The Epic War
Like all stories we must start at the beginning. And the story of Indian warfare begins over 5000 years ago on the sacred ground of Kurukshetra. This triangular swath of flat, open ground lays around 140 kilometres northwest of Delhi and forms an ideal battleground. Kurukshetra – literally the abode of the Kurus – was also considered sacred ground and called Dharmshetra – the abode of righteousness. Those who fell on its soil would automatically attained salvation, and in that epic battle, hundreds of thousands fell on its sacred soil. Around it lie Panipat, Thaneshwar and Karnal; equally illustrious battlefields which have shaped India’s history for over 2000 years. Yet, none of their battles can match the effect of the Battle of Kurukshetra – the 18 day war between Good and Evil and Right and Wrong which has impacted itself indelibly on the Indian psyche.
No one is really sure when the battle took place, or indeed if it did take place at all. Yes, a major battle did take place as was described in the Mahabharata, but was it really the gigantic war which sucked in all the kingdoms of India or was it just a skirmish amplified beyond proportion? Historians give it varying dates, ranging from 5000 BC to 500 BC. Yet, various clues such as the position of the stars and the depiction of events in the Mahabharata, place the battle at around 3100 BC or so. A general timeframe of around mid-October to mid-November in the year 3102 BC is the commonly accepted date based on the mention of three solar eclipses that took place in the months preceding the battle which were seen as an augury of great death and destruction. This celestial event has been calculated by astronomers to have taken in that year. But even that is largely conjecture.
But yes, an 18 day war of great death and destruction did take place on the Kurukshetra plains. As per the Mahabharata, it involved 4 million participants and caused over 3 million casualties. But an objective assessment of the timeframe and the destructive power of weaponry available seem to indicate a figure which is less than a tenth of this. The scale of the battle seems to have been magnified to titanic proportions and then took on a story of its own through the pages of the Mahabharata – India’s greatest epic.
Yet, whatever be the scale of the actual war, no battle has impacted the Indian psyche so strongly. It led to the concept of ‘Dharma’ and of fighting only ‘righteous wars’. Perhaps that is the reason that no Indian ruler embarked on expansionism policies beyond the sub-continent or failed to act pro-actively against perceived threats. This battle also spawned a range of warrior-heroes; Arjuna, Karna, Bhima, Duryodhana, Bhishma, Dronacharya; an endless list whose exploits fill the pages of the Mahabharata. This emphasis on personal valour and hero-worship has permeated itself into the Indian concept of war-fighting. Indian armies have traditionally produced great and skilled individuals, but have grossly neglected organisational structures, processes and doctrines. (on which even the Mahabharata largely glosses over). This fatal flaw has remained with Indian war-fighting doctrines for centuries thereafter.
The Carnage at Kurukshetra
This battle between the Kauravas and their cousins, the Pandavas was little more than a war of succession. The Pandavas returned after 13 years of exile to reclaim the territory which they had lost to their cousins in a rigged game of dice. The proud, arrogant Duryodhana – the eldest scion of the Kauravas- refused to part with even five needle points of territory and the situation was set for war.
The Kauravas and their allies had mustered a force of 11 Akshauhinis – or divisions- with each Akshauhini having 21870 chariots, 21870 elephants, 65610 horses and 109350 infantry in a battle formation of 218,700 fighters in the ratio of 1 chariot: 1 elephant: 3 cavalry: 5 infantry soldiers. The 11 Akshauhinis (2,405700 warriors) of the Kauravas which were countered by a force of 7 Akshauhinis (1,530900 warriors) of the Pandavas. Over 4 million soldiers thus participated in the war as per the Mahabharata. But an objective look shows that the very space for deployment does not exist in that area. The figures thus can be realistically reduced to a tenth.
The two armies arrayed on either side of the vast plains of Kurukshetra with the Kauravas on the East and the Pandavas on the West. The Kauravas placed 10 Akshauhinis in a phalanx formation with elephants forming the body, the chariots comprising the head and cavalry on the wings. One Akshauhini was with the Commander-in-Chief, Bhishma, for his personal protection. The Pandavas were similarly arrayed with their 7 divisions. As the two gigantic armies of friends and cousins faced off, Arjuna, the great warrior, weakened and put down his bow. The treatise of the Bhagwat Gita which Krishna gave to rouse him to fight the righteous war is perhaps the most profound philosophical work of all time.
On the first day of the war, the Pandava formation was scythed through by Bhishma with enormous casualties. The day belonged to the Kauravas, but on the second day, Bhishma’s charioteer was killed by an arrow making the horses bolt away from the battlefield. The leaderless Kaurava army suffered equally grave losses and the scores were even.
The Pandavas realised that the only way they could hope to win would be by killing Bhishma. They formed a crescent formation with Bhima and Arjuna on the right and left horns, which closed in to cut off Bhishma and kill that wily, venerable warrior. Bhishma eluded them and for ten days the slaughter of the Pandava forces continued. Finally, Krishna suggested the strategy of using Shikandi, a eunuch. Bhishma had vowed never to fight a woman and refused to fire as Shikandi, with Arjuna positioned behind him, showered arrows on him. With arrows on each part of his body, the great warrior finally fell from his chariot and lay with his body resting on a bed of arrows. Arjuna fired three arrows beneath his head to support it and released an underground spring of cool water towards the mouth of the wounded warrior. Bhishma, who had a boon of Iccha Mritya (Self-willed death) eventually embraced death only when the war ended, after giving instructions to Yudhisthira on the art of governance.
On the eleventh day, Dronacharya, the teacher of both the Pandavas and the Kauravas took over as Commander in Chief of the Kaurava Army. He changed his strategy to capturing Yudhisthira alive so as to force the Pandavas to sue for peace. With Arjuna by his side, this would not be possible. Over the next three days, Arjuna was engaged in a remote corner of the battlefield, while the rest of the Pandavas were lured towards a complex formation of intertwining layers of defences called Chakravyuh. Only Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, knew how to break into the Chakravyuh, but he did not know how to get out. He broke through the formation and created an opening, but before the rest of the Pandavas could follow the Chakravyuh was closed again and Abhimanyu was trapped and killed within.
The Chakravyuh
After fifteen days of mutual slaughter the war changed course again. Dronacharya, was tricked into believing that his son Ashwathama had been killed – a lie borne out by none other than Yudhisthira, the truthful. The broken hearted old warrior laid down his arms and was killed. Karna now took over as the Commander in Chief of the Kaurava forces.
The character of Karna is perhaps the most complex in the pantheon of heroes of the Mahabharata. Born illegitimately through a union of queen Kunti with the Sun God, he was befriended by Duryodhan and in return gave him unflinching loyalty. He rebuffed persuasion by Krishna to switch sides to the Pandavas and take over as king, being the eldest son. He even promised not to kill any of the Pandavas, save Arjun, assuring his mother Kunti that she would still have five sons at the end of the war. He fought as the Commander in Chief for two days, in which he duelled and defeated all the Pandavas, only to let them go. Yet in his final, fatal encounter with Arjuna, his chariot wheel got struck in the mud of the churned up battlefield. As he tried to extricate his stricken chariot, Arjuna, goaded by Krishna, fired his arrows, killing that noble warrior. That ignoble act was against all norms of warfare prevalent at the time.
It is strange that the war which was hailed as a war of ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’ saw rules being flouted and trickery resorted to by almost every participant (except maybe Karna) In fact the concept of ‘right’ was twisted to suit the end of almost every participant, most notably by Krishna himself.
With their leaders’ dead and most of the Kaurava brothers killed, the battle continued for one more day. On the eighteenth and final day, Duryodhan was finally killed in a mace fight with Bhima where once again the rules were flouted. Duryudhan was struck below the waist and mortally wounded. But the death toll was still not over. Even as the funeral pyres were burning for hundreds of miles across the plains accompanied by the wailing of women and children, the Pandava camp was attacked at night by the surviving Kaurava leaders who burnt it to the ground. The Pandavas survived, but the flames took away all their remaining children.
One question that is often asked is how so much death was and destruction wrought over just 18 days. Given the primitive technology of the time, it seems implausible. Yet the Mahabharata gives clues as to the kinds of weaponry utilised – most of them arrow based. There were Agni Astras which could cause fires and per perhaps arrows tipped with Naptha. There were Naga Astras, which converted into venomous snakes on impact, but could have been merely fanciful interpretations of arrows coated with snake venom. There are also remotely guided weapons such as Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra that returned to his hands after unerringly decapitating the enemy. There are quivers which provided an unending supply of arrows (which could just have been judicious use of space in Arjun’s chariot which ensured that he never ran out of arrows in the day’s battle). And there are references to nuclear weapons, such as the Brahmastra and the Bramashirshashtra (which was ten times more powerful) which participants on both sides were known to possess but did not use because of the destruction and lingering effects it would have on the environment. Some of the weaponry described may have been just flights of fancy and imagination, but it indicates that the technology and knowledge base of Ancient India was far superior to the rest of the contemporary world.
Just 12 major figures on both sides survived the war. Yudhisthira, the righteous took over the throne and ruled wisely and well for 36 years. But it would have been a desolate kingdom of widowed women, orphaned children and old men. Perhaps the cost was too high, and the means used to attain the victory were not commensurate to the end. But the story does not dwell on that. It just tells that at the end of it all, it sufficed that the right cause had won.