KARNA BORN OUT OF A SPELL

Kunti gets a boon from sage Durvasa and gives birth to Karna before her marriage

At that time Shurasena used to be the king of the Yadu dynasty. He was the father of Vasudeva and a daughter named Pritha or Kunti. He had promised to present his daughter to his childless cousin brother Kuntibhoja. She was enormously and well-behaved. Once sage Durvasa visited their palace. He was recognized to be a tremendous wrathful sage. Pritha worshipped him and served him satisfactorily. Glad sage taught her bewitchment mantra via casting the spell she could call down any deities to the earth and have an infant from him. 

 

Kunti was bewildered and one day she wished to check the spell, for this reason, she looked at the sun from her window in the east, the Bewitched sun who regarded there, was adorned with armour and earrings and asked her the motive behind calling him down. Kunti instructed him that she was only checking the Mantra which was given to her by sage Durvasa. She regretted her decision and asked him for forgiveness. Sun god was aware of the spell for this reason he asked her to intimate. Kunti hesitated to do so as she was unmarried at that time and she didn't want to be defamed around her relatives.

Sun god could apprehend her stress. He referred to her as "a mighty and brave son would be born to you. He would be born with the solar god's divine armour attached to his body and would be wearing the charming earrings given by using Aditi; wife of sage Kashyapa. In addition to that, he would be self-respecting, kind and beneficent to all the Brahmins, and conscientious." After that, the divine sun god became intimate with Kunti. Blessed her with a graceful and fiery son. He was wearing armour and earring. As per Kunti's request sun, god returned her purity. She became untouched like before. After that god left. 

Kunti was concerned about her son at that time. In order to cover her wrongdoing, she decided to leave Karna in the water. She knew her fearless son who was born from the fierce sun god would stay longer and stay protected by the god always. She delicately placed the child in a woven basket having a lid, stored tender clothes all around him, and made arrangements not to let water enter inside the basket. Then she grievously left Karna in the water of Asvanadi.

Later one Suta clan couple named Adhiratha and his spouse Radha discovered the deserted child in the water and took care of him as their child. Seeing the embellishes attached to the infant they named him Vasusena. Later he grew to be friends with Duryodhana.

There is another tale that I would like to add here, one day Indra to help his son Arjuna win the Mahabharata war was determined to take away Karna's armour and earrings. For which he disguised himself as a Brahmin and begged him for the same. Even though Karna was already made aware by his father Sun-god of such a plan of Indra dev, out of mercy and generosity he detached his armour from his body, cut off his earings, and gave those to Indra. Pleased Indra dev granted him a boon and gave his Barchi Shakti weapon to Karna.

Karna was named Vasusena first, however, after getting rid of the armour and earrings, he was regarded as Karna or Bikartana.

Ref: Mahabharata book Adi Parva

Read about all the sons of Kunti..