DOTM#2 : Arjuna's skill defines heroism more than Karna's integrity - Page 8

Originally posted by: Loving2Missing2

constantly, then I create death in front of you..... That moment between life transitioning to death always brings the TRUE REALISATION!

You are an erudite yourself on Mahabharata. So let us both, Instead of judging from outside, make an effort to understand character psychology. You are defending Shantanu and Satyavati whereas I held them equally responsible along with Bheeshma...... I am fully aware of and agree with the data points you gave about Shantanu Period..... Now let's discuss about whether he's allowed to have personal wishes?....... When his personal wish starts interfering with the future of Kingdom, then no! You have assumed a position which requires a lot of personal wish sacrifices...... You needed a wife? Fine! Choose any beauty who does not take away your legal heir ke rights....... Satyavati's adoptive father put forth the conditions, then Satyavati could make her father understand that she becoming the queen itself was itself a great feat achieved and if she ever got sons they would still be princes...... How can a condition be put forth based on a future occurrence? All girls born hoti toh kya karate? Bachche hote hi nahi toh kya karate?...... And with such condition, Shantanu should not start pining to such a level that his son, the prince, understood something was wrong........Devadatta/Devavrata, The prince should not have taken an oath like ab jaan gayee toh bhi nahi todunga.

Ram could not unify with Seeta for 14 years after his marriage and thereafter he had to send a pregnant Seeta to the jungles to fend for herself during which he remained faithful with Seeta........ I have a personal experience to share. I lost my mother in my childhood but my father refrained from remarrying because he wasn't sure whether any stepmother would give correct treatment. He dedicated his life to first raise me and thereafter my kids while I lived abroad for my career........... With such example benchmarks seen at multiple places, I will not spare Shantanu as never have faltered. Of course, I agree that he was a good administrator...... but then so was Raavana for Lanka and in current times, Hitler for Germany. Can they be spared as no fault of theirs?

So the destiny of these choices made by Shantanu, Satyavati and Devavrata is the birth of incapable Vichitraveerya and Chitrangada....... The cascade starts from thereon leading to a blind Dhrutarashtra and an anemic Pandu and a servant heir Vidur further.

Regarding Bheeshma and Rajdharma......... I wonder what he and Satyavati were doing when Vichitraveerya got addicted or when Chitrangada started getting air in his head?...... Aaj bhi bachche wrong path pe ja rahe hain, toh ek chamaat hum log laga hi dete hain for their own betterment...... So doesn't Bheeshma's Rajdharma include guiding these two heirs to proper kinghood...... And if he was as such the de facto King, then follow your parampara and make Dhrutarashtra the king..... Bheeshma and Pandu could easily take care of duties which he couldn't cater to...... Agar Vichitraveerya King ho sakata hai toh Dhrutarashtra kyun nahi?

If Bheeshma was truly fulfilling his duties, then he would give the example of Bharata and advise Satyavati on a deserving candidate from their huge family clans as there used to be. Or he would accept the non-fulfilment of his own oath...... By staying stuck on that oath, he only creates his name as Bheeshma...And this is his ahankaar... No benefit thereon for the great Kuru empire which had been running through generations...... In all further period, he is not decisive with anybody. With every non-choice of his, Hastinapur destiny gets worse and worse.

Dhrutarashtra and Pandu as per IVF logic given by you can be said sons of Ambika and Ambalika. But the claim that they are the heir of Kuruvansh ancestral property, Hastinapur kingdom, can be disputed even today, especially with DNA parenting becoming a vital test to prove the parentage.

Destruction is planned by Vidhata due to an overall social degradation including Varnabhed for treating Vidur as Daasiputra or Karna as Sootapootra, also treating the kingdom like personal property and not acting as public servant to Mother Earth and the Praja, gambling, disrespect for women.

Panchali and Arjun are Vidhata's mediums to bring the degradation cascade to the absolute base of Vastraharan and the real purpose of the entire Mahabharat, the Geeta.

I am not aware of Dhritarashtra not being considered the king. In that case, was Hastinapur Throne kept vacant till Kauravas and Pandavas grew old enough to show their colours? This is just my query.

Also, as per my information, Karna didn't live in the palace. He met Duryodhan and the other clan for the first time during the competition. Because he wanted to prove his archery skills against Arjuna and was denied the opportunity, his jealousy against Arjuna fired up.

Arjun had everything while Karna had none. Karna had his own set things too.:- I have a nephew who's an adopted child to middle-class parents. Today he

I thought of Karna being devoted to Krishna based on my various readings and multiple serial depictions right from B R Chopra Mahabharat to Radha Krishna of StarPlus recently. If you have any PDF of the authentic Mahabharat edition, please do share across or copy paste the part where he tried to arrest Krishna. I have the belief, it was Duryodhana ordering his soldiers to arrest Krishna.

Pandavas are not Doodh ke dhoole, I agree. But that's the beauty of the scripture. I derive this trust that Narayana /Krishna is a true kamalnayan..... Like the Lotus grows in the mud-slush but the dirt doesn't touch it; so I may have multiple avagun, par voh chit nahi dharega..... he will see the goodness of my soul.

To Sima,

I humbly request once again. Could you please change the title from DOTM. The word debate gets a connotation like swords leke khade ho gaye...... Meemansa or Manthan is a much better way of having healthy sharing/discussion of paradigms. After all, what's the use of Mythology if we don't take learnings from it and implement in our lives?

In next one, if the title continues, I'll follow CB di's way and not share my views.

This is from critical edition of Mahabharata

Thank you, much appreciated.

About the topic, I am not sure where Karna has displayed that he had a modicum of integrity in the entire epic.

He had skills but because of his nature he was ranked low by Bheeshma and he proved Bheeshma right by not participating in the war till Bheeshma was alive

Morality demanded his participation in the war because his friend was counting on him but he put his ego above himself

We look for good and bad in everyone, Ved Vyasa clearly mentioned that Karna was the trunk which supported evil that was Duryodhana

Karna's life was ruled by his jealousy and obsession to defeat or kill Arjuna, from the ashram of Dronacharya to trading his kavach and kundal, everything was motivated by his need to kill Arjuna

Karna was King of Anga and he lived like a King, had a good friend and lavish lifestyle when Arjuna and his brothers were living in forest, even then Karna chose to go to that forest and mock them

When attacked by Gandharvas, he ran away leaving Duryodhana and his wives to die

Even Duryodhana showed more integrity here and refused to run away

I see many such instances of Karna provoking Duryodhana and Duryodhana ending up taking the worst possible decision for himself and his clan

Hello Neha

Read all the views here.very insightful posts by all..

See that's where learning comes

Jitna tum logone likha hai utna toh mujhse nahi hota so i stay neutral actually..

Sorry sims I can't stay on one side as I feel both for and against points really make lot of sense

So i stay as viewer.

P.s . Neha it's me same chatterbox ur CB di

Sirf display name and pic change Kiya hai.in case you wonder yeh bhatakti aatma kaise ek paheli ban gayi

Originally posted by: chatterbox

Hello Neha

Read all the views here.very insightful posts by all..

See that's where learning comes

Jitna tum logone likha hai utna toh mujhse nahi hota so i stay neutral actually..

Sorry sims I can't stay on one side as I feel both for and against points really make lot of sense

So i stay as viewer.

P.s . Neha it's me same chatterbox ur CB di

Sirf display name and pic change Kiya hai.in case you wonder yeh bhatakti aatma kaise ek paheli ban gayi

Jaise maine pehale kaha, hum sabki aatma bhatakti hai. ........ Aur meri aatma bhi ek paheli ban gayi hai ki kaise iss aatma ko "Ahum Bhramasmi" ka realisation ho.

Actually feeling guilty inside, who am I to judge Shantanu or Satyawati or Bheeshma or Karna or Arjun? Their time was different, prevailing circumstances were different, their own thought process was different. Sabhi Paramatma ke roop....... koi Atmabhaan bhoola hua, koi saral marg se jeeta hua....... the great Vyasa wrote this epic for us to learn from it, not to judge the characters like some film story, yeh villian hai, yeh hero hai.

I apologise to the Universe for my earlier thought process.

Appa Deepo Bhava! May I find my own light within.

Interesting views. Got to learn a lot.

Got a lot to say honestly...am compiling it...forgot to post the 'in-progress-sorry' message only

I'll try to go over both Arjun and Karna's changing personalities throughout the epic for this, since I literally cannot choose one of these two from a literary perspective. Recently, I have been reading through Dr. N P Bhaduri's research (specifically for this post, his book - Krishnaa,Kunti ebong Kounteya)

Note: This is fully going to be my personal opinion,influenced by Dr. Bhaduri's work that I have read so far.

I am going to mark Arjun as italics, and Karna as normal.

Also, I might make multiple posts if I can't fit all mybak-bak in just one.

Childhood:

Karna, at birth, is abandoned by a non-consenting teen mother who is terrified of letting down her family. However, by great luck he is adopted and brought up by a very loving, arguably powerful family. With the understanding that charioteers often needed to be completely in sync with their riders (the 'two-bodies-one-soul' analogy being used at times), Adhirath being formerly a charioteer employed by the Kaurav royal family is a testament to his power among the common masses at least. So, that leads me to believe that Karna's early life was comfortably middle-class at the minimum.

Obviously, Karna is talented enough to garner attention as a good archer at a young age. When Drona starts his job at Hastinapur, along with many other children, Karna also relocates to the student hostel to pursue advanced training under the famed guru.

When Karna's life-situation shifts from being a protegee in his hometown, Champa-city in Anga, to just one another archer among say hundreds of talented students, he seems as though he is buckling under this change. But fortunately, he pulls himself up pretty quick, and is able to excel among all his classmates, save for one rather little child - Arjuna.

I do believe that Karna took the much younger Arjuna's success in Drona's class pretty hard. He probably couldn't reconcile that a kid maybe around a decade younger than him would not only catch up to his prowess,but threaten to surpass him altogether. Eventually, he requests Drona for the Brahmastra (or Brahmashir? I forget), and Drona rejects him on the ground that our young and smart Karna requests for the weapon openly for the sole reason so that he may challenge and kill Arjuna. Angered by Drona's rejection, he moves on to Drona's latest instructor, Parashurama.

I still don't want to subscribe to the most popular reason as to why he lies to Parashurama though. The guy who taught Bheeshma (also laterbriefly instructs Krishna and Balarama I guess), should not ideally have a caste issue, especially with Karna, who is still a Kshatriya (a lower order, but still pretty high up when compared to the rest of society). My personal guess is that Karna was more afraid that armed with his true identity, Parashurama might decide to do a little background check, and in doing so, end up uncovering the true reason Karna and Drona had a falling out. Frankly, if Parashurama had known the primary reason for Karna to seek his tutelage was to kill a person who was still merely a child, just because he was audacious enough to be good at his academics, would it not be justified for him to reject the teaching proposal?

---

Now let’s come back to Arjun. I believe age-wise there’s some gap between Arjun and Yudhishthir-Bheem (who are born b/w 1 year of each other,but there is a shloka that places all the kids b/w 1 year of each other but that doesn’t line up with many other off-hand remarks made before and after that), since there’s a mention of Pandu and Kunti performing mild penance before he is born.

Arjuna is pampered enough as a kid, definitely so long as his earthly father is alive, even after the birth of the twins. Just the fact that his bio-dad is Indra and his parents performed penance to beget him, is enough for the whole family to dote on this kid (I am choosing to read into this by de-metaphor-izing the akashvani during his birth, and Pandu’s subsequent donation spree). Also, I love that Pandu names Arjuna ‘Krishna’ at birth, and I am a bit sad at this name being lost in the waves of time with the combined effect of their cousin Krishna’s influence and Kunti’s general preference for the name ‘Arjuna’.

However, after the death of Pandu, we see a narrative shift,where Kunti’s attention understandably shifts more towards Yudhishthira and Bheema. They go from being a happy, blended family to a single-mum household which for a long time remains solely dependent on Dhritarashtra’s whims and fancies.

As for Arjuna, he is in any case an introvert by design. So,it comes as no surprise that Pandu’s tragic passing pushes him farther into his shell. Between Kunti shielding the twins with all her life and preparing Yudi and Bheema for the future battle, Arjuna finds himself strangely alone. Obviously,it’s not like Kunti is intentionally ignoring him at this stage, it’s just that he is old enough to not need his mother’s oversight 24/7, but still young enough to be left out of the more serious family meetings. In fact, I am quite sure that Arjuna doesn’t even have any dialogues until the advent of Drona.

One thing that is reiterated about Arjun is that, if nothing else, he is supremely polite, and malleable. This, and his tween age, allows him to adjust to the Kaurava-Pandava dynamic more easily than Yudi/Bheema. In fact,as children, even Duryodhana used to have a soft spot for him! Duryodhana’s attitude towards Arjuna changes only when they are all adults, and Dury realises that no matter how sweetly Arjun may talk to him, he will never leave his own brothers in favour of the Kauravas.

In Kripacharya’s school, everyone performs ‘just fine’. I don’t know whether to call that Kripa’s incompetence or a lack of initiative, that he fails to hone the skills of any one of the Kuru princes. However, once Drona enters the scene, things change considerably.

Here, the timeline is very important for me. Drona starts living with his brother-in-law while sending his son out to befriend the princes, and eventually both of them manage to make a good enough impression on the royal family that they give him Kripacharya’s job itself.

From Arjuna’s perspective, this introduction to Ashwatthama,followed by Drona, comes pretty soon after Bheema’s poisoning incident. By default, Arjun doesn’t react much to anything, but it wouldn’t be totally off-character for him to have been terrified, since that was the first time the Pandavas got concrete proof of how far Dury would go. This insecurity concerning their physical safety, combined with Arjuna’s (thankfully) child-like amazement at Drona’s skills, would have resulted in his incredible drive to learn and learn and learn.

This we see when Drona asks all 105 princes, who among them would give him the guru-dakshina, and Arjun in the only one who says ‘YES’ without even hearing what Drona wants. Also, if I am not wrong, that ‘yes’ is the first dialogue of Arjuna’s in MB, and that sets the tone for his character for the rest of the story.

My headcanon here is that, Arjuna was fully prepared to follow Drona wherever he went, in order to learn from him, even if Bheeshma hadn’t employed the guru.

In gurukula, Arjuna’s passion pushes and propels him, leading him to overcome all the obstacles that his so-called well-wishing guru lines up in front of him. Through his perseverance and ingenuity, he finally,practically snatches Drona’s affection, and turns him over to his side,breaking through Drona’s partiality towards Ashwatthama. This leads to Drona’s famous vow, that he will make Arjuna the best archer in the world. Frankly,Arjuna was already on his way there…on a quite eerily similar journey between him and Ekalavya.

It's almost a romantic imagination, Arjuna and Ekalavya piercing through the darkest of nights, shooting arrow after arrow, learning simply for the joy of learning, mere meters apart in the forest maybe. Both of them have surrendered themselves to Drona, dedicating even their most personal efforts to the glory of their shared guru. Funny, at least Drona is honest in his rejection of Ekalavya, while Arjuna he strung along for the longest time before finally being won over by the latter’s constant displays of loyalty to the craft, first and foremost.

Now, what happened with Ekalavya will forever be a dark spot on the character of both Arjuna and Drona, even though I blame the latter much more since he was the adult in the situation and should have done better. Here,interestingly, the mere mention of this incident indicates whose side Vyasa was in this matter. Since the tragic injustice happened inside a forest with very few witnesses, with winners rewriting history and all, no one would have even known about this. Simply by mentioning Ekalavya, I deeply admire how Vyasa takes a stand.

Arjuna, upon meeting Ekalavya, immediately runs back to Drona,not to crib about Ekalavya himself, but to demand an explanation as to how Eklavya called himself Drona’s student AND was better than Arjuna. I mean,Krishna was a way better warrior than Arjuna, and they got along just fine, so I don’t think it was personal jealousy (maybe just a little itch driving Arjunamad with the long-pampered compulsion to learn THOSE specific tricks).

I personally think Arjuna and Ekalavya would have been excellent friends, gaining the Pandavas the very valuable support of many of the nishada groups. But no, Drona HAD to go mess it up for everyone. Drona, imo, was trying to keep Arjuna happy, so that he wouldn’t go complain to Bheeshmaabout Drona ‘teaching’ a nishada kid better than the ones he was contractually obliged to teach (I don’t think Arjuna would’ve messed with his guru’s job like that, but Drona had had enough of bad experiences with Kings before that to be cautious with all of them). He stunted Ekalavya’s growth to please Arjuna,instead of facilitating some peer-to-peer lessons that would have been mutually beneficial in the long run. He managed to also ensure that no nishada group would ever support the Pandavas, and the other non-Aryan groups would also mostly try and keep their distance at best, and openly oppose the Pandavas at the worst (kinda second-hand snitches-get-stitches deal). This betrayal effectively pushed Ekalavya into Jarasandha’s army, contributing to at least SOME sleepless nights on Krishna’s part, so much so, that even before Kurukshetra, with Ekalavya long gone, we see Krishna breathe a sigh of relief that he’s not here on the Kaurava side, extracting his khunnas on Arjuna.

During the bird’s eye challenge, more than Arjuna’s talent, I personally see the failure of Drona as a teacher. He keeps the kids’ final exam a hyper-specific topical challenge, and then brutally insults them if they all can’t match up to Arjuna exactly. I mean, Drona was paid to hone each student’s unique skills individually, not churn out 105+1 Arjuna-clones!

You know that one teacher we all had, the one who thought their subject was the be-all-end-all of all of our academic careers, and all the other subjects were just time-pass?!

During the challenge only, Drona frustratingly ignores specifically Yudhishthira’s talent (I mean Vyasa doesn’t just bring up random nonsense that he wants us to ignore right!). After Drona asks Yudi what he sees, he just takes maybe a couple seconds, before he turns around and re-iterates with 100%accuracy, not just every single detail in front and around him, but also their interactive trends. Sure, he’s a terrible (actually just average) shot, but he’s solid as a future king. A king’s situation by definition is shaky, and a king needs to be able to perceive any situation top to bottom and make split-second decisions, both of which like it or not, Yudi is good at. Yeah, Yudi does spend a lot of time explaining his dharmic positions, but his decisions are made swiftly, and are usually backed with good reason.

But Drona obviously doesn’t even acknowledge Yudi’s individual talent and focuses instead on Arjuna’s bird’s-eye approach to life as well as battle.

In summary, till Childhood, the score stands:

Arjuna: 0.75

(didn’t have much of a chance to mess up yet and is passionate,but that Ekalavya thing…hamesha le doobega isko)

Karna: 0.5

(he did adjust to a big change, and he does find out-of-the-box solutions for his problem)

Originally posted by: sambhavami

I'll try to go over both Arjun and Karna's changing personalities throughout the epic for this, since I literally cannot choose one of these two from a literary perspective. Recently, I have been reading through Dr. N P Bhaduri's research (specifically for this post, his book - Krishnaa,Kunti ebong Kounteya)

Note: This is fully going to be my personal opinion,influenced by Dr. Bhaduri's work that I have read so far.

I am going to mark Arjun as italics, and Karna as normal.

Also, I might make multiple posts if I can't fit all mybak-bak in just one.

Childhood:

Karna, at birth, is abandoned by a non-consenting teen mother who is terrified of letting down her family. However, by great luck he is adopted and brought up by a very loving, arguably powerful family. With the understanding that charioteers often needed to be completely in sync with their riders (the 'two-bodies-one-soul' analogy being used at times), Adhirath being formerly a charioteer employed by the Kaurav royal family is a testament to his power among the common masses at least. So, that leads me to believe that Karna's early life was comfortably middle-class at the minimum.

Obviously, Karna is talented enough to garner attention as a good archer at a young age. When Drona starts his job at Hastinapur, along with many other children, Karna also relocates to the student hostel to pursue advanced training under the famed guru.

When Karna's life-situation shifts from being a protegee in his hometown, Champa-city in Anga, to just one another archer among say hundreds of talented students, he seems as though he is buckling under this change. But fortunately, he pulls himself up pretty quick, and is able to excel among all his classmates, save for one rather little child - Arjuna.

I do believe that Karna took the much younger Arjuna's success in Drona's class pretty hard. He probably couldn't reconcile that a kid maybe around a decade younger than him would not only catch up to his prowess,but threaten to surpass him altogether. Eventually, he requests Drona for the Brahmastra (or Brahmashir? I forget), and Drona rejects him on the ground that our young and smart Karna requests for the weapon openly for the sole reason so that he may challenge and kill Arjuna. Angered by Drona's rejection, he moves on to Drona's latest instructor, Parashurama.

I still don't want to subscribe to the most popular reason as to why he lies to Parashurama though. The guy who taught Bheeshma (also laterbriefly instructs Krishna and Balarama I guess), should not ideally have a caste issue, especially with Karna, who is still a Kshatriya (a lower order, but still pretty high up when compared to the rest of society). My personal guess is that Karna was more afraid that armed with his true identity, Parashurama might decide to do a little background check, and in doing so, end up uncovering the true reason Karna and Drona had a falling out. Frankly, if Parashurama had known the primary reason for Karna to seek his tutelage was to kill a person who was still merely a child, just because he was audacious enough to be good at his academics, would it not be justified for him to reject the teaching proposal?

---

Now let’s come back to Arjun. I believe age-wise there’s some gap between Arjun and Yudhishthir-Bheem (who are born b/w 1 year of each other,but there is a shloka that places all the kids b/w 1 year of each other but that doesn’t line up with many other off-hand remarks made before and after that), since there’s a mention of Pandu and Kunti performing mild penance before he is born.

Arjuna is pampered enough as a kid, definitely so long as his earthly father is alive, even after the birth of the twins. Just the fact that his bio-dad is Indra and his parents performed penance to beget him, is enough for the whole family to dote on this kid (I am choosing to read into this by de-metaphor-izing the akashvani during his birth, and Pandu’s subsequent donation spree). Also, I love that Pandu names Arjuna ‘Krishna’ at birth, and I am a bit sad at this name being lost in the waves of time with the combined effect of their cousin Krishna’s influence and Kunti’s general preference for the name ‘Arjuna’.

However, after the death of Pandu, we see a narrative shift,where Kunti’s attention understandably shifts more towards Yudhishthira and Bheema. They go from being a happy, blended family to a single-mum household which for a long time remains solely dependent on Dhritarashtra’s whims and fancies.

As for Arjuna, he is in any case an introvert by design. So,it comes as no surprise that Pandu’s tragic passing pushes him farther into his shell. Between Kunti shielding the twins with all her life and preparing Yudi and Bheema for the future battle, Arjuna finds himself strangely alone. Obviously,it’s not like Kunti is intentionally ignoring him at this stage, it’s just that he is old enough to not need his mother’s oversight 24/7, but still young enough to be left out of the more serious family meetings. In fact, I am quite sure that Arjuna doesn’t even have any dialogues until the advent of Drona.

One thing that is reiterated about Arjun is that, if nothing else, he is supremely polite, and malleable. This, and his tween age, allows him to adjust to the Kaurava-Pandava dynamic more easily than Yudi/Bheema. In fact,as children, even Duryodhana used to have a soft spot for him! Duryodhana’s attitude towards Arjuna changes only when they are all adults, and Dury realises that no matter how sweetly Arjun may talk to him, he will never leave his own brothers in favour of the Kauravas.

In Kripacharya’s school, everyone performs ‘just fine’. I don’t know whether to call that Kripa’s incompetence or a lack of initiative, that he fails to hone the skills of any one of the Kuru princes. However, once Drona enters the scene, things change considerably.

Here, the timeline is very important for me. Drona starts living with his brother-in-law while sending his son out to befriend the princes, and eventually both of them manage to make a good enough impression on the royal family that they give him Kripacharya’s job itself.

From Arjuna’s perspective, this introduction to Ashwatthama,followed by Drona, comes pretty soon after Bheema’s poisoning incident. By default, Arjun doesn’t react much to anything, but it wouldn’t be totally off-character for him to have been terrified, since that was the first time the Pandavas got concrete proof of how far Dury would go. This insecurity concerning their physical safety, combined with Arjuna’s (thankfully) child-like amazement at Drona’s skills, would have resulted in his incredible drive to learn and learn and learn.

This we see when Drona asks all 105 princes, who among them would give him the guru-dakshina, and Arjun in the only one who says ‘YES’ without even hearing what Drona wants. Also, if I am not wrong, that ‘yes’ is the first dialogue of Arjuna’s in MB, and that sets the tone for his character for the rest of the story.

My headcanon here is that, Arjuna was fully prepared to follow Drona wherever he went, in order to learn from him, even if Bheeshma hadn’t employed the guru.

In gurukula, Arjuna’s passion pushes and propels him, leading him to overcome all the obstacles that his so-called well-wishing guru lines up in front of him. Through his perseverance and ingenuity, he finally,practically snatches Drona’s affection, and turns him over to his side,breaking through Drona’s partiality towards Ashwatthama. This leads to Drona’s famous vow, that he will make Arjuna the best archer in the world. Frankly,Arjuna was already on his way there…on a quite eerily similar journey between him and Ekalavya.

It's almost a romantic imagination, Arjuna and Ekalavya piercing through the darkest of nights, shooting arrow after arrow, learning simply for the joy of learning, mere meters apart in the forest maybe. Both of them have surrendered themselves to Drona, dedicating even their most personal efforts to the glory of their shared guru. Funny, at least Drona is honest in his rejection of Ekalavya, while Arjuna he strung along for the longest time before finally being won over by the latter’s constant displays of loyalty to the craft, first and foremost.

Now, what happened with Ekalavya will forever be a dark spot on the character of both Arjuna and Drona, even though I blame the latter much more since he was the adult in the situation and should have done better. Here,interestingly, the mere mention of this incident indicates whose side Vyasa was in this matter. Since the tragic injustice happened inside a forest with very few witnesses, with winners rewriting history and all, no one would have even known about this. Simply by mentioning Ekalavya, I deeply admire how Vyasa takes a stand.

Arjuna, upon meeting Ekalavya, immediately runs back to Drona,not to crib about Ekalavya himself, but to demand an explanation as to how Eklavya called himself Drona’s student AND was better than Arjuna. I mean,Krishna was a way better warrior than Arjuna, and they got along just fine, so I don’t think it was personal jealousy (maybe just a little itch driving Arjunamad with the long-pampered compulsion to learn THOSE specific tricks).

I personally think Arjuna and Ekalavya would have been excellent friends, gaining the Pandavas the very valuable support of many of the nishada groups. But no, Drona HAD to go mess it up for everyone. Drona, imo, was trying to keep Arjuna happy, so that he wouldn’t go complain to Bheeshmaabout Drona ‘teaching’ a nishada kid better than the ones he was contractually obliged to teach (I don’t think Arjuna would’ve messed with his guru’s job like that, but Drona had had enough of bad experiences with Kings before that to be cautious with all of them). He stunted Ekalavya’s growth to please Arjuna,instead of facilitating some peer-to-peer lessons that would have been mutually beneficial in the long run. He managed to also ensure that no nishada group would ever support the Pandavas, and the other non-Aryan groups would also mostly try and keep their distance at best, and openly oppose the Pandavas at the worst (kinda second-hand snitches-get-stitches deal). This betrayal effectively pushed Ekalavya into Jarasandha’s army, contributing to at least SOME sleepless nights on Krishna’s part, so much so, that even before Kurukshetra, with Ekalavya long gone, we see Krishna breathe a sigh of relief that he’s not here on the Kaurava side, extracting his khunnas on Arjuna.

During the bird’s eye challenge, more than Arjuna’s talent, I personally see the failure of Drona as a teacher. He keeps the kids’ final exam a hyper-specific topical challenge, and then brutally insults them if they all can’t match up to Arjuna exactly. I mean, Drona was paid to hone each student’s unique skills individually, not churn out 105+1 Arjuna-clones!

You know that one teacher we all had, the one who thought their subject was the be-all-end-all of all of our academic careers, and all the other subjects were just time-pass?!

During the challenge only, Drona frustratingly ignores specifically Yudhishthira’s talent (I mean Vyasa doesn’t just bring up random nonsense that he wants us to ignore right!). After Drona asks Yudi what he sees, he just takes maybe a couple seconds, before he turns around and re-iterates with 100%accuracy, not just every single detail in front and around him, but also their interactive trends. Sure, he’s a terrible (actually just average) shot, but he’s solid as a future king. A king’s situation by definition is shaky, and a king needs to be able to perceive any situation top to bottom and make split-second decisions, both of which like it or not, Yudi is good at. Yeah, Yudi does spend a lot of time explaining his dharmic positions, but his decisions are made swiftly, and are usually backed with good reason.

But Drona obviously doesn’t even acknowledge Yudi’s individual talent and focuses instead on Arjuna’s bird’s-eye approach to life as well as battle.

In summary, till Childhood, the score stands:

Arjuna: 0.75

(didn’t have much of a chance to mess up yet and is passionate,but that Ekalavya thing…hamesha le doobega isko)

Karna: 0.5

(he did adjust to a big change, and he does find out-of-the-box solutions for his problem)

Your analysis seem very logical and reasonable with respect what Vyasa has written.

One crucial point though, the epic no where specifies that Kunti has her children a year apart. Rather it is specifically mentioned that Gandhari was still pregnant when Yudhishtir is born and there fore she hurts her womb and delivers a mass of flesh which Vyasa puts in pots of ghee and Duryodhan is born two full years later on the same day as Bhima.

It also states that Kunti and Pandu did yagya for a year to please Indra before he came and Kunti conceived Arjuna. So Arjuna is born also two years after Bhima ( assuming Kunti atleast needed rest for a few months after delivering Bhima before she started penance and yagya

Epic also states Kunti conceived Karna after her first period so she wud be 12 or 13 at the time at the very minimum. And that she did not recieve any marriage proposals for a very long time and hence her father organized a swayamvar for her, so in most probability she married around 18-19. Then Pandu had his digvijyaa and got cursed and eventually atleast a year or two was spent in the forest before Kunti conceived Yudhishthir and Arjuna was born 6 years after that. So if you add all that up Karna at the very minimum was 15 years older than Arjuna.

Epic says Pandu died on Arjun's 14th birthday. So at Drona's Ashram we have a 15 year old Arjun v/s 30 year old Karna....

This is what every one ignores....something that is very very crucial for understanding the dynamics between Duryodhan Karna and Arjuna...

We have at this point a 15 yr old Arjuna, a 17 year old Duryodhan and a 30 year old Karna....

^^Agree with that fully. I said 10 years to be conservative with what I was saying. I also actually believe the different b/w Karna and Arjuna to be somewhere in the 15-20 year range. And that does make K look just a little but pathetic, no?

And that 12-13 years ka hisab is what absolves Kunti of all perceived wrong-doing in my opinion, cause if we really think about it, she was herself a baby when she had her baby, horrible, despicable behavior on the part of all the adults involved!

And the age thing, yeah I also thought no one mentioned it, but then I read this:

জগাম হাস্তিনপুরং ষোড়শাব্দো যুধিষ্ঠিরঃ।

ভীমসেনঃ পঞ্চদশো বীভৎসুর্বৈ চতুৰ্দ্দশঃ।

ত্রয়োদশাব্দৌ চ যমৌ জন্মতুর্নাগসাহ্বয়ম্। (হরি 1 . 120 . 11-12)

Jagaam Haastinapuram Shodashabdo Yudhishthirah |

Bheemasenah Panchadasho Bhibhatsurvai Chaturdashah |

Trayodashabdou Cha Yamou Janmaturnaagasaahvayam ||

It's from Harivansha apparently, and it lines up with the Arjun being 14 years during Pandu's death. It's just not repeated anywhere else, so most people focus on the other clues.