• Welcome to Tamil Brahmins forums.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our Free Brahmin Community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

Was Karna good or bad?

Status
Not open for further replies.
The greatest test for us to love God is knowing that we are totally on our own and He does not micromanage.

Everything we do..like prayer etc is not for God ..He does not need it.Everything is for us to strip ourselves of our ego and realize the Self.

This harsh reality might sound scary and some might not want to "pray" thinking there is no use to pray if we are totally on our own.

So for that sake..some words are sugar coated to make the bitter pill of truth palatable for humans.

So if we truly love God we should be willing to accept the fact that He does NOT get involved in our lives.
 
JR ji, real life is not so black and white. I am pretty sure the Mahabharata is censored for the benefit of the Pandavas. Since you are mentioning episodes, let me pick one: the Lakshagriha episode.

For sure the Kauravas started it. But why were the Pandavas instrumental in the burning of 5 innocent men and their mother?
 
biswa said:
JR ji, real life is not so black and white. I am pretty sure the Mahabharata is censored for the benefit of the Pandavas. Since you are mentioning episodes, let me pick one: the Lakshagriha episode.

For sure the Kauravas started it. But why were the Pandavas instrumental in the burning of 5 innocent men and their mother?
Click to expand...

Life is black and white, especially within the frame of reference of when this ithihasa happened - in Dwapara yuga when dharma devata stood on 2 supporting legs.

(Even in Kaliyuga you find good men from time to time).

I have raised the above question before, "why whatever happened to the Nishada woman and her children in the burning lac house happen to them?".

The answer had been: As per the epic (original), the nishada woman and her children were "drunk" and had wandered into the palace in the middle of the night, without the knowledge of the pandavas, when the lac palace was put to fire. That, pandavas seem to be the reason for their death is thus circumstancial, they had no knowledge of the Nishada woman and her children.
 
Last edited:
P.J. said:
Smt JR ji

Please avoid answering irrelevant questions posted here about this Great Epic and the Wisdom of Veda VYASA; we will go ahead and share the greatness of this epic together.

Please give me time to post about Dice game and i am sure you will be astonished to know about them.
Click to expand...

Mr PJ,

I am surprised that even after being a forum member for such a long time, you do not appreciate its openness. If you dont like the questions and answers here, you should converse by private email. Otherwise members have every right to interject.

I myself agree that Mahabharata is a great epic. It is said that you can learn everything about life from the Mahabharata. However personally I do not believe that the epic is proven to be 100% historically accurate, hence it is not considered a historical record. JR ji believes in the material authenticity of the text. That is fine, I respect her point of view as well.
 
Last edited:
JR – Please take my post in the right spirit, not meant to upset anyone or any religious leaning:

From a historical perspective, we have multiple records which glorify Rama, Krishna, Ravana, Duryodhana, Karna etc.. so each record has to be viewed from the perspective of who wrote it.

For eg, Ramayana is the victor version of the war, Homer Illiad Troy is the loser version of the war. In the Ramayana, the victors are Gods, in the Troy, losers are portrayed as Gods. For more details, refer to my earlier posts…

Similarly there is a temple in Poruvazhy in Kollam district of Kerala (correct place of Kurunadu) for Duryodhana, Karna, Gandhari, Dussala, Bheeshma, Dronacharya & Shakuni. Here Duryodhana is worshipped as the Avataram of Lord Shiva by the followers as he was a great worshipper of Lord Shiva !!
 
Last edited:
Jaykay767 said:
JR – Please take my post in the right spirit, not meant to upset anyone or any religious leaning:

From a historical perspective, we have multiple records which glorify Rama, Krishna, Ravana, Duryodhana, Karna etc.. so each record has to be viewed from the perspective of who wrote it.

For eg, Ramayana is the victor version of the war, Homer Illiad Troy is the loser version of the war. In the Ramayana, the victors are Gods, in the Troy, losers are portrayed as Gods. For more details, refer to my earlier posts…
Click to expand...


I agree. However unlike Ramayana (Valmiki Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana, Ramacharit Manas), we do not have multiple versions of Mahabharata. There may be concise works on Mahabharata that offer their own 'unique views' on the characters in the Mahabharata, however Mahabharata, the original was written by Vyasa muni alone. Nobody else was granted the divine vision to see through the things as he did. And, given the choice of who I will believe as to the events in the ithihasa themselves? Common people who read concise works and incorporate their own views in addition or great Vaishnava Swamijis who read the original work in its entirety whose knowledge on scriptures in proven? Naturally, anyone will go for the second choice.

Besides offences such as disrobing a helpless woman in front of an entire crowd, etc, are disgusting and unacceptable and I can never subscribe to the view that such people who did this should be viewed in a positive light!
 
Last edited:
JR - Let me explain.

Ramayana & Illiad Troy are accounts of the same war, one written by the victor, other by the loser. Trojan king Priam (Ravana) was the most noble king in history as per Illiad ! Now how do you decide who was good or bad?

Similarly for Mahabharata, you need to compare the various folks songs in Kerala, Karnataka, & Tamil Nadu glorifying Karna & Duryodhana. So how do we know the disrobing of Draupadi really happened or not?

That’s why you will see in the south Indian movies, Karnais glorified by Shivaji, NTR, Rajakumar etc..
 
Jaykay767 said:
JR - Let me explain.

Ramayana & Illiad Troy are accounts of the same war, one written by the victor, other by the loser. Trojan king Priam (Ravana) was the most noble king in history as per Illiad ! Now how do you decide who was good or bad?

Similarly for Mahabharata, you need to compare the various folks songs in Kerala, Karnataka, & Tamil Nadu glorifying Karna & Duryodhana. So how do we know the disrobing of Draupadi really happened or not?

That’s why you will see in the south Indian movies, Karnais glorified by Shivaji, NTR, Rajakumar etc..
Click to expand...

JayKay!

That's interesting news.. I did not know that! (That there is a Western version of Ramayana).

But regarding considering this Western version and other folklore, I would just say, I would like to remain within the umbrella of Vaishnavism and trust in Vyasamuni to have done his part accurately. Because if I have to question everything, then the ithihasa becomes just another story that may or may not have happened and our deities themselves including Sri Krishna become false. Somehow I am not subscribing to this view.

But it was very good to know perspectives such as these existed. Thanks for letting me know the same!
 
JR –

Homer Iliad Troy is NOT a western perspective of Ramayana. It is our ancestor’s perspective of Ramayana (you may remember that India has many Greek & Aramaic inscriptions) !!

Similarly, Lord Krisha himself is Jesus Christ !!

I will let u read my earlier posts to understand this better if you are interested !

Cheers,
 
biswa said:
Mr PJ,

I am surprised that even after being a forum member for such a long time, you do not appreciate its openness. If you dont like the questions and answers here, you should converse by private email. Otherwise members have every right to interject.

I myself agree that Mahabharata is a great epic. It is said that you can learn everything about life from the Mahabharata. However personally I do not believe that the epic is proven to be 100% historically accurate, hence it is not considered a historical record. JR ji believes in the material authenticity of the text. That is fine, I respect her point of view as well.
Click to expand...

Sri biswas Ji

Since OP is about Karna, and already some unrelated posts were made in reply to OP, i just cautioned Smt JR ji to concentrate on her question.

Wishing you and your family a very Happy Deepavali
 
JR said:
Thank you for this knowledge, PJ ji!

Ofcourse, they say 'Vidhi valiyadhu' and I agree 100% the poor Pandavas were trapped in to its grip, especially the ever truthful Yudhishtira! but they say everything happens for good and if not for this incident, there would be no 'Bhagawad Gita' in the world today!
Click to expand...



Thanks Smt JR Ji

Wishing you and your family a very happy Deepavali
 
Jaykay767 said:
JR –

Homer Iliad Troy is NOT a western perspective of Ramayana. It is our ancestor’s perspective of Ramayana (you may remember that India has many Greek & Aramaic inscriptions) !!

Similarly, Lord Krisha himself is Jesus Christ !!

I will let u read my earlier posts to understand this better if you are interested !

Cheers,
Click to expand...

JayKay!

Yes i am interested, but I can promise you I will not be convinced into believing that, though! :) Sorry about that!

But if you have presented these views elsewhere, I am interested in reading them.

Thanks,
 
Our scriptures dramatizes the story based on historical events !

for eg, in the case of Draupadi, it could very well be possible that Duryodhana insulted her publicly in the court & she felt naked/disrobed by that comment. Krishna then comes to her rescue & stops the warring cousins. Dramatized story telling of the event…

Even today you will see in western movies actress saying, oh he insulted me so badly that I felt naked & abused by it !!!
 
Last edited:
JR said:


I agree. However unlike Ramayana (Valmiki Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana, Ramacharit Manas), we do not have multiple versions of Mahabharata. There may be concise works on Mahabharata that offer their own 'unique views' on the characters in the Mahabharata, however Mahabharata, the original was written by Vyasa muni alone. Nobody else was granted the divine vision to see through the things as he did. And, given the choice of who I will believe as to the events in the ithihasa themselves? Common people who read concise works and incorporate their own views in addition or great Vaishnava Swamijis who read the original work in its entirety whose knowledge on scriptures in proven? Naturally, anyone will go for the second choice.

Besides offences such as disrobing a helpless woman in front of an entire crowd, etc, are disgusting and unacceptable and I can never subscribe to the view that such people who did this should be viewed in a positive light!
Click to expand...

Smt. JR,

Permit me to say that there are more than one version of the Mahabharata also, just as we have Valmiki Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana, Ramacharit Manas and also Adhyaatma Ramayana (which is considered to be the earliest attempt to elevate Valmiki's very mortal prince Rama into an avataara), Aananda Ramayana, etc. Besides there are Bhil Ramayana (the bhil tribals of Madhya Pradesh have a temple for Ravana and worship him during Navaratri festival, exactly when the Delhi people celebrate Ravana Vadha!). Similarly, there is the Villi bhaaratam or Villipputhooraar Bharatham which obviously gives a departure from the brahmin version, in many aspects.

Mainly, Mahabharata has two rescensions - the Northern and Southern; the southern version has come to be known as the Kumbhakonam edition. Most of the Tamilian people know only about this one version. The Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, Pune has brought out, after 47 years of work in collating 1259 manuscripts, a critical edition of the Mahabharata and it was announced by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then President of India, on September 22, 1966 (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Besides, there is internal evidence in the Mahabharata (Kumbhakonam version) itself that the work has undergone revisions thrice. (ref:https://ia600402.us.archive.org/29/items/notesofstudyofpr00venkiala/ and https://ia700301.us.archive.org/26/items/mahabharataacrit015691mbp/)

Just for your information only please.
 
For the record, all the historical records of Karna, Ravana & Duryodhana coming down the ages via the folks songs in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada & Telugu are all positive. There are NO negative accounts of these Kings anywhere except for in Mahabharata. Infact in these folk accounts, Pandavas with support from Krishna are blamed for the tragedy !!
 
Last edited:
so all historical accounts written by the Victors will have a bias to glorify their Kings !! Kings commissioned our Brahmin ancestors to write these texts to immortalize themselves in history & to show the losers in bad light to justify the wars.
 
sangom said:
Smt. JR,

Permit me to say that there are more than one version of the Mahabharata also, just as we have Valmiki Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana, Ramacharit Manas and also Adhyaatma Ramayana (which is considered to be the earliest attempt to elevate Valmiki's very mortal prince Rama into an avataara), Aananda Ramayana, etc. Besides there are Bhil Ramayana (the bhil tribals of Madhya Pradesh have a temple for Ravana and worship him during Navaratri festival, exactly when the Delhi people celebrate Ravana Vadha!). Similarly, there is the Villi bhaaratam or Villipputhooraar Bharatham which obviously gives a departure from the brahmin version, in many aspects.

Mainly, Mahabharata has two rescensions - the Northern and Southern; the southern version has come to be known as the Kumbhakonam edition. Most of the Tamilian people know only about this one version. The Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, Pune has brought out, after 47 years of work in collating 1259 manuscripts, a critical edition of the Mahabharata and it was announced by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then President of India, on September 22, 1966 (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Besides, there is internal evidence in the Mahabharata (Kumbhakonam version) itself that the work has undergone revisions thrice. (ref:https://ia600402.us.archive.org/29/items/notesofstudyofpr00venkiala/ and https://ia700301.us.archive.org/26/items/mahabharataacrit015691mbp/)

Just for your information only please.
Click to expand...

Dear Sir,

Thank you for this knowledge. Appreciate it.

Sincerely,
 
 
Vishnavismas a separate religion started only around the times of Ramanujam much after Ramayana & Mahabharata were written.

So the two texts were written by Shaivite Brahmin Saints under the direction of the victorious Kings/descendants!!
 
Last edited:
biswa said:
JR ji, I am surprised that you keep calling Mahabharata and Ramayana as "Vaishnava scriptures". I thought that they were great epics for the enjoyment of all Indians. Even Muslims in India know some of the stories there.

If you are looking for something Vaishnava specific, maybe you are referring to the Srimad Bhagavatam?
SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM (Bhagavata Purana); the story of Krishna
Click to expand...


Thank you Biswa ji, for the correction! You are right, they are humanitarian works, not just 'Vaishnava works'. I won't reference them as mere Vaishnava works henceforth. :amen:
 
Jaykay767 said:
Vishnavismas a separate religion started only around the times of Ramanujam much after Ramayana & Mahabharata were written.
Click to expand...

Sri Vaishnavism (in common terms 'Iyengar' sampradaya) started with goddess Sri. The first human exponent of the Sri Sampradaya is Nammazhwar who was born at the very beginning of Kali-yuga, that is 5500 yrs ago! Then he was succeeded by Madhurakavi Azhwar, then Nathamunigal (whose disciples were Uyyakkondar and Manakkal Nambigal) and then by Sri Alavandar, and then finally by Ramanujar. So technically Iyengar sampradaya started 5000 yrs ago!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Share this page

Share this page

Latest posts

Latest ads

Follow us on Social Media

Back
Top