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Immediately after getting the boon from Surya, Dambhodbhava started wrecking havoc on people. People were scared of fighting with him. There was no way of defeating him. Anybody who stood in his way was crushed by him. People started calling him Sahasrakavacha [meaning one who has a thousand armours]. It was around this time that King Daksha [the father of Sati, the first wife of Shiva] got one of his daughters, Murti married to Dharma – one of the ‘Manas putras’ of Lord Brahma, the God of Creation
Murti had also heard of Sahasrakavacha and wanted to put an end to his menace. So she prayed to Lord Vishnu to come and help the people. Lord Vishnu pleased with her appeared before her and said
‘I am pleased with your devotion! I will come and slay Sahasrakavacha! Because you have prayed to me, you would be the reason for slaying Sahasrakavacha!’.
Murti gave birth to not one child, but twins- Narayana and Nara. Narayana and Nara grew up in the ashrama surrounded by the forests. They were great devotees of Lord Shiva. The two brothers learnt the art of warfare.The two brothers were inseparable. What one thought the other was always able to finish. Both of them trusted each other implicitly and never questioned the other.
As time went on, Sahasrakavacha started attacking the forest areas surrounding Badrinath, where both Narayana and Nara were staying. As Nara was meditating, Narayana went and challenged Sahasrakavacha for a fight. Sahasrakavacha looked at the calm eyes of Narayana and for the first time since he got his boon, felt fear building inside him.
Sahasrakavacha faced the attack of Narayana and was astounded. He found that Narayana was powerful and had indeed got a lot of power from the penance of his brother. As the fight went on, Sahasrakavacha realized that the penance of Nara was giving Narayana strength. As Sahasrakavacha’s first armour broke he realized that Nara and Narayana were for all purposes one. They were just two persons having the same soul. But Sahasrakavacha was not too worried. He had lost one of his armours. He watched in glee as Narayana dropped dead, the minute one of his armours broke!
As Narayana fell down dead, Nara came running towards him. By his years of penance and pleasing Lord Shiva, he had gained the Maha Mritunjaya mantra – a mantra which brought back dead to life. Now Nara took the fighting with Sahasrakavacha while Narayana meditated! After thousand years, Nara broke another armor and dropped dead while Narayana came back and revived him. This went on until 999 armors were down. Sahasrakavacha realized that he could never beat the two brothers and ran away seeking refuge with Surya. When Nara approached Surya to give him up, Surya did not since he was protecting his devotee. Nara cursed Surya to be born as a human for this act and Surya accepted the curse for this devotee.
All this happened at the end of Treta yuga. Immediately after Surya refused to part with Sahasrakavacha, the Treta Yuga ended and the Dwapar Yuga started. To fulfil the promise to destroying Sahasrakavacha, Narayana and Nara were reborn – this time as Krishna and Arjuna.
Due to the curse, Dambhodbhava with Surya’s ansh within him was born as Karna, the eldest son of Kunti! Karna was born with one of armours as a natural protection, the last one left of Sahasrakavacha.
As Arjuna would have died if Karna had had the armour, on Krishna’s advise, Indra [Arjuna’s father] went in disguise and got the last armor of Karna, much before the war began.
As Karna was actually the monster Dambodbhava in his previous life, he led a very difficult life to pay for all the sins committed by him in his past life. But Karna also had Surya, the Sun God inside him, so Karna was a hero as well! It was Karna’s karma from his previous life that he had to be with Duryodhana and take part of the all the evil things he did. But the Surya in him made him brave, strong, fearless and charitable. It brought him long lasting fame.
Thus after learning the truth about Karna’s previous birth, Pandavas apologised to Kunti and Krishna for lamenting them.
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As long as you have the beautiful earrings, Arjuna cannot vanquish you in battle, even if Indra himself becomes his arrows.” Karna’s earrings and armour, embellishments that he is born with, make him invincible. His friendship with Duryodhana—founded on the Kaurava prince’s disregard for caste and his subsequent grant of the country of Anga to Karna—ensures that in the eventual war, he will fight from the side of the Kauravas. This pits him in direct conflict with Arjuna, a warrior of matching abilities.
Given Karna’s invincibility, any battle between him and Arjuna is likely to result in the latter’s defeat. Indra, the king of gods and Arjuna’s father, cannot let that happen. He plans to approach Karna in a brahman’s disguise and ask him for his earrings and armour. Karna’s reputation as a generous donator is something that is well-established, and Indra is convinced that in order to protect that reputation, Karna will make the donation even if it is against his interests. But Karna, we must remember, is also the son of a god (although he doesn’t know it yet).
Karna’s father Surya (the sun god) gets to know of Indra’s plan, and approaches Karna as a brahman named Vibhavasu, to warn him of Indra’s impending visit. But Vibhavasu’s words have the opposite effect on Karna. Instead of alerting him to his self-interest and making him think of tactics to avert Indra’s request, Karna’s head is filled with ideas of fame and glory. “I desire for fame in this world. The famous one attains heaven,” Karna says, convinced that his grant of his boons to Indra will become the ultimate testament to his donating spirit.
Vibhavasu then advises Karna to make the donation a conditional one, to ask Indra ‘for an invincible spear that will destroy all [his] enemies.’ When Indra eventually comes, Karna indeed asks for an ‘invincible shakti that kills large numbers of enemies on the field of battle’. Indra grants the shakti to Karna on a single-use basis, which is to say that Karna is allowed to use it to decimate any one army completely, after which the shakti is to return to Indra’s hand. Karna specifies that if it comes to single use, he would like it to be used on a single person (Arjuna) only. Hearing that, Indra informs
Karna that Arjuna’s welfare is guarded by none other than Lord Vishnu, though this information does not really daunt Karna from his designs. Eventually, they agree that Karna can use the shakti whenever he is faced with supreme danger.
After the agreement on the shakti is arrived at, Karna begins to cut the armour and earrings off his body, a process which—he is convinced by Indra—shall leave no lasting scar. Nevertheless, as he cuts himself, celestial drums begin to beat and cosmic creatures roar. This lament is the epic’s way of telling us that a great deception, one which will inevitably lead to tragedy, has taken place
