Only Kar na is considered a bastard, brilliantly talen ted, but tragically ignorant of his glorious parenthood, and of the source of his prowess. The rather knotty implications of this anecdote is p ointed out once or twice in the book by some character or other, but it does not make any impact on anybody. As the Mahabharata tells us, and as is repeated here by Sawant, these five br others were also illegitimate, so ns not of Pandu, who was cursed into celiba cy, but issues of the mating of the g ods ( Indra, Vayu.) and the two wives. In due time he is taken to Hastinapura, the capital of the Kaurava kingdom, where he seeks to join Acharya Drona's advanced martial arts classes, but is humiliat ed and rejected, for being a low-caste charioteer daring to seek equality with high-bo rn Kshatriya princes.Īmong the princes are the fiv e Pandava brothers, born to Kunti and her co-wife Madri, after th eir marriage to Mahar aja Pandu. All the while he suspects he is something special, but cannot guess what.

This again is an idea that occurs in many ancient tales. He sets to learn all the martial arts, and in a short time, without formal training, he excels with the sword, with the bow, with the mace, and in wrestling. Karna refuses however to be just a charioteer, not when he sees himself clad naturally in 'skin armour' and 'flesh ear-rings' - whatever these really could be. Karna is eventually picked up by a charioteer, and raised in the family tradition, as one among them. Maybe they have a common source, in the far depths of the ancient pre-history of mankind. This trope is found in many tales all over the world - in the story of Moses, for instance, or of Sargon of Akkad in ancient Mesopotamia, or even, in more recent times, of Sant Kabir. Ashamed to admit to pre-marital motherhood, she sets the new-born Karna adrift in a wooden basket on the Ashva river. He is born to Surya, the Sun God, and Kunti, a Kshatriya Princess from Mathura, before she marries Pandu.

'Mrityunjaya' is Karna, the eldest, but illegitimate Pandava brother.

मृत्यंजय by Shivaji Sawant