bajrangbakht

Were the ancient arians of India(some 8000 years ago) great eaters of meat?... at the time of the arians india was a strong super power....

Dear guest, again get your facts right.!

 

Both Arjuna and karna used divine weapons like agni astra and vayu astra. bheesma and Drona betwen them had the same science. Ashvattama used the narayana astra. Arjuna used the pasupata astra to kill Karna.

 

You speak of Arjuna's concern for the world. Wasn't he the one who burned down the Kandava forest ?

So remove your bias and be objective.

Arjuna used ANJALIKA, a divine weapon which was Indra's 2nd strongest weapon after SHAKTI.This ANJALIKA was used to kill Karna.Arjuna used the PASHUPATASTRA to kill Jayadratha. He also used MAHENDRA weapon to kill Sudakshina and Shrutayu.The irrestible weapon BRAHMASURIVAS was used by Arjuna to kill the divine snake,Ashwasen, who tried to help Karna in his battle against Arjuna.

Karna was killed by Indra's divine weapon,Anjalika. This weapon was second only to Indra's most powerful weapon,shakti. The other frontline Kaurava warrior to have been killed by a divine weapon was Jayadratha, who was slain by PASHUPATHASTRA, Lord Shiva's divine weapon.

Inquiries Into The Absolute

 

BY HIS HOLINESS ROMAPADA SWAMI MAHARAJA

 

EDITORIAL, Jan 12 (VNN) — Answers by His Holiness Romapada Swami Maharaja

 

Q.1) Brhat-bhagavtamrta is BBT's latest publication. On p 414 there is indication that Karna and Duryodhana were 'partial incarnations of demons'. Could you supply the background to this statement? Was it due to the past life of Karna, or some other reason as to why he was destined to suffer so much, and do so many bad things? What wrong deeds had he done in his previous life or in his present life as Karna?

 

Answer.1) There are three different angles to consider this from. The first is simply from a scriptural or textual point of view.

 

1) In the Vana-parva of Mahabharata it is decribed that Duryodhana and Karna found out that the Pandavas were living in a forest nearby and decided to humiliate them. So, under some pretext, they took their army, dressed very opulently and headed that way. On the way, Duryodhana wanted to bathe in a river which is occupied by the Gandharvas. Owing to this, finally a battle ensued in which Karna was severely hurt and fled from the battle, while Duryodhana was held captive by the king of Gandharvas. One of his soldiers went to the Pandavas for help and under instructions by Yudhisthira, Arjuna battled the Gandharvas and rescued Duryodhana.

 

This humiliated Duryodhana to such a great extent that he resolved to give up his life by entering into type of self-igniting samadhi, much like we find at the end of Dhrtarashtra's life. While he was doing so, the Danavas found out and performed a sacrifice to create a celestial goddess. She was instructed by the Danavas to go and get the subtle body of Duryodhana, which she did, and then brought Duryodhana before the Danavas.

 

The Danavas then explained to Duryodhana that he had been created as a result of a great sacrifice they performed to please Lord Shiva. His body was like thunderbolt and his strength immense. They also mentioned that the powerful demon Narkasura has incarnated as Karna and "remembering his old enmity with Vishnu, will fight with great determination." They also assured that at the time of the battle, great warriors like Drona and Bhishma would come under the influence of the Danvas and give up their natural compassion and discrimination to fight with great vigor against the Pandavas. Thus they assured that Duryodhana's victory was certain and that he should thus give up his resolve to commit suicide.

 

Elsewhere in the Mahabharata, indication is given that Duryodhana was the incarnation of Kali.

 

2) Character evaluation of Karna

 

Our ISKCON translator of Mahabharata, Hridyananda Maharaja, makes the following comments in relation to Karna's character. Karna was basically an evil person. Even though he was abandoned at birth, he was brought up in a very loving and nurturing family, so the generally accepted fact of a "dysfunctional childhood" really does not hold true.

 

He deliberately lied to get training from Parsurama, and was simply envious of Arjuna (like trying to humiliate Arjuna in his graduation ceremony). In addition there was his conduct with Draupadi, his refusal to accept the instructions of Krishna and his steadfast friendship with Duryodhana, who was obviously evil. On more than one occasion Karna ran away from the battle field leaving his friends and army exposed. In Mahabharata war, he refused to fight along side Bhisma because he did not want to share the glory. His charity etc. was the result of vows he had taken to enhance his own material position.

 

Though he had excellent parentage, namely Kunti and Surya, because he was conceived out of lust, fear and anger, his character was thus shaped. Apparently after summoning the Sun god, Kunti became fearful of the consequences, but also very much attracted to the Sun god (who was angry at being summoned trivially). During the time of pregnancy he was concealed, thus there were no purificatory rites performed, and there was also the constant refrain of fear and connivance. All this combined to possibly shape Karna into what he finally became.

 

3) The third response to this question has to do with the pronciple of association. Through the association of Duryodhana, Karna's character became debased. Even the direct son of Lord Krishna, Bhauma, born of Mother Bhumi through her contact with Lord Varaha, became changed from a good son to an asura due to his association with a bad person, namely Banasura.

Respected holy brother Shri Romapada, please do not misinterpret the original Mahabharata by Ved Vyasa and the Gita press, Gorakhpur version of Mahabharata.In both the above versions, Karna is declared to have been the 'avatar' of the sun-god.The Supreme court of India had declared long back that the Gita Press, Gorakhpur version of Mahabharata is the most authentic version of the immortal epic.In both the above versions,it is clearly mentioned that to bring the flourishing ancient Indian civilization to an end, the Sun-God himself took birth on this earth as "Karna". As it is the golden rule of nature, that all civilizations will reach their peak & then disintegrate and finally collapse, that is what happened to the civilization of the Kurus.Even, Krishna's dynasty disintegrated & ended verifying this unchangeable law of nature.

Well , Karna was no doubt better than Arjuna. It is mentioned ,in Mahabharata,that Karna used the NAGASTRA against Arjuna and Arjuna had no reply to it.This Nagastra in reality was the divine snake, ASHWASEN,who was the son of TAKSHAK,the divine serpent around Lord Shiva's neck.When Arjuna helped Lord Agnee in devouring the Khandava forest, then ASHWASEN's mother was burnt alive.Since then, ASHWASEN approached Karna and offered to help him in killing Arjuna. Therefore Karna used him in the Mahabharata war. Regarding Duryodhana, he was definitely more skilful than Bhima in wielding the Mace but not stronger physically than Bhima.

Is it true that Karna was the greatest archer of that time followed by Ekalaiva, and that Arjuna was behind them? It seems to make sense, since arjuna never really defeated karna fair and sqaure, and also karna could've killed him on many occasions, had it not been for the Lord himself manipulating teh chariot, sunset etc.

 

All in all, karna, despite losing his kavaca, making impossible promises et al, still managed to have the upper hand during most of the battle with arjuna. And also, many of astras nearly killed arjuna and without the Lord's help, he could've been a goner. Whereas, arjuna never really troubled karna even once during the whole time, and even when he eventually prevailed, it wasn't a very convincing victory either.

 

Why then do people say arjuna was the greatest archer, when clearly it was karna? Also, Ekalaiva must've been better than arjuna, otherwise why would Drona ask for his finger? Another thing is, people say Bhima was the strongest, whereas Balarama himself admits that Duryodhana was the best in combat, better than bhima and as strong as balarama himself. Can someone throw some light on this? Was this bias on the part of pro-pandava sources to make all pandavas look good and kauravas weak? Thanks.

Fantastic message !

First of all, I want 1 thing to be made clear to everyone on this planet. The story given in some versions of the Mahabharata that, during the Pandavas forest exile period,Duryodhana and Karna were defeated in battle & kept prisoners by the Gandharvas, only to be later rescued by Arjuna,is totally wrong.This is not given in the original version of Mahabharata written by Maharishi Ved Vyas.No doubt,Duryodhana,Dushasana & many of the 100 Kauravas went to the forest belonging to the Gandharva king, Chitrasen and took bath in the forest lake against the wishes of the Gandharvas,but at that time , Karna was not present. In the absence of a strong MAHA-RATHI,Duryodhana and the Kauravas were easily defeated by Chitrasen and the other Gandharvas & were taken prisoners.If Karna was present during that time, then would he not easily have killed Chitrasen with his fatal NAGASTRA? How is it possible that Chitrasen could defeat Karna and then lose to Arjuna & later Arjuna could not defeat Karna in a honest manner?The presence of Karna in the incident totally goes against logic. Furthermore ,forget about comparing Karna and Arjuna, I would say Karna was a better warrior than even Gurudev Dronacharya himself. This is concluded from the fact that on the 13th night of Kurukshetra battle when Ghatotkatcha could not be killed by Drona then Karna was summoned to kill Ghatotkatcha with his capability to use lightning as a weapon.Karna succesfully killed Ghatotkatcha using the power of lightning.

Karna was not the greatest archer.Singlehandedly arjuna defetaed karna,drona,bhishma,aswathama,kriba in the war in vrad desh with utharakumar as his chariot rider.The entire gaurava army lost the war then.

 

Arjuna's war with karna in gurushekthra was no different.There arjuna could have killed karna immediatly had he used the pasupathasthra which lord shiva gave him.But Arjuna never used those holy weapons for concern of the world.

 

Karna escaped only since salya drove the chariot skilfully.And arjuna could not answer only one weapon of karna.It was the weapon which Indhra gave karna.Had arjuna used pasupathasthra karna could not have answered it too.

 

Arjuna would not have killed karna who was stranded in ground.But he was so enraged on karna who cut the bow of abimanyu,from behind during the death of abhimanyu.He took revenge for that then.Had the war continued karna would have been slayed soon.

 

Karna forgeting his divine weapons,getting curse all were results of his misdeeds.Arjuna too did not use his divine weapons against karna.So it was a level playing field.Karna insulted salya and as a result salya walked away.If my enemy is a fool,is it my problem?