The Mahabharata contains an unusual 18-day war involving 2 million soldiers. The strategic positioning of the opposing forces in the war is described, but the description is opaque to modern readers. This article argues that the entire 18-day war, and the supposed strategic elements in it were written by scribes who had no idea what war was, let alone what it was 2000 years earlier.

1. 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!).

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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.