[Advaita-l] Arjuna vs. Karna

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Arjuna vs. Karna
To: sjayana at yahoo.com
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 3:52 PM







You are right, in this instance, when you said that Karna was superior to Arjuna as Lord Krishna had to come to his rescue, but there were other occasions, such as in the Virat Parva, when Arjuna singlehandedly and successfully handled the entire Kaurava army, which included Bhishma, Drona and Karna.
 
As regards the Pasupata Astra, Arjuna had to acquire it by pleasing Lord Shiva as Bhishma too had this astra. It is because of this astra with him that  Bhishma could not be defeated by even Parashuram. 
 
Regards,
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya

--- On Mon, 1/5/09, S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Advaita-l] Arjuna vs. Karna
To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 10:15 AM

I'm presently (re)reading the Mahabharata, and it seems to me that the
fighting prowess of Arjuna is exaggerated compared to some of his opponents,
especially Karna. I'm just wondering why Arjuna is often praised as a great
warrior, but fares rather poorly when he is pitted against others who are also
strong considered great warriors in their own right.

During the final Mahabharata war, there are good reasons to believe that Arjuna
was not as good a warrior as Karna or other greats on the Kaurava side:

1. Karna actually comes close to beheading Arjuna by aiming an arrow at the
latter's neck, and the arrow would have found its mark had it not been for
Krishna's pressing down the chariot with his toe. Now, if Arjuna had really
been such a great warrior, why would he need Krishna to come to his rescue?

2. There is not a single instance among their mutual conflicts in the
Mahabharata war where Arjuna actually comes close to overcoming Karna. In the
end, Arjuna observes Karna being disarmed and takes advantage of the opportunity
to kill the enemy. Karna may have "deserved" to die in this manner
(Krishna points out that Karna sneaked up on Abhimanyu from behind, which is
against the laws of war, and there is also the case of the Brahmin's curse),
but this also doesn't speak highly of Arjuna's prowess.

3. In spite of having acquired the Pashupata-astra from Shiva Himself, Arjuna
never really defeats the strong warriors on the Kaurava side - such as Bhishma,
Drona, and Karna - by obviously virtuous means in the final war. In fact, Arjuna
had to approach Bhishma to enquire as to how Bhishma can be killed.

Why then is Arjuna lauded as a "great" warrior when there are these
other equally if not superior warriors around? He was of course a great Bhakta
and a highly virtuous person for Krishna choosing him as a student to preach the
Gita, but that is not the same as being a great warrior.

Regards,
Kartik


      
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