Maha-bhrata Book Eight (Volume 2): Karna

by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Adam Bowles (Translator)

In India's great epic Maha·bhárata , the eighth book, “Karna,”; recounts the events that occurred during the mighty hero Karna’s two days as general of the Káurava army. This second volume resumes on the war's seventeenth and penultimate day. This will be a momentous day for the Bhárata clans and especially for a number of their most distinguished heroes, with some of the epic’s most telegraphed events reaching their climax. Not only will the epic's most anticipated duel between its greatest champions Árjuna and Karna be played out to its cruel and tragic end, but one of the more gruesome episodes in the epic will also take place with Duhshásana meeting the fate that has long awaited him since his brazen mistreatment of Dráupadi in the assembly hall.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
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624 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2007

About the author

Krishna Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, also known as Vyāsa or Veda-Vyāsa (वेदव्यास, the one who classified the Vedas into four parts) is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is traditonally regarded as the author of the Mahābhārata, although it is also widely held that he only composed the core of the epic, the Bhārata. A significant portion of the epic later was only added in later centuries, which then came to be known as the Mahābhārata. The date of composition of this epic is not known - It was definitvely part of the traditions in Indian subcontinent at the time Gautam Buddha (~500 BCE) which would suggest it having been already around for atleast a few centuries. It was chiefy put down in the written form only somewhere between 300 BCE to 300 CE.

As the name would suggest, Vyāsa is believed to have categorised the primordial single Veda into its four canonical collections. He is also considered to be the scribe of Purānās, ancient Hindu texts eulogizing various deities, primarily the divine Trimurti God in Hinduism through divine stories.

Reviews

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's in this volume where we see Karṇa in action as general with Śalya, King of the Madras, as his charioteer. It's also in this volume where the war starts to tilt decisively toward its final outcome. Like Duryodhana and all his closer associates, but probably more than any of them, Karṇa manages to be a plain villain in some ways and a tragic figure like Droṇa or Bhīṣma in others.