01Karna takes command
Sanjaya came to Dhritarashtra with the news that Karna was dead, and then told how it happened from the start. After Drona fell, Duryodhana anointed his friend Karna as commander. On the sixteenth day Karna drew up his army in the shape of a makara and fought without rest. He met Nakula and Sahadeva and Yudhishthira in turn, beat each of them, and let each go. He had promised Kunti before the war that only Arjuna would be his to kill, and he kept that word.
02Shalya on the chariot
Karna said he would beat Arjuna if only he had a charioteer equal to Krishna. There was one man: Shalya, king of Madra, brother of Madri and uncle to Nakula and Sahadeva, who had been tricked into fighting for Duryodhana. Shalya agreed in anger, on the condition that he could say what he liked. He used that freedom. All through the seventeenth day he praised Arjuna and mocked Karna, telling him the tale of the crow who thought he could outfly the swans. Karna answered with insults to the people of Madra. Yudhishthira had asked Shalya, before the war, to break Karna’s spirit in just this way.
03Bhima’s vow
Thirteen years earlier, in the dice hall, Duhshasana had dragged Draupadi by her hair. Bhima had sworn then that he would tear open Duhshasana’s chest in battle and drink his blood. On the seventeenth day the two met. Bhima threw him from his chariot, broke his arm, and did what he had sworn, in front of both armies, and the warriors who saw it shook with fear. Bhima cried out that his vow was kept. Then he said one vow still remained, the thigh of Duryodhana.
04The quarrel of the brothers
Wounded by Karna, Yudhishthira went back to the camp. Arjuna came to see him, and Yudhishthira, thinking Karna was already dead, learned that he lived. In bitterness he told Arjuna to give his Gandiva to someone else. Arjuna had once vowed to kill any man who told him that. He drew his sword. Krishna stopped him and found a way through. For a man of honour, to speak harshly to an elder is the same as killing him. Arjuna rebuked his brother, then wanted to kill himself for it; Krishna told him to praise himself instead, which for a good man is like death. The brothers embraced and wept.
05Karna and Arjuna
In the afternoon of the seventeenth day the two great archers met at last, and the devas gathered in the sky to watch. Karna loosed a serpent-arrow, the naga Ashvasena hiding in it, aimed at Arjuna’s throat. Krishna pressed the chariot down into the earth with his feet, and the arrow struck only Arjuna’s crown. Then Karna’s own chariot wheel sank into the ground. Long ago a Brahmana whose cow he had killed by mistake had cursed him that this would happen in his hour of need, and his guru Parashurama had cursed him to forget his astra in that hour.
06“Where was your dharma then?”
Karna got down to lift the wheel and called on Arjuna to wait, as dharma forbids striking a man who is unarmed and in trouble. Krishna answered him. Where was your dharma when Draupadi was dragged into the hall, when Yudhishthira was cheated at dice, when six of you surrounded the boy Abhimanyu? Karna bowed his head and said nothing. He climbed back and fought on, but the wheel would not move. At Krishna’s word Arjuna took up the Anjalika arrow and struck off Karna’s head. A light went out from his body and rose into the sun.
Famous verses
यदा रजस्वलां कृष्णां दुःशासनवशे स्थिताम् । सभायां प्राहसः कर्ण क्व ते धर्मस्तदा गतः ॥
When Krishnaa (Draupadi), in her season, stood in Duhshasana’s grip in the hall and you laughed, Karna, where had your dharma gone then?Mahabharata 8.67.4 (BORI CE)