​Why did Arjuna target Jayadratha when Abhimanyu was killed by Durjaya?

Answer Podcast

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Hare Krishna. Question.
When Jaidrath had not killed Abhimanyu, why did Arjuna, to avenge Abhimanyu, decide to kill Jaidrath? Answer. Yes, Jaidrath was not the person who had killed Abhimanyu. But Jaidrath was the person who was responsible for the killing of Abhimanyu.
When the Kauravas had formed the Chakravyuha in order to penetrate, in order to destroy the Pandava ranks, at that time Abhimanyu was the only person who knew how to break the Chakravyuha, but he did not know how to come out. And Abhimanyu told about this. So Yudhishthira assured him that Bhima, Dhristadyumna and all the other foremost Pandava warriors would be ready to follow him inside.
So if Abhimanyu just broke the Chakravyuha, then they would all follow him inside. And after following him inside, they would all together break the Chakravyuha from within. That was the strategy which they had planned.
And at this particular point Abhimanyu led the attack and he broke the Chakravyuha and he went inside. And the Pandava warriors were following inside at that time. At that time Jaidrath came.
And Jaidrath could well have engaged with Abhimanyu, tried to fight with him and stop him. But Abhimanyu was still a boy and Jaidrath quite maliciously decided to separate Abhimanyu from his supporters. So quite often in a war, a warrior may get isolated, may get injured, but then other warriors come to the assistance of that warrior.
And this happened many times. At one time Duryodhana was wounded. So Drona took him on his chariot.
This has happened many times. But at such times to stop other warriors from assisting a person who is in need, that can well be considered to be the cause of death. Suppose a person is wounded and needs urgent medicine.
And then there is a compounder or a peon who is getting the medicine and somebody comes and forcibly overpowers the medicine carrier and doesn’t allow that medicine to reach the patient and the patient dies. Then the person who stopped the medicine from reaching that patient, that person is also culpable. So Jaidrath was like that.
Jaidrath by stopping all the Pandavas, on that particular day he used a benediction that he had from Shiva that he would be able to stop the Pandavas apart from Arjuna on one occasion. He used it exactly at that time by which he was able to separate Abhimanyu from the rest of the Pandavas and then that separation eventually became the cause of Abhimanyu’s death. So thus it was Jaidrath who was responsible for separating Abhimanyu from his supporters and thus he was responsible for Abhimanyu’s death and that’s why Arjuna did not see the superficial cause that it was Durjaya who later on killed Abhimanyu.
But once Abhimanyu was trapped inside, his fate was more or less sealed and the reason for him getting trapped was Jaidrath and that’s why Arjuna decided to target Jaidrath as an expression of his avenging Abhimanyu’s death. Thank you.