Day thirteen: the wheel array and the death of Abhimanyu

Classical

On the thirteenth day Droṇa swore to seize Yudhiṣṭhira, and again the Saṃśaptakas drew Arjuna away to the south. Droṇa then formed an array in the shape of a wheel, a chakravyūha, and attacked. Yudhiṣṭhira was worried. Only four people, he said, knew how to break that array: Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa, Pradyumna, and Abhimanyu. He turned to the sixteen-year-old son of Arjuna and Subhadrā and told him that he must break it, or else Arjuna would reproach them all when he came back. Abhimanyu said he knew how to enter it, since his father had taught him, but not how to get out if danger struck.

Yudhiṣṭhira told him to break the array once and make a gap, and all of them would follow behind and protect him. Bhīma said that he himself would come right behind. Dhṛṣṭadyumna, Sātyaki and the Pāñcālas would be with him. Abhimanyu said he would go in like an insect into a flame, to do what would please his father and his mother's family, and that if anyone met him and came away alive, he would not consider himself Arjuna's son. His charioteer Sumitra warned him that the burden was too heavy and Drona was a master. Abhimanyu laughed and said even Indra on Airāvata would not frighten him and that this army was not a sixteenth part of him. He told Sumitra to urge the horses on.

He plunged into Droṇa's array, scattering the Kauravas. The Pāṇḍavas followed him, but Jayadratha, king of the Sindhus, holding the one boon he had from Śiva, blocked the gap and kept everyone but Arjuna away from the entrance. Abhimanyu was left alone inside. He killed Vasātīya and Rukmaratha, the son of Śalya, and made Śalya himself faint on his chariot. He fought Karṇa, Aśvatthāman, Kṛtavarman and Duryodhana's son and left them hurt. Droṇa, watching, said that no flaw could be found in the boy, that he was like Arjuna himself. Karṇa, hurt by Abhimanyu's arrows, asked Droṇa how they might kill him.

Droṇa's advice was to cut his bow, his reins, his horses and his charioteers first, because he was not beatable when armed. Karṇa cut Abhimanyu's bow. Kṛtavarman killed his horses; Kṛpa killed his two rear charioteers. The other warriors, six of them in all, covered the chariot-less and bow-less boy with arrows. Abhimanyu took up sword and shield and leapt into the sky. Droṇa cut the hilt of the sword and Karṇa cut the shield. Abhimanyu picked up a chariot wheel and raised it over his head like Kṛṣṇa with his discus, and rushed at Droṇa. The kings cut the wheel to pieces.

Abhimanyu picked up a mace and ran at Aśvatthāman, who jumped off his chariot and leapt away three times. He killed Aśvatthāman's horses and charioteers, and then fought Duḥśāsana's son. The two cousins struck at each other with maces until both fell. Duḥśāsana's son was the first to get up, and with his mace he struck Abhimanyu down. The boy lay on the field, as one account says, like a fire that has burnt a forest and gone out, and the Kaurava soldiers shouted with joy. Creatures in the sky said that it was an unrighteous act for six warriors to have killed a lone boy. Yudhiṣṭhira told the fleeing Pāṇḍava troops that Abhimanyu had gone to heaven, but when evening came, the Pāṇḍavas went back to their tents in grief, and Arjuna was still to come.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Abhimanyu, Droṇa, Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, Jayadratha, Karṇa, Aśvatthāman, Kṛtavarman, Kṛpa, Duḥśāsana's son, Śalya, Sumitra

Bound to

Abhimanyu learned the chakravyuha in the womb origin

Abhimanyu: Varchas, Soma's son, lent for sixteen years origin

Jayadratha's boon from Śiva: why one man could hold back four Pāṇḍavas boon

Arjuna learns of Abhimanyu's death and vows to slay Jayadratha or burn origin

Day twelve: Suśarmā and the Saṃśaptakas draw Arjuna away origin

Ghatotkacha: the shakti that saved Arjuna, and Gatotkaca in Java mirror

Bhūriśravas: his arm cut off by Arjuna, his head by Sātyaki mirror

Places: Kurukṣetra

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (read via archive.org copy of the sacred-texts text) Drona Parva, Sections XXX–XLVIII

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