Wives of Karna
wives of the Karna, a character in Hindu epic, Mahabharata
The Mahabharata provides limited information about the marital life of Karna, one of the central figures in the epic. His wives are not named in the canonical text and are described as belonging to the Sūta (charioteer) community. In the Stri Parva, one of his wives, revealed to be the mother of his sons Vrishasena and Sushena, is briefly mentioned lamenting over Karna's death.
Over time, various regional traditions and literary adaptations have invented narratives around Karna's marital life, often introducing named spouses through imaginative retellings. The Tamil play Karna Moksham depicts a princess named Ponnuruvi as his wife, while the Bengali retelling of the epic, Kashidasi Mahabharata, features a maiden named Padmavati as his queen. In modern literature, particularly in Shivaji Sawant’s Marathi novel Mrityunjay, Karna is portrayed as being married to two women—Vrushali and Supriya.
In the Mahabharata
Karna's wives play insignificant roles in the original epic. In the Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata, Karna—while explaining his commitment towards his foster parents—mentions them.
When also I attained to youth, I married wives according to his [Adhiratha] selections. Through them have been born my sons and grandsons, O Janardana.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wives of Karna” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.