Greek Perseus Vs. Indian Karna - Abandoned in a Wooden Crate

 In Greek mythology there is the story of the birth of Perseus. In the story, the Greek king Acrisisus had no male heirs, so he went to the Oracle of Delphi to ask. The Oracle told him that he would have no male heirs and that his grandson would kill him. To prevent this from happening, he locked his daughter in a cage. The god Zeus heard her prayers and fell in love with her. He went down to Earth and impregnated her. Once the king found out about the birth of his grandson, he locked her and her son in a wooden crate and set her out to drift on the open sea. They drifted to an island where they were rescued by a fisherman.

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In Indian mythology there is the story of the birth of Karna. Kunti served a sage. The sage was happy with her services and decided to grant her a gift. He taught her a mantra which would summon a god of her choice, and that god would give her a child. She decided to test it out and called upon the Sun god. Upon his arrival, he told her that she could not simply test it out and he had to give her a child. Once she had the child, she decided to set it to drift on a raft in a river, where he was found by a charioteer.

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Some similarities between the stories is that both boys' fathers are gods, and both boys' mothers are unmarried.  Also in both stories, they are set adrift on the water in a wooden crate. Some differences in the stories are that in the Greek story, the king sets the boy adrift, and in the Indian story, the boy's mother sets him adrift. In the Greek story, they are left on the sea and rescued by a fisherman, and in the Indian story, they are left on a river and rescued by a charioteer.