In the previous episode, we had witnessed the conclusion of Day Twelve of the Kurukshetra war, which resulted in a great loss to Duryodhana and Co. in the form of Bhagadatta. As we’ve witnessed, Bhagadatta was overpowered by Arjuna, thanks to Bhagawan Krishna’s constant intervention – Firstly by neutralizing Bhagadatta’s “Vaishnava-Asthram” and secondly by giving Arjuna important clues about Bhagadatta’s poor vision due to his old age. Using all these tricks, Arjuna easily overcame Bhagadatta’s prowess and this resulted in a great shock for Duryodhana. At the end of the twelfth day of the war, Duryodhana and Guru Dhronachaarya sit down to discuss further proceedings wherein Guru Dhronachaarya is explaining to him that these kinds of one-to-one fights aren’t going to help any further. Guru Dhronachaarya stresses the need of a coordinated strategy amongst the entire Kaurava army and he feels the need to attack in unison. Upon hearing Guru Dhronachaarya’s “seemingly negative” words, Duryodhana fumes in anger! He feels that Guru Dhronachaarya has already given in to Yudishtra and is merely fighting this war for the sake of doing so!
This language that Duryodhana uses upsets Guru Dhronachaarya beyond words. At a time when Guru Dhronachaarya is trying to formulate a strategy-related discussion, Duryodhana fumes at Guru Dhronachaarya without even understanding / making an attempt to understand the grave situation. This irks Guru Dhronachaarya, however, because of his past “Karma” with Duryodhana, Guru Dhronachaarya discards Duryodhana’s angry words. However, upon hearing these fuming and senseless words of Duryodhana, Guru Dhronachaarya has to reply something to him, doesn’t he? So he says harshly thus, “Oh Duryodhana! Please stop this tyranny of words! How many times have I told you in the past that it is impossible to beat Arjuna in this war? You never paid heed to my words even once and now when people in your camp are dying, you are comfortably putting the blame on me! How unfortunate is this! However, all said and done – I might not be able to kill Arjuna or any of the Paandava brothers, but definitely I will manage to kill a “Maharati” (An extremely talented warrior) on their side very soon. This will happen perhaps during tomorrow’s or day after’s war proceedings!”
As Guru Dhronachaarya says thus, his words are indicative of the “Maharati” by name “Abhimanyu”! We might have heard this name quite often in many places – Abhimanyu is the son of Arjuna and he is going to play a crucial role in the thirteenth day of the Kurukshetra war. With this, we now enter into the next “Upa Parva” called “Abhimanyu Vadha Parva”. Here we’re going to see how Abhimanyu unleashed his skill and expertise to break open the “Chakra-Vyugam” created by the Kaurava army and how eventually he had to succumb to the combined wrath of Duryodhana, Sahuni, Ducchaasana, etc. as he struggles to come out of the “Chakra-Vyugam”. This is going to be a very interesting and an important phase of the Kurukshetra battle as we begin the proceedings of the thirteenth day.
So before we commence the thirteenth day proceedings, Guru Dhronachaarya creates a strategy. We’ve earlier seen that Bhagawan Krishna and Arjuna went towards the southern direction to fight the “Trigaathas” headed by Susharma. In that battle, three-fourth of the Trigatthas were destroyed on that eleventh day of the battle, however, one-fourth of them still remain. Hence, Guru Dhronachaarya once again calls Susharma and asks him to challenge Arjuna for one more round of war with him. He asks Susharma to drive Arjuna away once again towards the southern direction and ensure that he never enters the battlefield for a greater part of the thirteenth day proceedings. If Arjuna is away, Abhimanyu will be isolated and it is the best time that he can be cornered, surrounded and killed. Thus, the entire plan that Guru Dhronachaarya is making here is to somehow isolate Abhimanyu from Arjuna and kill him. For this, Guru Dhronachaarya proposes the “Chakra-Vyugam” to target Abhimanyu. Guru Dhronachaarya knows that of all the people that he has trained so far, the only person who knows how to break open the “Chakra-Vyugam”, fight with the enemy and once again get out of it is Arjuna! Nobody else can achieve this feat! As Abhimanyu is his son, Arjuna has trained him half-way to tackle the “Chakra-Vyuham”. In other words, Abhimanyu knows how to break it open, but he doesn’t have the expertise to come out of it! Guru Dhronachaarya spots this weakness in Abhimanyu and proposes this idea to Duryodhana, for which, Duryodhana readily agrees.
So for today, let us understand up to this interesting point, and in the next episode we shall continue this discussion forward into the thirteenth day of the Kurukshetra war! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 