Mahabharata characters 72 Abhimanyu 1 Penetrating the impenetrable phalanx

This talk is a part of the “Fascinating Mahabharata Characters” series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Welcome to the Mahabharata character series.
Now we are going to discuss from the generation after the Pandavas. So, we will discuss about Abhimanyu and then Hathotkach. So, Abhimanyu is the most heroic among the sons of the Pandavas.
He is the son of Arjuna and Subhadra. At the time of the Mahabharata war, he is just 16 years old, as are the other sons, more or less also the other sons of Draupadi, the sons of Draupadi, the sons of Pandavas to Draupadi. So, they are a little older because Krishna, Arjuna married Subhadra after he had married Draupadi and almost towards more than a year later.
So, now Abhimanyu, he is related with both Dhananjay and the wielder of the Pancha Janya, Rishikesh, both of them. He is son of Arjuna, the great warrior, and he is the nephew. He is the sister’s son for Krishna and he is very dear to both of them.
And when the Pandavas were exiled, he was in Dwaraka and he lived in Dwaraka for a good amount of time and then he was trained by Pradyumna, Krishna’s son. And Krishna also trained him in a few things. And of course, Arjuna trained him also.
And just the fact that he was the son of such a great warrior meant that there was always the culture of heroism in his home and his family. And just by the age of 16, he had become a formidable warrior and actually his education had begun even before his birth. One time when Subhadra and Arjuna were discussing, Arjuna naturally being a warrior had the desire to discuss about various war tactics.
So, war maneuvers, war strategies, and then he spoke about the Chakravyuha. The Chakravyuha was extreme, is a circular formation in which once an enemy has entered, it is very difficult for anyone to escape. So, the whole idea is that by moving forward, the enemy can be trapped and killed.
So, it is very difficult to break the Chakravyuha. And Arjuna was describing to Subhadra how to do that. That is a technical description.
And as Subhadra was hearing it, she nodded off. And Arjuna seeing this stopped speaking. Now Abhimanyu was in the womb.
And in the womb, he heard eagerly. And he heard as far as Arjuna spoke. But when Arjuna saw that Subhadra had fallen asleep, he stopped speaking.
Now, interestingly, we may wonder how can Abhimanyu learn in the womb? But even now, researchers are discovering that a lot of influences happen at the prenatal level. That means the kind of things that the mother is exposed to, that creates impressions in the child. So, the mother is watching a lot of TV with horror movies.
Sometimes that affects the child, is fearful excessively. So, this is a field that is being developed more and more. But certainly researchers recognize that prenatal impressions do play a significant role.
And Abhimanyu was no ordinary child. He was a precocious child. And being precocious, he could learn at that time also.
And then afterwards, of course, the Pandavas were exiled. And practically nobody else knew about it. Krishna knew about it.
Pradyumna knew about it. Arjuna knew about it. And Abhimanyu knew about it partially.
And because Abhimanyu was such a young warrior, and he was definitely very learned. But it is an esoteric knowledge known to a few people. And the occasion did not come up when Arjuna could impart that knowledge to Abhimanyu, nor could the other knowers impart it.
Nor was it expected that he would need to know it. It was such a specialized knowledge that we may think, why give half a knowledge and leave it at that? No, it is a specialized knowledge that even great, great maharathas did not know about it. So, it did not come up.
It is not considered vital for education, although that turned out to be a fatal event. So, Abhimanyu joined the war on the Pandava side. And within a few days, he established himself as one of their foremost warriors.
In fact, that began right in the first day itself. The first day, Bhishma was wreaking havoc in the Pandava camp. And seeing him slaughtering the Pandava soldiers, Abhimanyu went forward to challenge him.
And Abhimanyu shot a series of arrows with such speed and skill that Bhishma was stunned. At one level, Bhishma was appreciative, admiring the skill of Arjuna’s son. But before he could counter, in a short while, Abhimanyu had cut off the bow of Bhishma and had cut off the standard also.
This was a stupendous feat. Bhishma was an incomparable warrior and practically nobody had been able to even maim him or stun him. And here Abhimanyu, a 16-year-old boy, had stunned him.
The Pandavas and Kauravas, both warriors lauded him. The celestials praised this feat. And Bhishma was accompanied by Shalini and others.
And they also trained their attack on Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu held back Bhishma’s protectors and kept attacking Bhishma relentlessly. And Bhishma, smiling to see the expertise of Abhimanyu, at the same time realizing that he had a Kshatriya duty to fight, he started shooting arrows.
And he pierced Abhimanyu with his arrows. He knocked off Abhimanyu’s standard also. He repaid him a turn in the same coin.
But Abhimanyu didn’t flinch. He didn’t falter. And he kept fighting, fighting.
So he held Bhishma back for a considerable amount of time. And then as Bhishma, along with his attackers, started charging down on Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu fought on. But seeing this, other Pandava warriors came to assist him.
And then Bhuminjaya and Swetha and other warriors, they came in between. And then, of course, there was a very fierce fight between Bhuminjaya and Bhishma. Then later Swetha and Bhishma.
Of course, both the encounters, Bhishma won. So they were both maharathas. Bhishma killed all of them.
So the fact that they were killed indicates how powerful Bhishma was, is one small indication. And yet, Abhimanyu held Bhishma back. That was his extraordinary power.
Then as each day, he fought ferociously. And he was destroying the Pandava forces. And he was soon recognized as one of the foremost warriors on the Pandava side.
On the eighth day, especially, when Bhima pulverized Duryodhana, at that time, Abhimanyu also fought fiercely. And there was a formidable elephant warrior named Magadharaj. And he had a giant elephant.
An elephant assembled something like Airavat, Indra’s elephant, and charged down on the enemies. When he challenged Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu fought fiercely and eventually just took one strong weapon and pierced deep into the skull of that giant tusker. The tusker, the elephant started falling, tilting dangerously.
The warrior Magadharaj over it kept fighting arrows. Abhimanyu shot a shot of arrows and knocked off his head. And that way, he also exhibited his prowess.
On the ninth day also, Abhimanyu was wreaking havoc and nobody could face him. So seeing this, Duryodhana became incensed. And he actually, Duryodhana had himself come to fight, but Duryodhana was overpowered.
And then he saw that not only was he not able to fight properly with Abhimanyu, but also Abhimanyu was destroying his forces. So he called Alambush. Alambush was the commander of the Rakshasa division in the army of the Kauravas.
We discussed earlier how Alambush killed Airavan, the son of Arjuna. So now here, Alambush decided to attack another son of Arjuna. Vindu Duryodhana indicated, you kill Abhimanyu and we will kill the others.
So Alambush was delighted and he gave a roar of jubilation. And his jubilation and the roar because of it was so deafening, so threatening, so devastating that warriors dropped their weapons in horror. What is this? And he charged towards Abhimanyu.
When Abhimanyu saw him coming, rather than feeling scared to see this hideous looking Rakshasa charging down, he smiled and told his charioteer Sumitra to turn towards and face Alambush. And Alambush charged down on Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu countered him and fought and fought.
They fought fiercely and arrow for arrow for arrow they were fighting. They matched each other. Alambush was slaughtering along while checking Abhimanyu.
He was also slaughtering the Pandavas. Abhimanyu was slaughtering Alambush’s army. And in seeing him bearing down upon Abhimanyu, Pratibindya, son of Yudhishthir, he came and he came with his four brothers and they challenged Alambush and his forces.
And Alambush turned the attack on them and Abhimanyu fought with Alambush’s other warriors and slowly as the fight went on and on. Then Alambush was formidable but the Pandavas’ son slowly got the upper hand and then an arrow went straight to his body and he swooned. He was in rage initially but the wound was too severe.
He swooned on the ground. As he swooned, he lay on the ground, slowly recovered his senses and turned around and he had to be wounded in anger. The Pandavas’ sons fell back.
Abhimanyu again challenged him and then they had a deadly fight and arrow for arrow for arrow. Both of them were severely wounded but neither of them retreated. Neither of them fled.
They just kept fighting and fighting. Alambush soon realized that Arjuna’s son was unmatchable and realizing that the only chance for him to win was through mystic weapons. Suddenly, he invoked a weapon that created darkness.
Complete wall of darkness spread all around and no one could save him. His plan was to sneak upon Abhimanyu in the darkness and wound him, possibly kill him. Abhimanyu was extremely alert.
He immediately took out the Suryastha and as he invoked the Suryastha, immediately all the darkness disappeared and all the directions became illumined and they could see Alambush charged trying to sneak upon Abhimanyu with short arrows. Alambush used various mystic Rakshasa weapons creating illusions of different kinds. At one time, he created an illusion by which suddenly it and they were all charging down upon Abhimanyu.
Abhimanyu used various weapons to counter his illusion. Another time, he created an illusion by which hundreds of hideous beasts were charging down upon Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu countered it and slowly but surely each one of Alambush’s illusions was countered completely and then Alambush was left helpless and he fled.
He fled in mortal fear and Arjuna and Abhimanyu laughed. To best the Rakshasa commander was no small feat. Alambush was burned in anger and resentment.
At the same time, he knew he was no match to Abhimanyu so he had to flee. Now on the 10th day, Abhimanyu also played a vital role in helping Arjuna and Shikhandi break through the defenses of Bhishma so that eventually they could complete the mission of Pellingen. So all the Kaurava warriors were trying to protect Bhishma.
So Abhimanyu played a vital role in keeping them engaged and keeping them distracted. On the 11th and 12th days also, Abhimanyu showed formidable skill. Especially in the 12th day, Abhimanyu fought with Karna and held him back.
Despite Karna’s best efforts, he could not get the better of Abhimanyu and that’s how Karna’s plan was that I have my Shakti weapon and Arjuna is there in the battlefield, I am also ready to fight. So everyday he was trying to get to Arjuna. So Krishna made various arrangements by which Arjuna and Karna stayed separate till Krishna had deprived him of the Shakti weapon.
Let us see how Krishna did that. We will see that later. But anyway, here Karna was kept engaged by Abhimanyu.
Karna just couldn’t get the better hand of this lad. Now on the 13th day, Duryodhana started getting not just impatient but arrogantly vicious in his speech, in his allegations. He started accusing Drona of partiality.
Because you love the Pandavas and because you don’t care for me. So because of that, you are doing this. You are not fighting wholeheartedly.
In fact, if you are angered, nobody can fight against you. And yet the Pandavas are not only living, but they are destroying our troops. So please do something.
So Drona decided on 13th day to form the Chakravyuha. They had already made the plan and the Chakravyuha was not formed at the morning. If it had been formed in the morning, Arjuna would have noticed it.
And if Arjuna had noticed it, then he would not have gone elsewhere to fight because he knew that. He alone on the Pandava side knew how to break into the Chakravyuha and come out. So what Drona and the Pandavas did, they formed some other formation and the normal fight was going on.
And as the normal fight was going on, Susharman challenged Arjuna and took him to another side of the war field. And as Arjuna and Susharman and his forces, Trigartha, Samshipatakas were engaged in a ferocious war, on the other side, Drona gave the order to his troops to regroup. They regrouped and they shot and they had already been informed that we’ll have to do this manoeuvre, create this military formation later.
So they were ready and they created the military formation of the Chakravyuha and the Chakravyuha started. Now Chakravyuha is not just a circle which keeps, which is sort of ready, very easy for people to enter into. Or it is that it is elitist club and actually the Chakravyuha sort of thing is in which one entering it is very difficult.
Elitist in the sense that not ordinary warriors can form a Chakravyuha nor can ordinary warriors penetrate the Chakravyuha. And Chakravyuha not only traps someone who is inside, the Chakravyuha by advancing, advancing, advancing can kill those upon whom it’s marching. So Drona’s plan was that if nobody derives the Chakravyuha, then I will penetrate it into, I’ll take it into the Pandav camp and use that to arrest Yudhishthira.
So Yudhishthira saw this Chakravyuha being formed, he became concerned, intensive. And then he wondered whom could he call, who would be able to help him. Now Krishna and Arjuna were there.
They had been taken to another part of the field and there was no time to call them and even calling them was also not appropriate because they were fighting elsewhere and a Kshatriya could not go against the Kshatriya code of rather refusing a challenge to fight. So then knowing that only Abhimanyu had the knowledge, he asked Abhimanyu about his readiness. Abhimanyu is initially apprehensive but when the Pandavas told him that, the approach of Abhimanyu, he said, you alone know how to save, how to break the Chakravyuha.
So Abhimanyu was young but a formidable warrior, standing on his chariot with a bow in his hand. He said, oh king, oh uncle, I’ll do whatever you tell me. But still I need to inform all of you that I don’t know how to break out of Chakravyuha.
So therefore if I enter into it out of passion or anger or enthusiasm, then I’ll be like a moth entering into a fire and I’ll get burnt over there. So Yudhishthira said, no, don’t worry, we are following you and we will protect you. The restrictive Kauravas will not dare to kill you.
And we will break in and we will protect you. So Bhima was there also and Bhima had overheard the conversation between Yudhishthira and Abhimanyu. Bhima came forward and he said, don’t worry, just this Chakravyuha, we just don’t know how to break it.
If you break it, then we will follow you and smash it from inside. So when both his uncles, both of them were elder uncles, both his brothers Bhima and Yudhishthira were older to Arjuna, so both of them requesting him, Abhimanyu became enthusiastic. He said, today for the pleasure of my uncles and for the honor of my father, I’ll fight such a war that has never been fought in the history of the world.
Breaking into the enemy’s Chakravyuha, I will destroy it from within. And as he proclaimed, the Pandavas felt heartened and he told his charioteer Sumitra to start taking the chariot to confront the Chakravyuha. So as Abhimanyu turned, Sumitra, the son of Daruka, was Krishna’s charioteer.
And Sumitra asked him anxiously, he said, oh hero, a great burden has been placed on you. Since Drona is experienced in war and he has formed his Chakravyuha expertly, you are unexperienced as far as the harshness of war is concerned. And he had little luxury.
So for you to attempt to break into the Chakravyuha is extremely dangerous. So Abhimanyu was completely confident. He said, who is this Drona? Who are these Kauravas? They are no match to the 116th part of me.
Indeed, I who have the lord of the universe Keshava as my master, as my uncle, and I who have the world’s greatest archer Arjuna as my father, what do I have to fear? Since today I will fight such a war that history will remember forever. And it’s move forward without fear of charioteer. Sumitra was still having a heavy heart.
He realized that this would probably be the last day they would speak of the chariot charioteer. They would discuss they would go as a couple as a chariot charioteer last time. But still concealing his anxiety, he enthusiastically and expertly had taken the chariot.
And as he took the chariot, now Abhimanyu’s chariot had a Karanikara standard. And with this Karanikara standard, he charged towards Drona who was at the head of the formation, guarding it. And when Drona saw his standard, he recognized Abhimanyu as Arjuna’s son.
And Abhimanyu charged upon him, attacking him. And Drona expertly countered his weapons. As he countered, Arjuna, Abhimanyu had told his charioteer Sumitra to operate, to approach the Chakravyuh at oblique angle.
And using evasive motions, suddenly his charioter dexterously moved towards another direction. He parried the force of Drona’s attack and instead concentrated attack on the wall of the Chakravyuh, on the forces who comprise the Chakravyuh. And he just broke through them.
Drona challenged him, but he shot arrows so swiftly and he stunned Drona by the force of his assault. And then as this complete confusion of men and horses and chariots and elephants was reaching to get out of the way of the charging elephant of Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu broke through the formation and charged inside, leaving a trail of total devastation behind him. The Pandavas were close behind.
They charged him behind him. And as they charged him behind him, they were just following him through the hole that he had breached in the water body. And I suddenly found that actually they were stopped.
How were they stopped? By one warrior, one insignificant warrior, that is Jayadrath. Jayadrath, we discussed earlier how he had taken a vow after he felt he had been humiliated by the Pandavas. Although actually he, by trying to abduct Draupadi, had himself caused the trouble upon himself.
So anyway, what happened is he had got this vow from Lord Shiva that he will be able to check the four Pandavas apart from Arjuna on one occasion. And being empowered by that blessing, he fought so fiercely. So Abhimanyu had gone inside the Chakra, breaking it, creating a hole in it.
And the Pandavas were going inside as they came close. Suddenly now some of the warriors were trying to regroup, but none of them, the force of the assault of the Pandavas, the remaining Pandavas were so strong that they could not regroup and close the breach, close the breach, the hole that had been created in their defenses. But Jayadrath came forward and he stood like a mountain, immovable.
He withheld, he tolerated the attack of the Pandavas and did not budge. And as the Pandavas watched in dismay, suddenly the Chakra view closed. Those warriors who had been wounded, they recovered.
But soon they came back to consciousness. And those who had been killed, others came to replace them. And in that way, the Chakra view was closed.
And the Pandavas watched on helplessly. They knew Jayadrath had been trapped inside. Now Jayadrath had remembered the humiliation that he had faced at the hands of Arjuna and Bhima and he wanted to punish them, extract revenge.
So he thought, he also knew that if it closed the formation, then Abhimanyu would surely die because no warrior could survive single-handed inside such a devastating military formation. So then, as Abhimanyu charged inside, he did not even realize initially that he had been left alone. He just kept charging, working his bow with thunderous power and ferocious speed.
And he was creating death and destruction wherever he went. The Kaurava troops who tried to fight surround the Kaurava troops everywhere. And he was fighting so fiercely that they all fell back.
And in fact, not only they fell back, but letting him have a way to move forward, they also started not only falling away, but fleeing away. They just couldn’t face the sheer power of the attack of Abhimanyu. And as Abhimanyu charged on, it is found that the Pandava warriors were just leaving.
There were some horses were dead, charities had fallen, elephants were dead, but the Pandavas were just leaping off these and running away. Not the Pandavas, the Kaurava warriors. Not the Kaurava brothers, but the general warriors on the Kaurava side.
They were just leaping and running. And seeing this, Duryodhana was incensed and he said, kill Arjuna’s son. And he himself charged upon Arjuna.
And as he charged upon Arjuna, upon Abhimanyu, at that time, Abhimanyu returned, welcomed him for the fight. And soon he started overwhelming Duryodhana. And as Duryodhana felt overwhelmed, he seeing the king overwhelmed, several of the Kaurava warriors said, save the king.
And Kripa, Shuddhama, several of them came to assist him. And Abhimanyu fought fiercely. And Duryodhana was stunned, unable to maintain, getting wounded.
Then a Maharatha on the side of the Kauravas, a king named Ashmaka came forward. And he fought fiercely, trying to hold Abhimanyu back. But Abhimanyu fought arrows and shot arrows so speedily that he was just killed in the twinkling of an eye.
The horse was destroyed and he was killed entirely. And then Duryodhana again came forward. And there was a severe fight.
Actually, next to Duryodhana, assistant Karna came. And Duryodhana and Karna, they both challenged Abhimanyu. But as he challenged Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu just fought and fought and fought with a series of steel shaft arrows.
He just penetrated through the armor of Abhimanyu and wounded him, forcing him to fall. Karna was enraged. He fought and fought fiercely.
But after some time, because Karna did not have celestial weapons to that extent, and he did not want to use shakti-astra till now, he was completely wounded by the sharp and cleverly pointed arrows of Abhimanyu. And Karna almost fell on Shivangakosha’s charioteer and took him away. Thereafter, seeing that nobody could stop Abhimanyu, the other warriors started coming.
So Shalya charged down upon Abhimanyu. And as he charged down upon Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu shot a series of arrows, stunned Shalya. In fact, one of the arrows went so painfully through his body that he had to bear the pain.
He just couldn’t sit, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything. Shalya was knocked down completely. And slowly but surely, panic was spreading in the Pandava camp.
And that panic just had no solution. Whoever came in front of Abhimanyu was killed immediately. Nobody could withstand his assault.
And this may raise the question that is it that Abhimanyu was powerful only on the 13th day? Or was he powerful earlier? If he was powerful earlier, then what happened earlier? Why is his heroism described in this particular day alone? Actually, he was always heroic, no doubt about it. But in this particular situation, a point that is highlighted is his heroism. Because he had got inside the Chakravyuh, breaking the Chakravyuh itself was a remarkable phenomenon, a feat.
And after getting the Chakravyuh, to actually destroy and kill so many warriors and to not become a hostage, that was remarkable. He just kept fighting, fighting. So this was his day.
And as he fought fiercely, nobody could take him. And panic started spreading in the Kaurav camp. What happened thereafter, we will discuss in a mid-session.
Thank you.