Why did Karna fight on the Kauravas’ side?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Why did Karna take the wrong side? Karna is an excellent example of a good person who becomes bad by attachment to bad association. Karna himself is a heroic warrior.
And initially, when he chooses the side of Duryodhana, at that time, he does not know about Duryodhana’s evil nature. And whenever Duryodhana tries to make some evil scheme, Karna opposes that. For example, when Shakuni and Duryodhana plan to burn the Pandavas in the Varnavat Palace, in the House of Lakh, Karna says, why do you need to do such a thing? Let’s challenge them for a war and we will defeat them in a war.
Shakuni dismisses that idea. So, over time, just by associating with Duryodhana and Shakuni, Karna initially opposes their evil scheme, but eventually goes along with their schemes. And later he becomes so distorted, so perverted that actually, in the gambling match, it is Karna who suggests that Draupadi be disrobed.
It is he who suggests that Draupadi is now our slave, we can bring her to the assembly and disrobe her. And then later on, it is Karna who calls Draupadi a prostitute. These are horrible things that he does.
And of course, to his credit, Karna regrets this afterwards. Twice later in the Mahabharata, once when he is speaking to Krishna and once when he is speaking to Bhishma, he says that actually, in order, because of my desire to please Duryodhana, I spoke those things. So now, Karna was helped by Duryodhana at a particular time.
Karna, Duryodhana gave Karna the Angadesh and that was a great honor for him. So, that is good. Now, but there are several factors to consider.
First of all, when Duryodhana gave Karna the Angadesh, that was right at, the first meeting between them was in the martial exhibition. So, there, at that time, Duryodhana himself was not the king. Duryodhana himself was not even the prince, in the sense that he was not appointed next prince regent to become the king.
So, actually, Duryodhana had no authority to give Karna the Angadesh because he just won among the princes and Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra, his father was also not the king. He was the caretaker king at that time. But still, the Pandavas did not oppose to this bestowal of charity because it was still within the family.
It’s like another family member gives charity and you say publicly, no, no, we don’t want to give this charity. So, it would be a disgrace for the Kshatriyas. So, they allowed it to happen.
First of all, it was not Duryodhana’s kingdom to give to. And even when Duryodhana gave that kingdom, Duryodhana really never had very great affection for Karna. Duryodhana just, when the martial exhibition was taking place, after the Pandavas and Kauravas had completed their education, all the students were exhibiting their skills.
So, at that time, Bhima and Duryodhana, they were equally matched, but nobody could match Arjuna. So, when Karna came along and exhibited his prowess, Duryodhana said, yes, if I have Karna on my side, then he can be a foil for Arjuna. And that’s why he tried to get Karna on his side and he offered him a kingdom.
And at that time, Karna told him, you offered me such great honor, what can I do for you? He said, I don’t want anything from you except your friendship. So, Duryodhana was also quite clever. He said, oh, that you will have forever.
Now, he says that, but later on, when he says how unrighteous, how vicious Duryodhana is, we may promise somebody, someone, okay, I’ll do this for you. But if you find that, that person is themselves very unrighteous. So, for example, say Pakistan and Afghanistan, there are many poor children.
They are starving. And suppose some jihadi group comes and starts feeding them, providing them food, clothing, shelter. And at that time, they would have died without that.
And they feel very grateful to those who have provided them food, clothing, shelter. But if they grow up, and after they grow up in the netherlands, actually, this jihadi group, they kill innocent people, hundreds, thousands. And so, and the jihadi group says that you also join us and you also kill hundreds of people.
So, should this young man, young boy who is now grown up into a young man, should he, because they helped him in the childhood, does that mean that he has to become a machine of death now? No. So, one may have given, so Karna did not understand this principle of morality being contextual. So, I may have given my word that I’ll fight on your side, I’ll be your friend.
But there is a higher principle. If Duryodhana is fighting so viciously because of dharma, at that time, for Karna to stay on his side is wrong. So, Karna had the choice between the word of honor and the life of honor.
Word of honor means, I promised it, so I must do it. But life of honor means, I actually have to fight on the side of dharma. So, when he chose, unfortunately, the word of honor instead of the life of honor, that was a serious blunder on his part.
So, it was an error of judgment and he was given good advice by many people. Kunti advised him, his own Aradhideva Surya advised him, Krishna himself came and advised him. But still, because of his mistake, Mahabharata says that Karna’s demise or Karna’s destruction was caused by his misdirected loyalty.
Loyalty is a good virtue, but again, loyalty also has to be contextual, not categorical. By his misdirected loyalty, he destroyed himself.