Hastinapura;
One hundred and four princes and their one and only little princess are playing in the Orchard while the remaining two, Prince Duryodhana, the eldest son of Dhritarashtra, and Prince Bhima, the second son of Pandu and Kunti, were walking towards a tent that was built near the shore of a lake.
As they reached the tent, Prince Bhima saw there are so many varieties of food and started to salivate. Prince Duryodhana said with a smile, "It's been two years since you, Pandavas, reached Hastinapur. In these past years, we, the Kauravas, never acknowledged you as our brothers, and we're always fighting each other like enemies.
That's why, to mark the end of enmity, I decided to present you with these. You can eat whatever you want, here. Don't worry, Aunt Kunti is busy looking after Dushala. So, no one will object."
Excited thirteen-year-old Bhima immediately forgave Duryodhana and sat down before taking the plate of laddoos first and emptying it quickly. Just within fifteen minutes, Bhima had almost finished the amount of food that an adult elephant would eat.
Finally, he ate the Kheer, which is a type of milk pudding, while Prince Duryodhan was smiling evilly as his plan was going to work.
A few minutes later, as Bhima fainted due to the poison, Duryodhan dragged him and threw him into the lake according to the instructions of his maternal uncle, Shakuni, Prince of Gandhara Kingdom, because they found Bhima proved to be very strong and could become an iron wall in front of Yudhistira to protect him in the future when it's time.
For the next ten days, chaos ensued in the whole city of Hastinapur as the soldiers began to search for their missing prince.
While Duryodhana and his 98 brothers rejoiced secretly, the four Pandavas, sister Dushala, half-brother Yuyutsu, who was born of the King and a maid, and lastly Vikarna, the third son of King Dhritarashtra, mourned along with the elders, while Princess Kunti didn't eat a single grain of rice and was just praying to her god to return her son.
On the eleventh day, on Kunti's request, King Dhritarashtra announced an Annadhana - the sacred act of offering food to all the people. To their surprise, Bhima returned in the disguise of a son of some ascetic to eat the food and was found by her while she was serving the food personally.
When enquired, in public, Bhima only said his legs slipped because of slippery mud and somehow drowned in the lake, and was saved by a wandering Naaga, the snake tribe, who were living at the bottom of the lake peacefully.
Later, after hearing the truth from Bhima, Princess Kunti took her sons away and secretly tried to escape from the Kingdom as she deemed the Kauravas were dangerous, but was stopped by Bhishma, who promised her that he would protect each and every one, until Yudhistira, the eldest son, became the Crown Prince of Hastinapur.
Back to Mr. Parashu in the Mahendra mountains of the Himalayas, Karna and Lord Indra's battle isn't ending even after three days have passed. Lord Indra has been attacking him aggressively from the start, but Karna was constantly countering all of his attacks with patience and a strange thing that not even once did Karna attack him with any of the celestial weapons he possessed.
On day 1, Lord Indra attacked weakly by controlling his strength, underestimating his opponent. But Karna's persistence made Indra angrier.
On Day 2, he finally lost his patience because they had been fighting all day without sleep or eating. Indra took his divine weapon, Vajra, and started to attack him with his full strength.
Although Karna's counter astras weren't able to stop it, his Divine Armor was able to nullify its damage as he expected, as he knew that only the celestial weapons of the deities of Trinity could harm the divine armor of the Sun God.
On Day 3, Indra began to feel tired, but Karna refused to move and announced that the battle could only end when Lord Indra admitted defeat.
For straight three days, without Lord Indra, in Swargaloka, there were no meetings; no music by Gandharvas; no dancing by Aprasaras; and certainly, no god was getting to drink the celestial nectar, Amrit.
As Karna got a boon of the art of sleeping from Nidra Devi in the past few years, he was confident that he could win this battle with patience.
After all, with his boon, he can choose not to sleep for as long as he thinks, but once he sleeps, Karna will go into a Yog Nidra, and he will sleep continuously for the time he missed his sleep, i.e., at least six hours a day.
On the fourth day, as Lord Surya and the rest of the gods were watching the battle from the sky, Indra raised his hands in defeat, "I give up. You win. As you wish, I'll bless these barren lands with sufficient rainfall."
A smile appeared on Karna's face, "O' Lord Indra, thank you for your benevolence. This mortal nephew of yours also apologizes for his behavior."
Lord Indra waved his hand as he blessed the land with rain and then looked at Karna, "Don't misunderstand, Karna. I only blessed them with one year's worth of rain because of your persistence. I still believe that even if they don't pray to me, they should at least show some respect by doing a sacred ritual in honoring my name, every year, so that they will stay blessed. As for you, despite making me angry with your disrespectful words, you never tried to use the celestial weapons, which you received from your guru. You countered my attacks, but you didn't attack me. I was impressed with your actions. That's why I'm blessing you with my divyaastra, Indraastra, which will be helpful to you. But that doesn't mean I'm not dissatisfied with your methods of intervening in our duties. Despite the fact that I'm the King of Gods, right now, you are on earth and also a mortal, I hold no authority over your actions. Once you return to Suryaloka after your education, we will talk about all of your antics in these past nine years. Until then…"
Lord Indra smiled and blessed Karna with the Divya (divine) astra, while Karna gathered his palms and closed his eyes.
Later, after he disappeared, Karna turned around and returned to his Guru Parashurama's ashram and informed him of the reason he was out for three days; to which Lord Parashurama replied with a smile, "My disciple, I already know about it. I'm very proud of the way you have chosen, but you should also remember one thing. That is, whenever you see that Dharma is at risk, you would have to lift your weapon against whoever it is, whether it's a Dev, Asura, or even if it's your own kin, and eradicate them to uphold the Dharma. Indradev is your kin, but also a deva who is not reasonable. Hence, he didn't go too far. But if it were someone else, just defending yourself and tiring out your enemies won't work."
Karna bowed and joined his palms. "I understand, Gurudev."
Three years later;
As the Sun just rose, Karna stood before Lord Parashurama and touched his feet while he blessed in return, "My dear disciple Karna, you have completed your 12 years of training. I have taught you everything I know. As your guru, I didn't have much to present you a parting gift, as all of my weapons were donated to your senior disciple Drona. Even my Parashu has been given to Lord Ganesha. Too bad that I can't give you the mantra of Brahmanda astra, as only a Brahmin is allowed to possess it, and despite being the son of Lord Surya, you are still a half-Kshatriya like your senior disciple Bhishma.
There's only one thing I possess that I can give you, which you refused to take many times, but still, on my insistence, accept it as our parting gift."
Karna kneeled on one leg and respectfully raised his hands.
As Lord Parashurama raised his hand, a golden bow appeared in his hand, and he put it in Karna's hands. "Created by Vishwakarma, held by Lord Shiva, who then passed it to Lord Indra, before it passed down to me, the celestial bow Vijaya. Now, I am passing it down to you. As long as you battle it with this bow, you will be invincible. I hope it will be useful when you use it to uphold the Dharma."