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Karna's reply to Krishna: From III Chapter

[Rashmirathi is quite a phenomenon in the world of Hindi poetry. Here is another excerpt from third
chapter. Lord Krishna had failed to convince Duryodhana to avoid the war. Duryodhana had refused
to give any thing back to Pandavas and Krishna had left after declaring that a war in now imminent.
On his way out, he met Karna and asked him to come along in his chariot. Karna was the greatest
warrior Duryodhana had and without Karna Kauravas were sure to get defeated in the war. Krishna
thought of another way to avoid the war by convincing Karna to leave Duryodhana and come to the
side of Pandavas. Karna in fact was the eldest son of Kunti, the mother of Yudhishthir, Bheem and
Arjuna (eldest three Pandavas), whom she had abandoned just after birth because she was
unmarried at the time of his birth and did not want to suffer the ignominy of an unmarried mother.
Abandoned Karna grew up in a low caste family but Duryodhana recognizing his skills as a great
warrior, adopted him as a close friend in spite of his apparently lowly origin. Karna was a legendry
philanthropist, cared little about wealth and status, and valued greatly his friendship with
Duryodhana. Presented here is a part of his reply to Krishna where he justifies his friendship with
Duryodhana and refuses to give it up, even though he is in fact a brother of Pandavas. The poet says
in his foreword to Rashmirathi that in this epic he found opportunities to introduce his own
comments on the society and times. Such priceless pearls of wisdom are scattered throughout the
book. Note in this excerpt poets views about how the wealth and status corrupt a person, of course
through Karnas narration - Rajiv K Saxena]

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Ramdhari Singh Dinkar

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