Karṇa Vadha

The Karṇa Vadha is the killing of Karṇa by Arjuna on the seventeenth day of the Kurukshetra war, told in the Karṇa Parva of the Mahābhārata. It is the high point of the whole parva and one of the greatest events of the war.

The duel brings together the exchange of divine weapons (astras), the Nāgāstra, the sinking of Karṇa’s chariot wheel, Kṛshṇa’s answer to Karṇa’s plea for mercy, and at last the Āñjalika arrow that cuts off Karṇa’s head. At the moment of his death a great light rises from his body and enters the disc of the sun.

The last duel begins

Arjuna came back to the field from the camp, where Yudhishṭhira’s anger and the making-up that followed had tested the brothers deeply. Then the long-awaited duel between Karṇa and Arjuna began in full force. Both had white horses. Śalya drove Karṇa’s chariot, and Kṛshṇa drove Arjuna’s. The scene was so great that it drew spectators from the sky: devas, dānavas, gandharvas, siddhas, ṛshis and pitṛs all gathered in the space above Kurukshetra to watch.

Earth and sky took sides. Sūrya stood with Karṇa, and Indra with Arjuna. Asuras, yātudhānas and guhyakas sided with Karṇa. The nāgas of Airāvata’s line, the devas and the pitṛs sided with Arjuna. Even Brahmā and Śiva came in their divine chariots. When Indra asked Brahmā who would win, Brahmā said: “Victory belongs to the Kṛshṇas, Kṛshṇa and Arjuna. This is settled.” Karṇa is described as belonging to the dānava side in the cosmic count, and his defeat was the divine will working through the war.

The exchange of astras

The duel was a show of great force. Karṇa and Arjuna traded every kind of divine weapon:

• Arjuna fired the Āgneya-astra (the fire weapon). Karṇa answered with the Vāruṇa-astra (the water weapon), which put out the flames and filled the sky with clouds.
• Arjuna scattered the clouds with the Vāyavya-astra (the wind weapon).
• Arjuna fired the Aindra-astra (Indra’s weapon). Karṇa met it with his own store of weapons.
• Karṇa used the Bhārgava-astra, the greatest weapon he had received from Paraśurāma. It tore through Arjuna’s ranks and killed Pāñcāla warriors by the thousand.
• Brahma-astras were sent from both sides and were turned aside.

Several times in the exchange Arjuna’s bowstring broke. Each time he strung the Gāṇḍīva again so fast that Karṇa could not see the gap. This was counted as one of the wonders of the duel. At times the darkness of arrows was so thick that neither side could see the other. Bhīma and Kṛshṇa both urged Arjuna to press harder when he seemed to hold back.

The Nāgāstra

The most dramatic moment before the wheel sank was the Nāgāstra, the serpent weapon. Aśvasena was a nāga whose mother Arjuna had killed when the Khāṇḍava forest was burned. He had nursed his wish for revenge for years. By his power of yoga he entered the shaft of Karṇa’s arrow and became the weapon itself, a living serpent-missile aimed at Arjuna’s throat.

Karṇa shot this arrow with all his strength at Arjuna’s neck and cried, “Arjuna, you are dead!” The arrow blazed like fire and sun together. At that moment Kṛshṇa, watching from the driver’s seat, pressed the chariot down into the earth with his foot. The great horses sank to their fetlocks, and the chariot floor dropped by a hand’s breadth. The arrow, aimed at Arjuna’s throat, struck instead the divine kirīṭa, the crown of gold and jewels that Indra himself had given, and knocked it from Arjuna’s head. The crown fell to the ground. Arjuna was not hurt.

After the arrow had gone by, Aśvasena came out of the earth and said to Karṇa: “You did not aim with care. Let me enter the arrow again, and I will kill Arjuna.” Karṇa answered with a warrior’s vow: “Karṇa does not use the same arrow twice. Go your own way.” Aśvasena was furious and would not accept this. He rose into the sky in his true form as a serpent and came at Arjuna. Kṛshṇa showed him to Arjuna, and Arjuna killed him with six arrows. Kṛshṇa then lifted the sunken chariot back to level ground.

The wheel sinks into the earth

As the fight went on, two śāpas (curses) on Karṇa came true together. The left wheel of Karṇa’s chariot began to sink into the earth. This was the working of the śāpa of a brāhmaṇa whose cow Karṇa had killed by accident. Karṇa had sworn to guard the brāhmaṇa’s cow. He had failed, and so earned the śāpa that at the deciding moment of his life his chariot would sink into the earth.

At the same moment Karṇa reached for the Bhārgava-astra to meet Arjuna’s attack, and the mantra would not come to his mind. This was the fulfilment of Paraśurāma’s śāpa, that the weapon would leave him just when he needed it most.

Karṇa got down from his chariot and put both his strong arms under the wheel. He strained with all his huge strength to lift it, and tried to pull it free from the earth’s grip. The Mahābhārata says that as he strained, the earth itself, “with seven continents, forests, and mountains”, rose four fingers, but the wheel would not come free.

Karṇa’s appeal to dharma

Standing on the ground beside his sunken chariot, Karṇa called to Arjuna and appealed to the code of warriors:

“Son of Kuntī! Wait one moment, while I lift this wheel. Do not shoot me now. Heroes do not strike a man whose hair is loose, or who stands without a weapon, or who is a brāhmaṇa, or who offers surrender, or who seeks refuge, or who begs for mercy, or whose weapon is broken, or whose chariot has failed. You are known as the greatest warrior. You know the dharma of fighting. Wait for as long as it takes me to lift this wheel.”

He did not plead from fear. He spoke as one warrior speaking to another about a warrior’s code.

Kṛshṇa’s answer

Then Kṛshṇa spoke. His answer is one of the most morally charged passages in the whole Mahābhārata. He spoke to Karṇa directly and named each act of adharma in which Karṇa had a part.

When Draupadī was dragged into the assembly in a single garment (ekavasanā) and shamed, where was Karṇa’s dharma? When Śakuni cheated at dice with tricks and defeated Yudhishṭhira, where was Karṇa’s dharma? When Bhīma was poisoned and thrown into the river, and when the Lākshāgṛha (the house of lac) was set on fire to burn the sleeping Pāṇḍavas, where was Karṇa’s dharma? When the dharma of the rājasūya was broken, and when Abhimanyu, a boy fighting alone, was surrounded by six mahārathis and killed against every rule of righteous war, where was Karṇa’s dharma? “Now, in danger, you remember dharma. But dharma does not protect those who have abandoned it.”

After this speech Kṛshṇa turned to Arjuna and said: “Mahāvīra! Fire your greatest astra now. Cut this man down. He is the enemy who brought about the ruin of your side by one act of adharma after another.”

The Āñjalika arrow

Arjuna reached into his quiver and took out the Āñjalika, his greatest arrow. He had always treated this weapon with ritual care and devotion. He set it to the Gāṇḍīva and drew the string back to his ear. He declared that he shot this arrow for the good of all the worlds and to destroy the enemy of righteousness. If his tapas (austerity), his service to his guru (guru-sevā), his truthfulness and his devotion were real, then by the power of that truth let this arrow kill Karṇa.

The Āñjalika blazed like the fire at the end of the world. It is described as three hasta (cubits) in length, six-winged like a great bird, as sharp as Indra’s vajra, and as swift as the wind and the sun. Arjuna let it go.

The great arrow flew from the Gāṇḍīva, blazing through the air, and cut Karṇa’s head from his body. The head fell to the ground like the setting sun dropping from the western mountain at the end of the day. The Mahābhārata tells that at the moment of death a great radiance, Karṇa’s own supreme tejas (inner fire), rose from the severed head into the disc of the sun and joined his divine father, Sūrya. All who were on the battlefield saw this shining departure.

What followed

Both armies reacted at once. The Pāṇḍava forces broke out in cheers. They roared, blew their conches, and embraced one another. The Kaurava forces panicked and ran in every direction. Śalya, in his chariot with its broken flag, drove away to Duryodhana and told him what had happened.

Duryodhana took the news in silent grief. He collapsed in sorrow. The rest of the Kaurava warriors, Aśvatthāmā, Kṛpa, Kṛtavarman, Śakuni and Śalya, stood round him in silence.

Later Yudhishṭhira came to the battlefield and saw Karṇa lying there. His body was full of arrows, and it was still radiant in death, like a tree in full flower cut down at the root. Yudhishṭhira looked at Karṇa for a long time and then said: “Now that this Rādheya has fallen, I feel as though I have been born again.”

What it meant for the war

The Mahābhārata presents the Karṇa Vadha as the turning point of the war. With Bhīshma fallen, Droṇa dead, and now Karṇa gone, the Kaurava side had lost its three greatest warriors. The eighteenth day, with Śalya as the last commander (senāpati) and then Duryodhana’s last stand, followed from what the Karṇa Vadha had settled.

The killing also fulfilled years of sworn oaths: Arjuna’s vow at the dice game to kill Karṇa, which he renewed again and again. It also fulfilled the design by which Kṛshṇa, who came as an avatāra (incarnation) for the restoring of dharma, guided events to their necessary end.

The Mahābhārata says that reading or hearing this account of the great war between Karṇa and Arjuna earns the fruit of a great yajña.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Karṇa Parva, Chapters 87–96