The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendering (2 Vols.), page 121
The chakra vyuha melts the Pandava legions in a sludge of gore, and they have no Arjuna with them to cleave the spinning wheel. First thing after the conches blared, Susharma challenged him again with a fresh complement of Samsaptakas: now, mercenaries recruited in the night for fine sums of money. Once more, Arjuna and the Trigartas face each other, far from the rest of the battle.
There is no breaching the chakra vyuha. Not Bheema’s elemental strength and the inspired archery of the others, combined, can break a way into the turning maze, which vomits death out of its hermetic confines. Exhilarated, the Kaurava soldiers fight as never before, and hardly a handful lose their lives from stray arrows, from inescapable fate; while thousands of Pandava soldiers perish. Drona’s esoteric vyuha is perfectly secure against Yudhishtira’s army. It is an almost magical formation, and only a maharathika knows exactly how to penetrate the fluid chakra.
Yudhishtira cries in despair, “Doesn’t anyone but Arjuna know how this vyuha can be breached?” Then he remembers; of course, another kshatriya knows the secret of the chakra vyuha: Arjuna himself has taught Abhimanyu.
Yudhishtira turns in excitement to his nephew, “Abhimanyu, only four men know the mystery of the chakra vyuha. Krishna, Pradyumna, Arjuna and you. You are our only hope, child, will you break into the wheel of death?”
Abhimanyu hesitates, a frown on his face. Yudhishtira says, “What is the matter?”
That prince replies, “I can break into the chakra vyuha quite easily. But my father had time only to teach me how to enter the spinning maze; he did not show me how to come out again. I may be trapped inside.”
Yudhishtira says quickly, “Once you make the breach, we will all follow you in.”
Bheema cries, “I will be at your heels, Abhimanyu, and Dhrishtadyumna, Satyaki, the Kekayas, Panchalas, Prabhadrakas and the Matsyas. Make the first break, and we will smash the vyuha.”
How Abhimanyu’s eyes shine at the privilege. He cries, “I will bring glory to the Houses of Kuru and Vrishni. My father and my mother, and my uncles will be proud of Abhimanyu today!”
Yudhishtira embraces the boy of sixteen summers, that great kshatriya. The Pandava says, “May all the Gods bless you! Our best warriors will ride with you, Abhimanyu. Go, my child, bring us glory.”
Abhimanyu has no doubt he can break into the chakra vyuha. Only, the wheel is known to snap shut as soon as an enemy enters, as some carnivorous flowers do around a bee. But his uncles have assured him they will not let the vyuha close behind him. They will shatter the wheeling thing, as soon as he breaks in. His kshatriya blood coursing, Abhimanyu climbs into his chariot. With a radiant smile, he salutes his uncles. Yudhishtira orders two fine archers to climb in behind the prince, to watch his back. Then, the other Pandavas and kings all climb into their rathas, and follow Arjuna’s son.
Abhimanyu says to his sarathy, “Fly at the chakra vyuha!”
The man can hardly believe the command. “My prince, Drona is a wily brahmana. This is a trap laid for you. He knows your father is away against Susharma’s Samsaptakas, and I hear he has sworn to kill a maharathika today. Don’t ride into mortal peril, Abhimanyu, I fear for your life.”
Abhimanyu snorts at the man’s fears. “Drona is so smug I look forward to fighting him! Have you forgotten who I am, that you fear for me? I am Arjuna’s son, I am Krishna’s nephew! Not all the Kauravas together can hold me. After today, they will tremble at Abhimanyu’s very name. This is no time for faintheartedness; our men are dying like flies. Why, I would not fear Arjuna, Indra, or Vishnu himself in battle. Ride, sarathy, ride at the chakra vyuha!”
With a sigh, and dread in his heart, the charioteer cracks his whip and rides at Drona’s cunning wheel.
EIGHT
Jayadratha’s moment
LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING UPON THE EARTH, ABHIMANYU’S CHARIOT streaks at Drona’s vyuha. But for the banner that ratha flew, it could be Arjuna himself flying at the enemy. Abhimanyu knows how to penetrate the vyuha; he knows the soft parts of the outer wheel. Ignoring all the more obvious targets the other Pandavas aimed at, before him, he looses a torrent of fire-shafts to the right and the left of where he rides. He sweeps past Drona with that tirade, and the vyuha crumbles at its rim. In the panic that follows, the chakra is breached at exactly the place Abhimanyu rides at, though he hasn’t shot a single arrow directly ahead of him. He flits through to the inside of the vyuha, and the Kaurava soldiers run from him in terror.
Just behind Abhimanyu ride Bheema, Yudhishtira, Satyaki, Dhrishtadyumna and the others, straight at the fracture in the vyuha, while Drona rallies his men, quickly. But it isn’t the brahmana but another who snaps the vyuha shut in the Pandavas’ faces.
Within the chakra vyuha, Abhimanyu hunts like Yama. He is hardly a human prince, any more, but a young God in his chariot, his bow radiating astras all around him. That boy cuts down a thousand men before the Kaurava warriors recover and attack him in an angry throng. Already, though it isn’t noon yet, the field within the chakra has the appearance of Kurukshetra when the sun is setting: littered with corpses, the ground blood-drenched. The common Kaurava soldiers run blindly from Arjuna’s son.
Roaring, Duryodhana charges Abhimanyu. In a flash, Drona is at his king’s side, knowing how dangerous it is for him to face the youth alone. Duryodhana is at the heart of the lotus and Abhimanyu has broken right through to him in moments. At Drona’s anxious call, Aswatthama, Kripa, Kritavarman, Karna and Shakuni rush to protect Duryodhana. They form a ring around Abhimanyu, and attack him all at once. But he is indeed Arjuna’s son, Krishna’s nephew, and he is indomitable! Arrows flare from him in every direction, rays of light, banks of death.
Not all those warriors together can contain Abhimanyu. Bhoorisravas, Dusasana and some other sons of Dhritarashtra ride at him. Even as he holds them off, easily, beats them back in a wrath of arrows, he cuts Karna’s armour from his chest, and strikes him deep with a shaft like a serpent. Karna staggers in his chariot, and his bow falls from his hand. And how proudly the uncle’s eyes shine to see his nephew’s valour. But he cannot show at all what he feels; not though part of him longs to fly to Abhimanyu, and begin fighting at his side!
Arjuna’s illustrious son scatters the enemy as a storm of light will some shreds of darkness. Karna and Shalya make a brave stand, but not together can they face his stunning archery. Abhimanyu knocks Karna out of his chariot with a virile gust of arrows. He strikes Shalya unconscious, so that king has to be borne out of battle.
Drona watches the young man approvingly. He says to Kripa beside him, “He excels his father! Look at him, he can burn up all our army if he wants. But it seems he restrains himself, or fate holds him back. Mark my words, he doesn’t yet fight as he can.”
Duryodhana hears this. His face darkening, he turns to Karna, “Do you hear him? Do you hear the love in his voice? Ah, this Drona can vanquish Indra and Yama if he wishes. But he loves his precious Arjuna, so how will he kill Arjuna’s brat? I doubt the young fool could have broken into the chakra vyuha, if the Acharya had not let him. And now, knowing he has Drona’s protection, he fights like twenty kshatriyas. It is not that Abhimanyu is exceptional, but that our Senapati will not harm him.”
Karna makes no reply, though he longs to tell Duryodhana that there is no archer on Kurukshetra like Abhimanyu. But Dusasana hears his brother, and says, “You are right. Drona will not harm Abhimanyu; we must do it ourselves. Watch me kill the whelp, Duryodhana. That will break Arjuna’s heart, and Krishna’s, too. They may even die of grief. This is a fine chance, my brother: we can win the war by just killing this boy!”
With a roar, he flies at Abhimanyu, imagining that he, Dusasana, will be the kshatriya who wins the war. Karna smiles to himself. The battle between the ambitious Dusasana and Abhimanyu lasts only a few moments. Seeing the Kaurava ride at him, Abhimanyu breaks the bow in his hand from an incredible way off, before Dusasana has even raised it. Then, five more searing shafts, quick as one, cut Dusasana down in his chariot, and his sarathy rides off the field with his unconscious warrior.
Karna rides at Abhimanyu once more. But his heart is not in this fight, and anyway the youth is irresistible. Karna is wounded again, and has to flee from his nephew. Abhimanyu fights on, a vyuha by himself. Often, his boyish laughter rings above the roars and screams of his enemies.
Meanwhile, at the rim of the chakra, the other Pandava warriors find themselves held up, extraordinarily. Yudhishtira, Bheema, Shikhandi, Satyaki, Dhrishtadyumna, Drupada, Virata, Nakula, Sahadeva, the Kekaya brothers and Dhrishtaketu streamed after Abhimanyu like its tail behind a comet. But only Abhimanyu breaks into Drona’s wheel; and, once he does, the vyuha seals itself around him like the arms of death. Bheema and the rest are hardly a chariot’s length behind the Arjuna’s son, when he makes his rupture and storms in. He turns briefly, and smiles beatifically at his uncles. Then, a lone kshatriya looms before the Pandavas, barring their way. To their surprise, they see it is Jayadratha.
At first, Bheema roars with laughter. Just he and Arjuna had routed this villain in the jungle, when he had abducted Draupadi. But there is something Bheema does not know about Jayadratha, nor do any of the others. Yudhishtira and Satyaki are the first to charge him, contemptuously; Jayadratha gives them such a fight! They had expected to sweep past him before the Kaurava chariots rode back to fill the breach Abhimanyu made. Jayadratha holds up not just Yudhishtira and Satyaki, but soon enough, all those matchless kshatriyas. He does not let them advance a foot.
Yudhishtira breaks his bow, but, quick as light, Jayadratha picks up another and fights on. He kills Bheema’s horses and plucks his bow right out of the wind-son’s hand. Arrows stream from Jayadratha with sureness and swiftness far beyond anything he ever possessed. The dullard fights like Arjuna or Karna today! The Pandavas can hardly believe what they are seeing. With a superlative fusillade, Jayadratha drives back not merely Bheema, but Dhrishtadyumna, Virata, Drupada, Shikhandi and Yudhishtira. He bars their way with a wall of arrows worthy of Bheeshma himself; and as he holds them up, a hundred Kaurava chariots fly forward to seal the crack in the chakra vyuha.
In moments, the vyuha is as it was before Abhimanyu broke in. Siva’s boon to Jayadratha is fulfilled: that if Arjuna and Krishna were not near, one day he would hold up the other four Pandavas by himself. And this was a day of sweet revenge for Jayadratha, for the way they had humiliated him in the forest; though he would not savour that sweetness for long.
Yudhishtira and Bheema fling themselves at the chakra vyuha, but to no avail. The horror of what has happened dawns on them. They remember what Abhimanyu said, ‘I can break into the vyuha quite easily. But my father had time only to teach me how to enter the spinning maze; he didn’t show me how to break out of it again. I may be trapped inside.’
Yudhishtira is numb with guilt, to remember his thoughtless answer to the boy, ‘Once you make the breach, we will all follow you in.’
Bheema shudders to recall his own rash promise, ‘I will be at your heels child, and Dhrishtadyumna, Satyaki, the Kekayas, Panchalas, Prabhadrakas and Matsyas will fly in after you. Only make the first break, and we will smash the vyuha in moments.’
Bheema stares helplessly at Yudhishtira, who is as stricken as he is.
NINE
Abhimanyu
WITHIN THE CHAKRA VYUHA, ABHIMANYU IS A HUNGRY TIGER LOOSE among a wilderness of deer. He kills thousands of men, his face so young and innocent, his archery so mature, so awesome. Like Karttikeya among the Asuras, Abhimanyu is at the Kaurava legions: bodies are scattered everywhere, one heaped on the other, and blood runs in little streams. Those whom he kills hardly cry out any more. It is as if they expect to die at his hands; indeed, as if they would rather die quickly, than suffer the torment of fear with which he stalks them. Soon, no one can count how many men that handsome prince has killed. He strews the field with corpses and severed limbs as priests do blades of Kusa grass upon a vedi. He scatters Kurukshetra with noble heads of Kings, adorned with crowns, turbans, ear-studs, pearls and diamonds, like lotuses cut from their stalks and flowing blood.
He looses a gandharvastra at the enemy. It is a missile of dreams, and suddenly they see a thousand Abhimanyus everywhere, each one shooting at them. The Kaurava soldiers run in every direction. Many of them fall on their own comrades in panic and hack one another down. Abhimanyu’s clear laughter crests that wave of death.
Moved by foolhardiness, envy and a hope for quick fame, Shalya’s son Rukmartha challenges Abhimanyu. The duel between the two is intense, but brief; and Arjuna’s prince severs Rukmartha’s young head. Rukmartha’s incensed brothers rush at him from four sides. But he strikes them all down, quicker than seeing, and they are carried unconscious from the field.
Duryodhana’s beautiful son Lakshmana Kumara * rides at Abhimanyu from a flank. A wild duel breaks out between the cousins. Fire in his eye, Duryodhana roars encouragement at his boy; and for a while, it seems Abhimanyu is contained. He cannot lacerate the Kaurava legions any more; Lakshmana absorbs him. Duryodhana’s son fights like the prince of old, Rama’s brother, after whom he is named. But then, Abhimanyu pierces his throat with a perfect arrow. With his father watching in horror, Lakshmana Kumara dies.
Duryodhana’s roar echoes on Kurukshetra, as if he himself had been shot. His face a mask, he cries, “Kill the wretched boy, he has killed my son!”
Six maharathikas stream forward against Abhimanyu. Drona, Kripa, Aswatthama, Karna, Brihadbala and Kritavarman surround the meridian prince. Meanwhile, Abhimanyu has seen who sealed the chakra vyuha against his uncles. He attacks Jayadratha with a gale of silver shafts. It seems he does not mean just to break the wheel open again, but to destroy it. But Jayadratha bars his way with a legion of elephants, and some exceptional archery of his own.
Like thunderclouds around the rising sun, the six maharathikas surround Abhimanyu. But he fights like the sun himself, and not the six together can quench him. Like a dancer in his chariot, he, infuses a lifetime’s heroism into an hour; as if he knows he hasn’t a lifetime but just this hour to make his name immortal. Abhimanyu knows the other Pandavas have been kept out of the chakra vyuha, but he fights as if they are all with him, in his very body. The six maharathikas have their horses killed by lightning from the hands of Arjuna’s son. They have their bows shredded, and their chariots shattered beneath them by impossible volleys.
Wounded and bloody, Karna runs from the fight, and Shalya rides up to take his place. Abhimanyu’s fiercest assailant is Brihadbala, who fights as if he knows his own final moments on earth are here. The prince shoots the armour off his chest, with inspired precision, then pierces him through his heart, and Brihadbala dies. Dusasana’s son flies at Arjuna’s boy. Abhimanyu cries, “At least you stand and fight! It must be your mother’s blood in you, because your father is a coward.”
Aswatthama looses a flaming astra at Abhimanyu. It glances harmlessly off his clever mail and, in reply, the prince covers Drona’s son in blood. Breathlessly, Shakuni says to Duryodhana, “We must attack him all together.”
Karna cries to Drona, “We must kill him, or he will kill us all! Acharya, tell us how this terrible boy can be slain.”
Drona says wistfully, “Ah, he is a golden storm, isn’t he? Arjuna’s son is greater than Arjuna! It is the armour he wears that keeps him safe; and the way his father has taught him to wear it.”
Karna cries, “Tell us how to kill him, or the war is lost!”
Slowly, Drona says, “You must kill the two men who guard his rear. Then break his bow, and his chariot.”
“Easy to say, Acharya, but haven’t we tried?”
“Only when you face him. You cannot vanquish this child when you face him, not you, Karna, or anyone. But there is a way, a desperate way. You must ride behind him, and sever his bowstring when he isn’t watching you.”
Karna winces, and Drona has turned away before he can answer him. The spirit of war possesses the warrior completely. Karna steals behind Abhimanyu and cuts his bowstring with an exact shaft. That prince spins around in shock, with a roar on his lips, “Coward! Who are you?”
Kripa kills the two guards protecting Abhimanyu’s back. Drona kills his horses; Kritavarman shatters his chariot under him. Then, six mighty archers attack him together, as he stands unarmed before them. They arc like a pack of wild dogs running down a golden stag. They cover him with arrows. His eyes bloodshot, his body shaking with the ignominy of what they have done, he roars at Drona, “You are my father’s guru. They say Drona is a great warrior. This is the deed of a coward!”
He turns on Karna, while they still shoot at him. Abhimanyu sneers, “You are Bhargava’s sishya! You dare call yourself my father’s equal, and my uncle says you are a man of dharma. Is this your dharma? All of you are known as noble men, but I see today how such maharathikas fight. Cowards! How does the earth not open for shame and swallow you?
He seizes his sword and shield, and leaps down from his ruined chariot. Staving off the tide of fire in which they seek to consume him, Abhimanyu runs forward: to kill them all. Drona breaks his sword at the hilt, and Karna smashes his shield. Abhimanyu stands bared before his sanguinary enemies, and they strike him with a hundred shafts, that crash into him one after the other, drawing maroon geysers.
Blood streaming down his body, Abhimanyu runs back to his chariot, and has a thought of his father. ‘Arjuna, I will not see the pride in your eyes when you hear what I have done today.’
Then, his own eyes fill with tears; he thinks of Subhadra, and knows she will be heartbroken when she hears he is dead. Abhimanyu thinks of Krishna, while they shoot at him at will, and his armour still shields him from most of their arrows; of Yudhishtira and Bheema, he thinks. How stricken they would be at what had happened today, how tormented with guilt that they could not come to him when he needed them. But Jayadratha would pay for what he did; he would pay with his life.
