Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Karṇa · 37 of 50
37. Karṇa's command
Karṇa (कर्ण)
Karṇa commands the sixteenth and seventeenth days. He is, at last, the marshal, which is what Duryodhana has wanted since the exhibition of the princes. He is also poorer than he was born to be. The mail and the earrings are with Indra. The one-use weapon is spent on Ghaṭotkaca. Two curses travel with him, and the poem treats them as facts of his hour. A teacher, Paraśurāma, whom he approached in the dress of a brahmin, cursed the weapon learned by that lie to fail him when he needed it most. A brahmin whose cow died under his chariot cursed the wheel to sink, and the man on that chariot to be helpless while it sank. This page names the curses. It does not describe a weapon's use.
Śalya, king of the Madras, uncle of the twins, is made his charioteer, and is asked by Yudhiṣṭhira, privately, long before, to sap the archer's heart if it came to this. Śalya spends the battle insulting his own warrior. Karṇa fights anyway. He is the eldest brother on the wrong side, keeping his promise to Kuntī in the ways that do not show. He has Yudhiṣṭhira in reach and does not kill him. He humiliates him and lets him go. The promise holds. The war does not look like a promise. It looks like Karṇa.
Arjuna and Karṇa meet and part and meet. The poem gives them an equality the court never gave them. On the seventeenth day the equality is spent.
नेपालीमा
कर्ण सोह्र र सत्रौँ दिन सेनापति भए। कवच र कुण्डल इन्द्रसँग थिए। एक पटकको अस्त्र घटोत्कचमा सकिसकेको थियो। परशुरामको श्रापले झूटले सिकेको अस्त्र चाहिने बेला काम नलाग्ने बनायो। एक ब्राह्मणको श्रापले पाङ्ग्रा भासिने भयो। यो पृष्ठले श्रापको नाम लिन्छ। अस्त्र चलाउने तरिका लेख्दैन। शल्य सारथि भए, र युधिष्ठिरको पुरानो अनुरोधअनुसार कर्णको मन भाँच्न उनलाई अपमान गरे। कर्णले युधिष्ठिरलाई हातमा पाएर मारेनन्। आमालाई दिएको वचन पाले। सत्रौँ दिन बराबरी सकियो।