Daiva (daiva)

Daiva is fate or destiny, the portion of what happens that no effort can alter, and the Mahabharata sets it in permanent argument with purushakara, human effort. Characters invoke it constantly, usually to explain a disaster they helped cause, and Dhritarashtra's refrain that it was all fate is treated by the epic as an evasion. Bhishma's considered teaching is that neither works alone, as a field needs both seed and rain, but Karna's life is the strongest case for the other side.