​Was Karna unfairly disadvantaged by the curses of Parashurama and the brahmana?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Hare Krishna.
Was Karna unfairly weakened by the curses of the Brahmana and Parashurama? Karna forgot the mantras because of Parashurama’s curse and his chariot sunk into the earth because of the Brahmana’s curse. Did this not make him excessively vulnerable in his final fight against Arjuna? And was fate against him which conspired to kill him? Answer? No, not necessarily. Actually, certainly getting cursed is tragic.
But Karna was not the only person to be cursed. Even Arjuna was cursed. And in one sense, Arjuna’s getting cursed was even more unfair than Karna’s.
Karna was cursed because he had lied to Parashurama. Parashurama had vowed that he would not instruct anyone who was not a Brahmana. And when Parashurama came to know that Karna was not a Brahmana, at that time, he cursed him that at his most critical moment he would forget the mantras for his most powerful weapon.
And later on when he was going in the forest at that time, he saw a movement and he thought this is a jungle beast and he tried to shoot it. And it turned out it was a cow and it belonged to a Brahmana. And the Brahmana whose cow had been killed, he cursed him that you will be weakened in your most important fight by your chariot sinking into the ground.
Just as my morale is sinking down because of the death of my cow. So clearly in both the situations, Karna was culpable. He had made some mistakes.
Whereas when you can see Arjuna is getting cursed. Arjuna was cursed by Urvashi when Urvashi who is a celestial damsel, she desired to unite with Arjuna and Arjuna seeing her as the partner of one of his ancestors, Jayati of Pururava, he said that I see you as a mother, I cannot unite with you. So she being spurned, she became angry and she cursed him that because he was not acting in a manly way with her, he would lose his manliness.
Now here actually Arjuna had acted in a very glorious self-controlled way and to be cursed for that is a travesty of justice. And in fact his self-control was so great that even Indra appreciated it saying that your self-control exceeds that of even great sages. And further what happened afterwards is that Arjuna, he was cursed, but Arjuna used this curse constructively.
He lived by the power of that, by that curse, he lived discreetly as a dance teacher during the Agyantvas period, during the time when he was supposed to be incognito. So and Arjuna and Injil curses unfortunately happened to many people. Pandu was cursed, Dashrath Maharaj was cursed.
So many people, we see their curse. So it was not that, it was Karna’s unique misfortune to be cursed. So Arjuna used the curse properly.
Now Karna could also have done something similar. Now Karna knew that his chariot was going to sink into the ground. So he could have prepared for it.
He could have got other weapons, he could have used, have a backup chariot ready, he could have had used switch to entirely different carrier, he could have used elephant as his carrier, whatever. He could have prepared for it, for that contingency which was going to happen. And further, he could also, knowing that he would forget the mantras for his formidable weapons, he could have done further austerities and acquired other weapons.
Now Parashuram’s curse applied primarily to the weapons which Parashuram had given him. If Karna had acquired further austerity, other weapons, he would still have had that power. The point is, there is no need to make someone into a martyr or a victim.
Karna was cursed and that was unfortunate, but there were other people also who were cursed and what happens to us is not as important as how we respond to it. Rather than crying victim, if we try to do our best to rectify the situation, then we can grow from that situation. And that’s what Arjuna did and that’s what Karna unfortunately did not do.
Thank you.