Was Karna a better archer than Arjuna?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna was Karna a better archer than Arjuna answer let’s look at the various occasions when they faced off and what results were there to be to evaluate who was the better archer so broadly there were five occasions when there was there was some kind of face-off or some kind of comparison of their performances the first encounter was of course at the martial exhibition when Drona had all his students exhibit the skills that they had learned in his academy at that time Arjuna by his military by his archery skills astonished everyone and at that time Karna gate crashed into that exhibition and demanded the opportunity to be allowed to exhibit his own skills saying that he would exceed whatever Partha had done so once he was granted the opportunity he managed to equal whatever Arjuna had done not exceeded as he had bragged earlier thereafter he demanded an opportunity to have a direct duel with Arjuna Arjuna immediately grabbed his bow and was ready to fight but the whole day there had been a martial exhibition and by the time the logistics were being worked out for this duel to take place the sun set and thus the duel was put off so basically this was a draw now Arjuna and Karna equal Arjuna’s ability so if we keep a score then here the score will remain Arjuna 0 Karna 0 the next occasion where their skills could be compared was soon afterwards when Drona was approached by his students both the Kauravas and the Pandavas and they were asked what takshina can we give you so Drona had a old rivalry with Drupada and Drona told them that you have Drupada arrested and brought before me as a prisoner so the Kauravas rushed forward to do his bidding and by this time Duryodhana had befriended Karna so Karna also joined Duryodhana and his brothers as they charged upon Drupada’s kingdom and Drupada he along with his army defeated the Kauravas along with Karna and they had to flee and thereafter the Pandavas went forward and led by Arjuna they fought so fiercely that Drupada’s army was soon overwhelmed and Drupada was brought arrested before Drona as Drona had requested so here here we have Drupada defeated Karna and Arjuna defeated Drupada so indirectly in their face-off Arjuna proved himself to be much better than Karna Arjuna defeated the person who had defeated Karna whose army he had defeated Karna defeated that very army so we could say the score here is Arjuna won Karna zero the next confrontation between the two happened at Drupada’s swayamvar in that swayamvar the the Pandavas had still been in hiding they were still in disguise because an attempt to murder them had been made some few months ago when they were in Vanavarth they had been attempted to be burned alive and since that time they had been living incognito so when all the Kshatriyas who were who attempted they could not succeed in getting Drupada’s hand then Arjuna as a Brahmana he he attempted and he met the target he shot the target and then the kings became furious they felt that Drupada had humiliated them and therefore they came to attack Drupada so at that time when they were charging towards Drupada Yudhishthir told his brothers that now Drupada is our father-in-law and we have a duty to protect him so what did they do so Bhima and Arjuna being the foremost warriors among the Pandavas they immediately sprang forward to the defense of Drupada and Bhima he fought against the kings were led by Shalya and he fought against them and Bhima helped Shalya back whereas eventually initially it was a confused fight but eventually two main agents from the two main representatives of the king kept fighting so Shalya fought Bhima and Arjuna fought with Karna and Karna shot arrows lightly initially because he thought this is a Brahmana but when Arjuna countered his arrows and Karna shot more arrows and Arjuna countered all of them and then Karna desisted from fighting saying that he said that he didn’t want to fight against a Brahmana so essentially Karna was not able to get a upper hand over Arjuna so here again there was a draw so the score remains Arjuna won Karna zero the next face-off happened when the Pandavas were in exile at that time in order to humiliate the Pandavas Duryodhana insolently disrespected and disregarded the Gandharvas the Gandharvas attacked and it was a fierce fight and in that fight Karna was bested and wounded and Karna fled and eventually the Gandharvas arrested Duryodhana and one of the soldiers on Duryodhana’s side ran over all this happened on one side of the river and on the other side of the river the Pandavas were living in a hermitage and Yudhishthira was performing some sacrifices so they ran over and informed Yudhishthira that Duryodhana had been arrested so Duryodhana sent Bhima and Arjuna and Arjuna at that time went at the instruction of Yudhishthira and he fought against the Gandharvas and he defeated the Gandharvas and he released Duryodhana so again here Gandharvas defeated Karna who fled and then Arjuna defeated the Gandharvas so again Arjuna proved superior to the person who had proved superior to Karna so Arjuna proved his superiority to Karna thus so the score becomes Arjuna 2 Karna 0 the next phase of the fifth one happened a few months before the Kurukshetra war in the Virat war here Arjuna was the alone on one side and on the other side was a whole Kuru army and in that army Karna was also there and Arjuna single handedly defeated the Kuru here Arjuna won fair and square even when the odds were overwhelmingly against him because he was one warrior fighting against an entire army so thus the score becomes Arjuna 3 Karna