Did Indra unfairly weaken Karna by taking away his armor?
Hare Krishna, question did Indra weaken Karna by taking away his Kavach in the disguise of a Brahmana? Answer let's look at the incident carefully just before the Kurukshetra war, in Karna who would regularly worship Suryadev in the morning and then he would give charity to any Brahmanas who would come at that time and beseech anything from him so at that time Indra came in the garb of a Brahmana and he what did he do? he asked for charity and then the Brahmana said please give me your Kavach and Kundalin charity, give me your armor and give me your earrings now Karna had been born with that armor and being born with that armor that was considered to be one of his great defenses and Karna he gave that armor but he said that I know that you are Indra and that Suryadev had told me that you will be coming and he had told me not to give this to you but because you have come as a Brahmana I will not refuse charity to you but because I am doing something for you you should do something for me and then Indra said normally it is the humans who ask something from the God, not that the Gods ask something from the humans so actually you should give me something in return so Indra asked what do you want? he said that I would like to have your Shakti Astra now Indra said yes I will give you the Astra but this is actually a celestial weapon, it is not meant for humans, I will give it to you but you will be able to use it once and after using it once then after using it once it will come to me so Karna agreed to that and he got that weapon now what was supposed to be a charity, he was supposed to give his kundal in charity that actually became a swap he gave the Kavach and he got the got the Shakti weapon so now let's look at did he gain or did he lose through this swap so now we see earlier he had had the Kavach and still the Kavach had not saved him from becoming, from being defeated and wounded earlier he had been defeated while fighting with the army of Drupada, he had been defeated while fighting with the Gandharvas and he had been wounded so the Kavach might have saved him from death but it had not saved him from becoming wounded so it was definitely not a winning advantage for him and on the other hand when he got the Shakti Astra he used it on the 15th night on the 14th night actually on the night of the 14th day of the Kurukshetra war, at that time Ghatotkach was on a rampage and he was just devastating the Kaurava forces and Ghatotkach may at that time have killed Karna also and at that time when he was faced with the prospect of death he summoned his Shakti Astra and he killed the rampaging Ghatotkach and thus his life was saved so that Shakti Astra did serve a valuable purpose for him so he lost something a Kavach which had not saved him from defeat and he got something which saved him not from defeat but from death on one occasion so in that sense it was not such a great charity and it was not that Indra did anything unfair in weakening him.
Indra came as a Brahman and asked him for charity and Karna gave that charity and actually Karna did not let it remain a charity he made it into a swap and thus he lost something he gained something so there was no unfair weakening over there in fact in one sense he gained something which helped him much more than what he, than the help that had been offered by what he had lost what he had lost had not saved him saved him from defeat but what he had gained saved him from defeat at least once. Thank you.