The  18-­‐day  war  in  the  Mahabharata  by  

Kamesh R. Aiyer  (Kamesh@aiyers.net)

With reference to a blog discussion on war formations of the Mahabharata. Each day,

the opposing armies setup formations. The Mahabharata names but does not describe any of these formations or how they functioned. Much sweat has been expended trying to figure this out from the name, and from other ancient Indian literature.

The one formation that affects the story is the “chakravyuha” – the boy Abhimanyu

says he can break through the formation and if the breach is exploited by a sufficiently large force, the chakravyuha will fail. But, he does not know how to break out if the breach closes. Unfortunately his supporting force fails to follow him – the breach closes and he is isolated, surrounded, and dies fighting. The questions are: What was the chakravyuha; what did Abhimanyu know, and what did he not know about breaking the formation. The internet discussion revolves around various speculations and there are some truly amazing pictures that the discussants have put together.

These are pretty pictures, but pretty pictures do not a strategy make. The Mahabharata was written down between 400 BCE and 400 CE. Depending on

what you believe that was about 1000, or 2000, or 3000 years after the war took place. The people who wrote it down were not idiots. They were most likely brahmins (which can come pretty close ;-) ).

The description of the Mahabharata war shows that these writers knew squat about

battlefields, battle strategy, what-not. Why do I say that? Why am I, a South Indian brahmin, bad-mouthing these

illustrious anonymous writers, possibly,even ancestors of his? Look at the evidence. (Or before we look at the evidence, let me point out that there IS a section of the

Mahabharata where the description of a massacre is authentic and chilling. That is the description of how Aswatthama kills the sleeping Pandava children and Dhrishtadyumna. Even the earlier description of Aswatthama’s invocation of Shiva and his receiving the power to massacre from Mahadeva can be interpreted as the mental preparation of a warrior preparing to do something that he knows is an atrocity. And before that is a very realistic debate between Aswatthama and Kripacharya which ends with Kripa’s acquiescence. I am not into blind criticism – there is much that is authentic in the Mahabharata. Just not the 18-day war!).

About 1.8 million soldiers took part in the war, about 1.1 million Ks and 0.7 million

Ps. Every day for 18 days, these 900,000 soldiers (on average – since everybody dies, on the average, there were 900,000 soldiers) got into a new formation and went to battle.

Now if you know anything about Indians, you know that this is the kind of thing they

might attempt on the streets of Calcutta or Delhi, but not out in the boondocks of Haryana or UP. (Rural India knows better). In any case, the process would involve some kind of orderly queuing up, all suited and booted (in armor, no less). Even if these were British soldiers (or better still, ultra-disciplined German SA), I can guarantee you that 18 days is not enough time for ONE formation of a million soldiers, let alone doing it in one day and then repeating 18 times.

So, just the daily formation of vyuhas establishes that this was fantasy. I won’t go

into the fantasy involved in having 1.8 million people fit into Kurukshetra whose population these days is not likely to be much more. (I have not actually checked this, so this should be red meat for the inveterate flamers). But India (reduced by P, B, and A!) has about 500 districts, a population of 1.2 billion, which makes the average district be 2.4 million people and Kurukshetra is populated, densely of course, but it is within one district and how far off can that density figure be. Kurukshetra is not Kolkata, where people have their nightly nap hanging out of bus doors, if you get my drift.

So, digressing no more, the scribes of the Mahabharata were playing out a fantasy.

As part of this fantasy they came up with the idea of the chakravyuha. Now there is nothing outrageous about the concept. The three pieces of the

chakravyuha story are: a dense impenetrable front, a formation that traps and kills an intruding force, and an intruding force that makes a direct frontal attack on the impenetrable. (The unfortunate Maginot Line in WW2 comes to mind).

The “dense impenetrable front” could be a formation like a hoplite formation. The

“trap and kill” could be a frontal array with hidden flanking forces. A sufficiently strong army (larger than the defenders) would allow a large forward force to apparently get trapped and then when the flanks are deployed, surround them. If we stick with these the story could make sense.

But then reality intrudes. The hoplite formation which the Spartans employed, with some success, during the

Peloponnesian wars was a round mass of infantry with shields locked to each other along the boundary. The inner layers held their shields above their heads. This monster, often circular (and maybe that is where the chakra in chakravyuha comes from), then provided a protected advance on the fortress of an opposing force. When they reached the fortress, they would then move around the walls until they came to the doorways. The innermost core of the formation would then come to front – this team would vary depending on the kind of doorway – a battering ram or “Greek fire” (probably petroleum) could be used to break through the door.

Note that the hoplite is an offensive formation for use in sieges. That is not claimed

to be the situation in the Mahabharata. Next consider the chakravyuha as a formation that envelops and overwhelms an

intruding force. There is nothing wrong with this concept. Armies have kept hidden forces on their left or right flanks that only come into play when the intruding enemy force is far enough away from their home base. The intruding force is encircled (and that’s another place where the “chakra” in chakravyuha may have come from). But no army general is going to announce to his opponents “Hey, look! My troops are in a chakravyuha. Nyah-na-na-nyah-nyah! Just come in and my right flank will screw you! Your mother, too!“ or words to that effect.

I hope it does not come as a surprise that army generals were not always as civilized

or mature as we might imagine them to be. But (note!) the army generals above are the non-existent kind, and they can BE anything (sorry, can’t help digressing, but then that is what the Mahabharata is about).

Being Brahmins, the scribes had no idea what they were describing and they wanted

to get to the story quickly (well, if you know the Mahabharata, you know that “quickly” is a relative concept).

So they have the Ks in a chakravyuha and the chakravyuha is wreaking havoc on the

Ps army. The Pandava generals (Y, K, B, etc.) discuss the situation and then, reluctantly, authorize Abhimanyu to attack it. “We’ll have your back” they say, “but you do it. By yourself. Go, man!!”

You may recall that I mentioned that the attacking force has to be “sufficiently

larger”. The given wisdom during WW1 and WW2 was that a frontal attack on an

impenetrable defense line requires THREE times as many troops. For D-day, Eisenhower did not commit until the Allies had at least that many troops in each sector. So, the concept of Abhimanyu frontally attacking any defensive/trap formation by HIMSELF while his supporting force consisting of a small fraction of the smaller Pandava army follows “close” behind is a bit of a excessive bite.

So what could make sense of the story of Abhimanyu? If such a tragic event took place, one might surmise that the real story is about a

young, inexperienced prince who impetuously decides to attack a defensive Kaurava outpost, does not take enough troops, and is overwhelmed and killed. That would make sense as a story. It wouldn’t be very long, but it would be a likely story.

The follow-through to such a likely story is how the boy’s father is angry at his own

people for not being in better control and then vows revenge on the leader of the outpost

that killed his son would be reasonable. He attacks the outpost, knowing that a solar eclipse is due at sunset. He has a sniper or snipers in hiding. The opportunity comes during the eclipse – when the sun appears to set, the defenders relax a bit and step back from their positions against the barricades – the leader is exposed for a brief moment and he is killed by one or more arrows.

Why would the scribes make up such a story. That’s where the story of Krishna’s

miraculous powers comes in. Krishna, we are told, caused the eclipse to happen by his divine powers. The scribes made up something that they knew nothing about figuring that it was so long ago that nobody really cared for “accuracy in reporting” (AIR, also known as Doordarshan), but they still wanted to keep the story of Krishna’s miracle.

Now, THAT makes a lot of sense. The whole story survived and was embellished because the miracle was ascribed to

Krishna, who we all know is God, and who could have wiped the Ks off the surface of the earth with his little finger (if he had wanted to…) but who decided, “Noooooo… I’d rather see these two armies kill each other while I get a ring-side seat. Dang! I should have known about Sanjaya – now Dhritharashtra has a safe ring-side seat and I get to run around getting attacked in the middle of battle.” But then He is God, and We know that Nobody could have harmed Him.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening.