Karna - Was He a Hero or a Villain

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Karna - Was He a Hero or a Villain?

Posted by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev | Aug 01, 2015 | 9,125 views

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In India, for people who are conversant with the Mahabharata, thereis a whole culture where Karna is a kind of anti-hero. He is a sweetmango gone bad. He was a wonderful human being gone totally badbecause he invested in bitterness. His bitterness took him into adisastrous life story. He was a man with a phenomenal sense ofintegrity and generosity but all this was lost. He died in the battle ina bad way.

The “low-born” king

He was resentful because he did not know whose child he was. But

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the people who brought him up, did so with utmost love. His fosterparents, Radha and Athiratha, loved him immensely and broughthim up very well, the way they knew. He always remembered howmuch his mother loved him. “That is one person who loved me forwho I am,” he says. Out of his competence and the will of fate, hebecame Angaraja – the king of Anga. He got many things and wasgiven a position and place in the palace. In many ways he was alsoa big king’s sidekick. Duryodhana held him dear and took advicefrom him. He had everything that life could offer. If you look at hislife, the fact of it is that he was a charioteer’s son who became aking. He should have been really happy. A child who is foundfloating on the water grows up to become a king. Is it not a wonderfulthing? But no, he did not give up his resentment. He was alwaysunhappy and miserable because he could not come to terms withwhat he was being labeled as. Wherever he went, people referred tohim as a suta or “low-born” because of his ambitions. Throughouthis life he complained about this. All the time, he nourishedbitterness within himself about his so-called low birth.

This bitterness made a wonderful human being into such a nastyand ugly character in the Mahabharata. He was a great humanbeing and showed his greatness in different situations, but becauseof this bitterness, in many ways it was he who turned everythingwrong. For Duryodhana, it did not matter what Shakuni said or did, itwas Karna’s advice which always sealed the deal. After everythingwas decided, he would look at Karna, “What shall we do?” Karnacould very easily have turned the direction of the whole story.


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Tragedy and sacrifice

His life went through various pitches of tragedy and sacrificealternately. He displayed this sense of sacrifice continuously, but nogood came out of it because he was destroyed by the one thing thatmattered to him the most – he wanted to be somebody that he wasnot, at least in the society. Maybe he actually was in reality, but asfar as society was concerned, he wanted to be somebody he wasnot. Because of this obsession, he continuously blundered. He wasan intelligent man. He had enough sense to see that whatDuryodhana was doing was wrong. But he was not just a passiveparticipant, he was an active participant who goaded Duryodhanaon, many times. Duryodhana’s life could have been saved if onlyKarna used his intelligence rather than his loyalty and gratitude. Hefailed to use his intelligence and continuously went from one blunderto another.

A life full of wrong turns

When Krishna came to sue for peace, he spoke to Karna. “Why areyou doing this to yourself? This is not what you are. Let me tell youwhat your parentage is. Kunti is your mother and your father isSurya.” Suddenly, Karna broke down. He always wanted to know


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who he was and where he came from. He always wanted to knowwho it was who let him off in the river in that little box. Suddenly, herealized that he had been actively trying to nurture hatred towardsthe five Pandavas, even though it was not naturally so. Because ofhis gratitude to Duryodhana, somewhere, he believed he must hatethese five people. Though there was no hatred in his heart, heworked it up all the time and came out meaner than anyone. IfShakuni said one mean thing, he would say the next mean thing.And he wouldn’t stop there because he was always working up hishatred trying to prove his loyalty and be grateful for whatDuryodhana had done for him. Somewhere deep inside, he knewthat everything he was doing was wrong, but his loyalty was sostrong that he continued to do it. He was a wonderful guy but hecontinuously made mistakes. All our lives are like that – if we makeone wrong choice, it takes ten years to recover, isn’t it? He neverrecovered because he made too many wrong turns.

Life is fair!


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Existence is not making a judgment about who is good or bad. It isonly social situations that try to judge people as good and bad. It isonly individual human beings who try to judge you as good and bad.Existence never judges because it is not written anywhere that onething is good and some other thing is bad. It is just that if you do theright things, the right results happen to you. If you don’t do the rightthings, the right things do not happen to you. I think that’s perfectlyfair. All the Karna fans think it is unfair that he should have been putthrough so much. I think it’s perfectly fair. Society may not be fair,but the existence is perfectly fair – unless you do the right things,the right things will not happen to you. If existence was not like this,there would be no value for doing the right things or for humanintelligence. Nothing that we value in our life would be valuable ifyou could do wrong things and still the right things happened to you.Life doesn’t work like that.


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Karna - Was He a Hero or a Villain

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