhaba, in his previous birth, was apparently Kishkinda Naresh Sugreeva - son of Surya Dev and his brother Bali was son of Indra Dev - both of them born to Ahilya. Sugreev had the stigma of getting his brother killed in a somewhat deceitful way, with Sri Ram shooting arrows at Bali from behind the bushes. Therefore Sugreeva was reborn as an asura Dambhodbhaba in his next birth.
