Drona and Pandavas - 7

On the thirteenth day, Mahabharat says that the Trigratas succeeded in keeping Arjuna engaged for the whole day. Surprizingly, the description of the whole day’s engagement is covered in just 4 shlokas with no name of any prominent warrior killed by Arjuna. This is in sharp contrast with description of 12th day’s clashes between Arjuna and Trigartas which runs into many pages! I strongly suspect that Arjuna was very tired or injured and did not appear on the battlefield for whole day!

Drona had arranged the main Kourava army in a ChakraVyuha, which Mahabharat calles ‘extremely difficult to penetrate’. This makes it essentially a ‘defensive formation’. Drona had kept himself out of the Vyuha and his plan was to attack and capture Yudhishthira. Pandavas were quite aware of the plan. This day Pandavas took an offencive and Panchalas and Pandavas attacked Drona at the start of the day. Drona defended himself well. Question remained, who will break and enter the Chakravyuha.

I have written on this blog earlier on Abhimanyu’s death so will not repeat the whole story. When Abhimanyu entered the Chakravyuha and was proving quite too much to all Kaurava warriers, it was ultimately Drona who advised then to cut his bow somehow. With that they all managed to kill him. Was Drona happy with this? Mahabharat is silent. Even in the absence of Arjun, Drona did not succeed in capturing Yudhishthira as Pandavas and Panchalas defended him stoutly. The day’s skirmishes ended with Abhimanyu’s death. Late in the evening when Arjun came to know about Abhimanyu’s death he took an oath that on the next day he would kill Jayadratha and if he failed he would kill himself. When Kauravas heard this, they decided to protect Jayadratha by all means. Drona was of course the main planner of the next day’s strategy. He asked six main warriors to keep on challenging Arjuna turn by turn for the whole day to prevent him reaching Jayadratha placed deep in the back, further supported by his own forces. Drona kept himself free to use the opportunity of Arjuna being engaged for capturing Yudhishthira. He seems to have set his faith in Duryodhana’s plan to stop the war with minimum damage. He knew that Arjuna would prevail in the end but sacrificing Jayadratha was worth it if Yudhishthira can be captured.

I have written in full detail about the 14th day’s events earlier so will not repeat. Ultimately at the end of the day, jayadratha was killed but again, even without Satyaki and Bheema, who had gone to support Arjuna, Dhrishtadyumna foiled Drona’s plan.