Chakravyuha

There are some tales that one just cant forget. One such tale that has fascinated me since childhood is the tale of Abhimanyu.

The story goes as follows. One of the famous types of warfare during Mahabharat is Chakravyuha, wherein, the enemy, in hundreds, form a big circular formation and the objective of the other party is to single-handedly penetrate this circle and get out of it successfully, by fielding off the barrage of arrows that is targeted at self and at the same time, be on the attacking mode.

This being a not-so-easy task, as a man even of lower intellect can quickly deduce, needs a trick, as is so common in warfare, to come out successfully and wish to see one’s own arms and limbs in the way it was prior to the adventure. And such a trick was known only to Lord Krishna and Arjuna.

The tale becomes slightly interesting now. Krishna, by way of conversation, is imparting the knowledge of entering this impenetrable Chakravyuha to Subhadra, when Abhimanyu, still an unborn child in S’s womb, hears about it, and kids being what they are, total grasping power and what-not, remembers it for lifetime. However, Subhadra, apparently is too bored to hear about the whole story and dozes off in the middle and Krishna is forced to stop in the middle.

Ages later, when the Good is fighting the Bad, the Bad challenge the Chakravyuha warfare to the Good. Good accept the challenge as they have Krishna and Arjuna who can break the Big Circle. However, the Bad forms – by way of another trick of warfare - a diversion so that Krishna and Arjuna are not in the scene at the time of Chakravyuha. That leaves only with Abhimanyu amongst the Good to take up the challenge.

Enabled only with the knowledge of penetrating the circle but not coming out successfully, Abhimanyu fights valiantly and single handedly, and is able to break the formation but, alas, goes down in the end, fighting.

Somehow, this concept of Chakravyuha and the tale of Abhimanyu is fascinating to me. The former encapsulates the point of a person facing difficulties from three sixty degrees. And the latter encapsulates grasping capacity of an unborn and how mortal a human being is without Knowledge.

Now I wish I knew the trick too…!