The Armour Karna Cut Away

Karna was the son of the Sun and the princess Kunti, born before her marriage and set adrift on a river in a basket. He was born wearing a coat of armour that was part of his body and two earrings that had come from the nectar of the gods, and while he wore them nothing in the three worlds could kill him.

Every day he stood in the water and worshipped the Sun until the heat was on his back, and when he came out at midday, Brahmins would be waiting on the bank. Whatever they asked of him in that hour he gave. Everyone knew it, and so did Indra, the king of the gods, whose son Arjuna would one day have to face Karna in battle.

One night, in the twelfth year of the Pandavas' exile, the Sun came to Karna in a dream, in the shape of a handsome Brahmin.

"Listen to me, Karna," said the Sun. "Indra means to help the Pandavas. He will come to you dressed as a Brahmin and beg for your earrings and your armour, because he knows you give to every Brahmin who asks. Do not give them. With them you cannot die. Without them your life will be short."

"If Indra himself comes to me as a beggar," said Karna, "then the whole world will speak of my giving and of his begging. I would rather die with my name than live with shame. Fame keeps a man alive like a mother."

"Fame is no use to a dead man," said the Sun. "It is like a garland round the neck of a corpse. I am telling you this because you are my worshipper and I love you."

"And I love you more than my wife or my sons," said Karna. "But I fear a lie more than I fear death. I cannot refuse a Brahmin who asks."

The Sun saw that he would not be moved. "Then if you must give them," he said, "ask Indra for something in return. Ask him for his spear, the Shakti, which never misses. With it you can kill any one enemy you choose."

Then he was gone. In the morning Karna told the Sun about the dream as he stood in the water, and the Sun smiled down at him and said, "It is all true."

So Karna waited. Before long Indra came to the river at the hour of worship, an old Brahmin in rags.

"Give me alms," said the Brahmin.

"I will give you cows," said Karna, "or villages, or gold, or girls to marry. Ask for anything."

"I want only your armour and your earrings."

Karna laughed. "I know who you are. You are the king of the gods, and you are asking me for what keeps me alive. You should be giving to me. But you shall have them, if you give me your Shakti in exchange."

Indra thought for a moment, and agreed. "You may use it once, against one enemy. Then it comes back to me."

Karna took a sharp blade and began to cut the armour away from his body. It came off wet and bleeding. He did not flinch. He smiled as he cut, and the gods in the sky beat their drums and dropped flowers on him. Then he cut the earrings from his ears and put them, still dripping, into Indra's hands.

From that day he was called Vaikartana, the one who cut himself. And Indra went back to heaven pleased, thinking he had saved his son.

Duryodhana made Karna king of Anga, the country on the Ganga where Bhagalpur and Munger stand now, and Bihar has never forgotten its king.

Every morning, they say, King Karna walked down into the Ganga until the water came up to his waist. There he stood facing the east, with his palms together and water in his hands, and he poured it out to his father the Sun as the Sun rose. He stood like that for hours, until the Sun was high and warm on his back. Then he came up out of the river and gave away whatever anyone asked of him.

Many people in Bihar will tell you that this is where Chhath began. The Sun's own son stood in the river to pray to his father, and the women who keep the fast today stand in the river just as he did, waist deep, with the offering raised in their hands.

On the hill of Munger fort there is a high rock called Karnachaura, Karna's seat. It is said to be the place where he sat each day to give away gold after his worship, so much gold that people came from far away to ask. The Chandika temple of Munger is linked to him too. The goddess, the story goes, gave him the gold he gave away.

In the songs of Chhath the women ask the Sun for sons as strong and good as his. Karna was the son the Sun had loved, and the son who gave even his own skin when he was asked.