Arjuna Vs Karna | Who was best in Mahabharata ?

 Arjuna Vs Karna | Who was best in Mahabharata ?

                     

Was Karna the better warrior than Arjuna? let's look at the various occasions when they faced off and what results were there to evaluate who was the better Archer. Broadly there were five occasions when there was some kind of comparison of their performances 

1. The first encounter was of course at the Martial Exhibition when Dhronacharya had his students exhibit the skills that they had learned in his academy. Arjuna by his archery skills astonished everyone and at the same time, Karna gatecrashed that exhibition and demanded the opportunity to be allowed to exhibit his own skills saying that he would exceed whatever Parth had done so once he was granted the opportunity he managed to equal whatever arjuna had done but not exceeded thereafter he demanded an opportunity to have a direct dual fight with Arjuna. Arjuna immediately grabbed his bow and was ready to fight but by the time the logistics were walked out for this dual to take place the sunset took place and thus the war was put off so basically this war was a draw. Arjun and Karna performed equally so if we keep a score then here the score will remain Arjuna zero and Karna zero

2. The next occasion, where Dhronacharya was approached by their students Kauravas and Pandavas both asked what Dakshina can we give you. Dhronacharya had an old rivalry with Draupada so he told them that you arrest Draupada and brought before me as a prisoner so the Kauravas rushed forward to do his bidding and by this time Dhuryadhana befriended Karna so Karna also joined Dhuryodhana and his brothers but Draupada along with his army defeated the Kauravas and Karna thereafter the Pandavas went forward, led by Arjuna they fought so fiercely that Draupada's army was overwhelmed and Draupada was brought arrested before Dhronacharya. 

Now coming to Arjuna and Karna performance in war. Draupada defeated Karna and Arjuna defeated Draupada so indirectly in their face-off Arjuna proofed himself to be much better than Karna so we could say the score here is Arjuna one and Karna zero.

                                

3. The next confrontation between the two happened at Draupadi's swaymwar, in that Pandavas had still been in hiding stage, they were in disguise because an attempt to murder them had been made of some few months ago when they were in Varnavrath, they had been attempted to be burned alive and since that time they have been living in incognito. When all the Kshatriyas attempted to win the game but they could not succeed in getting Draupadi's hand then Arjuna as brahmana met and shot the target and then the other kings became furious they felt that Draupada had humiliated them because Draupada allowed brahmana to participate in swayamwar and therefore they came to attack Draupada .Yudhishthira told his brother that Draupada is our father-in-law and we have a duty to protect him so Bhima and Arjuna being the foremost warriors among the Pandavas they immediately sprang forward to defense Draupada. Bhima fought against shalya and Arjuna fought with Karna and Karna shot arrow slightly because he thought this is a brahmana but when Arjuna countered his arrow then Karna started shooting more arrows and arjuna countered all of them and then Karna resisted from fighting saying that he said that he doesn't want to fight against a brahmana. Essentially Karna was not able to prove so here again there was a draw so the score remains Arjuna one and Karna zero.

4. The next face-off happened when the Pandavas were in exile that time in order to humiliate the Pandavas Dhuryodhana, Karna, Shakuni and Dushasan they all went to the forest and they wanted to brandish their wealth and prosperity before the Pandavas and thus try to feel Pandavas miserable but they were intercepted in this attempt by Gandravas led by chitraratha and when Dhuryodhana insolently disrespected and disregarded the Gandravas. Gandravas attacked and there's a fierce fight in that Karna was wounded, seeing all this one of the soldiers among them ran over to Pandavas they were living in a hermitage and informed Yudhisthra that Dhuryodhana had been arrested and begged him to rescue him. So Bhima and Arjuna at the instructions of Yudhisthra fought against the Gandharvas and defeated him hence Duryodhana was released. so again here Gandharvas defeated Karna who fled and then Arjuna defeated Gandharva so again Arjuna proved superior to the person who had proved superior to Karna. Arjuna prove his superiority to karna so the score becomes Arjuna two and Karna zero

5. The next phase of the fifth one happened a few months before the Kurukshetra war. In the Virat war Arjuna was alone on one side and on the other side was a whole kaurav army and in that army Karna was also there and Arjuna single-handedly defeated the whole kaurav army it was probably the most spectacular solitary performance by any warrior in the whole Mahabharata and Karna at that time attacked ferociously but he was repelled and had to fall back wounded, then he attacked again the second time also he was totally overcome and again had to fall back. So here Arjuna won fair and square even when the odds were overwhelmingly against him because he was one warrior fighting against an entire army and score becomes Arjuna three and Karna zero

So on no occasion did Karna ever defeat Arjuna and, therefore, to say that Karna was a better Archer is simply a matter of unsubstantiated opinion if you look at facts unambiguously Arjuna established himself as the superior Archer when compared with Karna.

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