Introduction
Sahasrakavacha, "the one with a thousand armours", is a demon king who appears in later Puranic and regional tellings, not in the core text of the Mahabharata. His name before his boon is usually given as Dambhodbhava. In this tradition he is the previous birth of Karna, and the sages Nara and Narayana, reborn as Arjuna and Krishna, are the two who broke his armour.
This article follows those later traditions. The retellings differ in detail, and the main variants are noted below.
The boon of Surya
Dambhodbhava was a devotee of Surya, the sun god, and performed long austerities to him. He asked for immortality. Surya answered that no god could grant it, and asked him to choose something else.
Dambhodbhava then asked for a thousand armours. Each armour could only be broken by someone who had performed a thousand years of penance, and then fought him for a thousand years. Anyone who broke one armour would die at once. He reasoned that no one could ever break all thousand. Surya had already given his word, and granted the boon.
Terror of the three worlds
With this protection, Dambhodbhava became known as Sahasrakavacha. He attacked the gods and troubled the sages and every living being, and no one could stand against him. The gods appealed to Vishnu.
Nara and Narayana
Vishnu took birth as the twin sages Nara and Narayana, who practised austerities together at their hermitage at Badari in the Himalayas. When Sahasrakavacha came to the hermitage and challenged them, they accepted his challenge.
Taking turns
The two sages worked as a pair. One of them fought, and the other performed penance, so that between them they met the conditions of the boon.
- Nara, who had already done a thousand years of penance, fought Sahasrakavacha for a thousand years and broke the first armour. As the boon required, he died at once.
- Narayana had meanwhile performed penance and received the Mrityunjaya mantra from Shiva, which can restore life. He revived Nara.
- Narayana then took over the fight for the next thousand years, while Nara did penance. When Narayana broke the second armour and died, Nara revived him in turn.
They repeated this many times, and 999 armours were broken. Sahasrakavacha was left with one armour and was terrified.
Surya's shelter
With one armour left, Sahasrakavacha fled to Surya and asked for his protection. Surya kept his word to his devotee and hid him in his own orb. Nara and Narayana did not force the matter. Some tellings say that the deluge at the end of the age came at this moment, and the demon escaped in the confusion.
Rebirth as Karna
Narayana declared that the fight would be finished in the next age. Nara would be born as Arjuna and Narayana as Krishna, and the demon, with a portion of Surya, would be born as Karna, with his last armour on him. This is why Karna is born with a natural armour and earrings, and why Krishna and Indra treat his armour as the key to the war. Indra's taking of the armour before the war is told in the Mahabharata's Vana Parva.
Variants
- The length of the penance and fight varies. Most tellings say a thousand years for each. One Malayalam telling says twelve years of penance and twelve of fighting for each armour.
- In some versions Narayana fights first, and in others Nara.
- The demon is called Dambhodbhava in most accounts, and is described as a king in his earlier birth. Other early-birth stories, such as identifying him with a figure from the Ramayana, are found in blogs and popular retellings and are not standard.
Status in the epic
The core Mahabharata says that Karna was born with armour and earrings, and that Arjuna and Krishna are Nara and Narayana. The story of Sahasrakavacha connects the two, and appears in later Puranic and regional sources. It should be read as a traditional explanation, not as part of the epic's main narrative.