Chakravyuha- the invincible war strategy.
Chakravyuha is a Military formation that was famously used in the Mahabharata by the Kaurava Commander- “Dronacharya”. It was a multi-layered dynamic formation set up to surround a small group of enemies. The delusional set up was designed by Dronacharya himself and it required warriors of extremely high potential to break through this trap. In Mahabharata, it was said that only “Arjuna” and “Krishna” were the only two on the side of “Pandavas” who could potentially challenge the Chakravyuha. The set up was carried out on the 13th day of the war as on the same day the Kauravas employed Samshaptakas (soldiers of Trigarta Kingdom) to engage Arjuna (and his charioteer Krishna) in a battle so that the Pandavas could be forced to leap into the Chakravyuha in the absence of their best men.
The Chakravyuha is a Circular looking formation which is formed by a large number of soldiers with their shields. Commanders and warriors are present in every layer to fight the enemy (henceforth soldiers refer to human shields who collectively form walls while warriors refer to the ones who actually fight the enemy). The enemy had to beat each warrior in a layer to go through that particular layer. Also the wall of soldiers also had to be breached. The enemy could only get a split second to enter the void after killing a soldier before another one replaced him. The other way to reach the centre was by following the conventional route that was offered by the Chakravyuha but doing so was near to impossible due to its vastness. Adding to all this, the set up was designed in such a way that if an Enemy followed the conventional route, he felt like he was gradually going away from the center but then came the 4th turn which connected the 1st layer directly to the 4th layer. Most of the enemies fell for this trap and used to get caught in the Chakravyuha.
WHY COULDN’T THE CHAKRAVYUHA BE BREACHED?
1. Multi-Layered formation- The Chakravyuha consisted of 7 layers which had to be ruptured through one-by-one. The set up was such that the strongest men of the army would be posted in the 7th layer while the weaker ones were on the outer side of the formation guarding the gate so that whenever an enemy entered the Chakravyuha, he used up his time, energy and resources in fighting the weaker soldiers and he would have to face a fresh army every time he breaks into a new layer.
2. Compactness- The formation was designed in such a way that the ratio of circumference of any outer circle (layer) to the circumference of inner circle was more than the ratio of soldiers present in those circles. In simple words the soldiers in the outer circle were less compact but more in number as compared to inner ones. This helped the formation in covering up its lost spaces. Also as the enemy went deeper inside, it became difficult to get through the wall of soldiers as after every layer, the ground area covered by a soldier was lesser compared to its previous one meaning the enemy had to tackle multiple soldiers.
3. Dynamic- One of the most dangerous aspects about the Chakravyuha was the way it kept moving constantly and aggressively. Once the enemy entered the Chakravyuha, the formation could be moved as a whole without a clue to the enemy who used to be engaged in fights and depending upon the relative distance between layers for the determination of his position. Secondly, while breaching the layers, one had very less time to cross the wall because of the quick mobilization ability of the Chakravyuha. In deeper layers, the enemy was also required to kill multiple soldiers in less time so that he gets enough space to pass his chariot through the wall.
4. It is equally, if not more difficult to escape the Chakravyuha as the enemy had to breach all the 7 layers again starting from the innermost layer this time. Majority of the times before escaping, the enemy either died at the hands of soldiers or warriors, ran out of stamina or lost the track of his path in the maze and if not, ran out of his resources. This was an important reason for most of the enemies not following the conventional route till the centre as they would have to cover the same distance to come out of the trap.
As Arjuna and Krishna were busy fighting the Samshaptakas, the Kauravas expected Yudhishtir, the eldest Pandava to lead the huddle entering Chakravyuha but instead Arjuna’s 16 year old son Abhimanyu was chosen to lead. It was further decided that the four Pandava brothers will follow him inside the Chakravyuha but they were stopped by “Jayadratha” the brother-in-law of “Duryodhana” who was granted a boon from lord Shiva of being able to halt the Pandava brothers only in one battle.
STRATEGIES USED BY ABHIMANYU- Just like anyone else would have done, Abhimanyu also decided to rupture through the walls of the Chakravyuh by killing the soldiers as that was the closest route to the centre but this radical approach required exceptional skill and valor. This is how he countered the problems he expected to face with his radical approach:
1. At first Abhimanyu decided to kill as many soldiers in the outer circle as possible. The objective was to attain rational compactness among all the layers. By killing the soldiers in the outer layer, he forced the inner ones to step out and enclose the outer wall. Even though it was practically impossible to even the compactness as there were a lot of warriors who had to be beaten with six consecutive layers to be breached with limited resources but still he was successful in doing this to a large extent.
2. The dynamics of Chakravyuha are such that whenever a soldier dies, the one present on his right replaces him. So Abhimanyu started attacking multiple soldiers at a time so that a larger gap could be created which would take more time to fill and hence he could pass through comfortably. He specifically targeted the soldiers present on the sides of the soldier facing him so that whenever the movement happened, the first gap which would be created would be nearest to him.
3. Entering the Chakravyuha meant that Abhimanyu had to fight with multiple warriors simultaneously. To tackle this issue, he used a skill he had learnt from his father. Abhimanyu tried to emit high intensity light from his arrows which in turn stunned his opponents giving him time to attack them. This was one of those strategies which played an important role in Abhimanyu’s survival till the 7th layer.
At last “Dronacharya” realised that Abhimanyu couldn’t be defeated as long as he had his bow with him. So the Kaurava warriors attacked him simultaneously and broke his bow (it is important to keep in mind that the most elite warriors of the Kaurava army were present there). They also destroyed is Chariot and killed the horses and his Charioteer. Abhimanyu kept fighting by lifting the wheel of his chariot to defend the arrows shot against him. He finally succumbed to a brutal club shot to the head by Dushyasana’s son.