Choosing a Side Matters.

Of Shaping the Future.

Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

I retell an ancient story of a legend to illustrate how choosing sides, and making choices can have far-reaching consequences.

In a distant kingdom, a king hosted a revered sage in the Palace for a few days, and asked his daughter, the Princess, to ensure a hospitable stay. Pleased with her service, the sage bestowed on her a sacred mantra that when recited, could summon any Gods to bless her with a child.

Curiosity to test this claim, even though vouchsafed by a powerful sage, led her to recite it one day, calling on the Sun-God to appear before her.

He did, and the genie could not be put back in the bottle. Her youthful indiscretion resulted in the Sun-God blessing her with a baby boy.

Shocked and afraid of the consequences of being an unwed mother, she abandoned her son through her maid, who set it afloat in a basket on the river.

The baby was found by a childless couple from a non-warrior background, who thanked God, adopted him as their own, named him Karna, and showered him with love. The father was a charioteer for the Royal family.

In time, the Princess married a Prince from a neighboring kingdom, belonging to a renowned dynasty. The Prince became the King, and following the common practice among royals to forge alliances and promote peace through marriage, took a second wife. Over time, the two wives bore a total of five sons—three to the Princess and twins to the second wife.

Unfortunately, the King died when the children were young. His elder brother, who was blind, was tasked with governing until his nephews came of age.

The guardian King had one hundred sons¹, with the eldest harboring intense jealousy towards his cousins and resentment over the prospect of losing the throne to them.

In this misguided belief, the eldest son was encouraged by his father, who resented the fact that his younger brother was made heir due to his affliction, thus ensuring that his nephews would inherit the throne.

The father believed that the throne rightfully belonged to him and should pass to his son, who did not have any affliction. However, these were not the accepted practices or rules of Royal kingdoms.

As the cousins grew up together in the large Palace, they shared the same teachers. As befitting warriors, they were trained in military and kingly craft from an early age.

The five sons were loved by all for their inherent goodness and unmatched traits.

The more they received praise from their teachers, the people, and the Royal family, the more the eldest of their cousins grew insanely jealous of them.

Every year, royal contests were held in the kingdom, akin to a warrior Olympics, where brave warriors competed to showcase their skills and win acclaim. The cousins also participated in these contests, competing against all participants.

Karna, warrior by birth, but raised as a charioteer’s son, had still trained as a warrior, despite his father’s admonishments.

He was eager to show his prowess in the competition but as fate would have it, the Royal priests disqualified Karna from the competition because he was not a nobleman, or from a warrior caste.

The eldest of the one hundred sons of the blind King, let’s call him Duryo, saw an opportunity to best his cousins. He immediately conferred on Karna, land, and a nobleman’s status, thereby elevating him.

Karna never forgot this favor. At every turn, he supported and stood by the eldest son, no matter what his actions, and they became best friends. Karna felt indebted to the eldest son for protecting his self-respect and dignity in the arena that day when no one else would speak for him.

At heart and in character, Karna stood apart from the eldest son and his ninety-nine brothers. He was a man of honor who upheld the warrior’s code, handsome in appearance as the son of the Sun-God, and devoted to caring for his elderly parents.

Generous to a fault, Karna had established a practice: if anyone approached him at a certain time of the day, he would never deny them anything they sought from him.

This earned him the moniker 'the Generous and Brave Warrior,' Karna.

However, the company of the eldest son and their constant plotting against the five cousins influenced Karna, amplifying his worst tendencies and glorifying his weaknesses. In addition, Karna also harbored grudges against the five brothers who had picked on him when they were young kids in warrior school, and elsewhere.

Karna was a skilled warrior, particularly proficient with a bow and arrow, much like Arjuna, one of the five brothers who gained renown as the foremost warrior in the land.

The conflict between the five brothers and their cousins, the hundred sons of the blind King, escalated each year, fueled by new grudges fostered by the eldest brother, Duryo, in his bid to prevent the five brothers from ascending to the throne.

Karna played a critical role and supported his friend, Duryo, without question or challenge, aiding him in his worst impulses. Duryo also took comfort in having a renowned warrior as his friend, someone he perceived as equal to Arjuna.

Eventually, the level of evil actions against the five brothers escalated, including attempts to kill them, ultimately resulting in the unforgivable humiliation of their beautiful wife, herself a Princess.

This set the stage for the inevitable war between the cousins.

Karna had to choose sides, as did all the warriors of that age. There was no possibility of fence-sitting or holding a middle ground.

Karna’s birth mother, the Princess, confronted with the fact that the battle would pit her sons against each other, though none of them knew they were born to the same mother, approached Karna.

Thus, Karna heard directly from his birth mother about the antecedents of his birth. She pleaded with him to choose the side of righteousness and abandon the wicked brothers.

Karna realized then that the five brothers he had been fighting all his life — to gain recognition from them as their equal, to be acknowledged as a brave warrior, especially by Arjuna regardless of his parentage were, in fact, his younger stepbrothers.

This fact saddened him deeply.

Abandoned by his mother at birth and deprived of a stable life while growing up, Karna had grappled with conflicting feelings. He was attracted to a warrior's role in life but was constantly humiliated for being the son of a charioteer. Seeking validation became his sole weakness.

Throughout his life, Karna struggled to find acceptance in a society that placed unequal emphasis on background. Rejected at every turn, he turned to his skills as a warrior and his friendship with Duryo to gain legitimacy.

He had never forgiven society or the five brothers for their insulting remarks.

Even now, he felt that his birth mother had approached him to protect the five brothers, not for his own sake.

She denied this accusation when confronted with it, and asked him to forgive a young teenage girl who had become an unwed mother in a society that shunned unwed mothers.

She asked him: What could she have possibly done to change that fact and keep him as a baby?

At this stage, she finally begged his forgiveness for her actions, though she had learned of his identity long ago but had chosen to remain silent.

Now, on the brink of a terrible war, she pleaded for the lives of her other sons and his own, as she could not bear to lose any of them.

She sought to invoke her right as a mother and order him to obey her.

But Karna would not be moved. He owed his life, his dignity, and his acceptance in society to the one person, Duryo, who had never cared for his background but had accepted him as he was.

Wicked and evil-intentioned he may be, but Duryo was the only one who had rescued Karna from society’s ill-conceived notions of caste and status.

If he abandoned his friend now, what would history and the Gods say of his character? He was honor-bound especially when Duryo was relying on Karna to help him win this war.

The mother wept upon hearing this, reflecting on her past cowardice as a young princess and later as an older queen when she had failed to recognize Karna and give him his rights as her son.

For his part, Karna informed her that while she may have given birth to him, he considered his real parents to be the poor charioteer and his wife, who had adopted him and poured their love into him. He declared that he recognized no other mother besides the charioteer’s wife.

The Princess wept again upon hearing this harsh denouncement of her actions.

Yet, Karna stated that since he had never turned away anyone who came to him asking for something, he would not turn her away either.

Karna promised his birth mother that he would not kill any of his other four brothers. However, he vowed that either he would kill Arjuna or Arjuna would kill him – this much was certain.

Regardless, he assured her that as far she was concerned, at the end of this frightening war, she would still have five sons.

He also extracted a promise from her: she should not disclose her relationship to him to anyone, especially his younger brothers. Karna wanted to fight Arjuna at his best warrior self, not hindered by any other factor.

Failing in her mission, and deeply conscious of the wrongs done to her first-born, the Queen mother returned to the Palace and kept her promise.

A catastrophic war raged for eighteen days. Every known and unknown dangerous weapon was used, as the brave went up against other brave men: brother against brother, cousin against cousin, student against teacher, nephews against granduncles, and seers.

Sides had formed, and every single person in the land had to choose a side and fight, or support the war from the sidelines. There were no middle-of-the-ground choices on the table for anyone anymore.

Some chose correctly, while others opted for convenience or misplaced loyalty, bereft of discretion. The conflict was fought for the soul of the world.

In the end, despite all of the good deeds and honorable ways of living practiced by Karna, he died² in battle, killed by Arjuna, the righteous warrior, at the behest of Krishna, that arbiter of righteous action in the Universe.

For the Preserver-God, born as Krishna to destroy evil and re-establish good, had declared that, regardless of a person’s character or deeds, in this war of good versus evil, righteous versus unrighteous, there was only a single choice before all humans.

Karna, despite all of the goodness he possessed, grossly misperceived his honor, for there was no honor in supporting the wicked, untruthful, evil, and unrighteous brothers.

No matter how it seems on the surface, and despite the appearance of victory for the wicked, in the end, without any doubt, those who fight for truth will always prevail. Always. Let this never be in doubt, proclaimed Krishna, to those who were undecided before the war, cautioning them - including Karna³ - to choose, and choose wisely.

But Karna stayed true to the loyalty he felt toward his evil friend. Even before he knew the five sons were his brothers, Karna had come to realize his error in judgment. He understood then that the five brothers were righteous. Though he initially harbored grudges against their success, he eventually grasped the truth, and came to regret his actions.

Karna’s fault, in a life of pristine conduct, was that he aligned himself with the evil brothers due to the obligation he felt. Under their influence, he began to commit acts that went against the code of honor, Given a chance to redeem himself and despite being aware of the truth, he still chose loyalty.

So it is, that Karna became the tragic hero of the story.

After Karna’s death, the five brothers discovered his true identity and mourned him deeply - not just the loss of their brother, but also a courageous warrior who had been mistreated by his family and society.

Despite knowing that their sons’ actions were unrighteous, the blind King, who failed to prevent the war, and his wife, both thought their sons would survive the war. Their attachment⁴ to their sons clouded their judgment, causing them to lose their discernment and fail to take appropriate action.

Instead of guiding their sons towards wiser choices, the parents gave in to their whims, allowing them to continue down a destructive path fueled by a misguided grudge.

Every single one of their one hundred sons perished in this war. Not only them, but every warrior who sided with them also met his demise.

So conclude the ancients: Choosing the side of righteousness (dharma) may have resulted in death for some warriors, but choosing unrighteousness (adharma) brought certain death to all who fought for it.

Thus, Karna, the generous and brave warrior, met a tragic end.

1. See this reference for how he had 100 sons.

2. Karna’s death was also tragic. He had fought valiantly for sixteen days of the eighteen-day war, nearly securing victory for the evil brothers. On the seventeenth day, the final, terrible fight with Arjuna began, with neither side yielding. During battle, Karna’s chariot got stuck in the mud, his charioteer having been slain, he was forced to get down from the chariot to release the huge wooden wheel. Krishna directed a reluctant Arjuna to shoot Karna - Arjuna wanted to wait to resume the fight, but Krishna ordered him to kill Karna. Thus, it is that when the stakes were high, Karna did not get the benefit of the doubt. Had he been spared, evil may have won with his help. Hence, Krishna’s directive to Arjuna.

3. Before the war, Krishna had approached Karna, hinting at his birth origins and offering him a path to reconciliation. He then sent Karna’s birth-mother to dissuade him. However, Karna refused both attempts and chose to fight for evil. Therefore, in battle, his fate was sealed.

4. Hindu philosophy has a specific Sanskrit term for this attachment - 'moha' - which refers to an attachment so deep that it causes someone to lose their discernment or sense of right and wrong. It can also denote excessive attachment to material desires.