Week 12 Reading Diary A: Karna: The Unsung Hero of the Mahabarata

I decided to read Karna: The Unsung Hero of the Mahabharata by Umesh Kotru and Shutosh Zutshi for the next few weeks. A lot of this story is already familiar to me, so these reading diaries are going to be a little different and a little shorter. I'm just going to focus on small aspects of the stories that are different and that I like. These are going to be used for my final story on Karna for my storybook and also for the storytelling posts of the next few weeks. 

So far, I've read the sections on Kunti receiving the mantra and on Karna's birth and early childhood.

1. Durvasa gave Kunti the mantra because he could see her potential. 

2. Kunti was admiring the sunset when she decided to try the mantra. It says she fell in love with him then and that is why he was summoned by the mantra.

3. In this story, Kunti is pregnant for the full nine months. She says that Durvasa said she would be blessed if she fasted and avoided people for a year as an excuse to keep to herself. She only conversed with Dhatri who was her dearest friend and servant. Dhatri smuggled in a midwife and also smuggled Karna out of the castle. 

4. Karna was described as princely and supernaturally beautiful. His mother loved him very much. He had natural armor and earrings and the midwife noticed that he was divinely beautiful. Kunti adored him from the beginning. Dhatri allowed her to be content with her child for a while, but eventually she had him smuggled out of the castle and sent down the river in a small boat. She cried as he left.

5. Kunti wished she had been cursed by Durvasa and not blessed because losing her son was very upsetting for her. In the other stories, her love for Karna was not emphasized as much. This was heartbreaking.

6. On the Ganga, people were worshiping Surya as the sun rose and Adhirata was out on the river. He saw the boat and took Karna home because him and his wife Radha could not have children. 

Photo of the Ganges River found on Wikimedia Commons

7. Radha performed rituals every day to ward off evil eye. His parents loved him very much and, although they did not have much, they gave him a lot of love and affection. Adhirata was Dhritarashtra's charioteer. They had other children, which I did not know, but they continued to love Vasushena the most.