AKSHAUNI SPECIAL -
One of my friends asked me about Arjuna destroying seven Akshaunis on 14th day to kill Jayadrath.I would like to repost our former article on Akshaunis.
TOTAL THREE MENTIONS IN MAHABHARAT OF ARJUNA DESTROYING SEVEN AKSHAUNIS ON 14TH DAY-
>> FIRST TIME -
SAUTI TELLING THE RISHI'S ABOUT ARJUNA DESTROYING 7 AKSHAUNI'S ON 14TH DAY -
Narrative:
then after the death of Abhimanyu, the destruction by Arjuna, in battle of seven Akshauhinis of troops and then of Jayadratha;
www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m01/m01003.htm
BORI - Adi Parva,Chapter 2,Sloka 163
हते ऽभिमन्यौ करुद्धेन यत्र पार्थेन संयुगे
अक्षौहिणीः सप्त हत्वा हतॊ राजा जयद्रथः
(Sauti is also a Narrator of Mahabharat,like Vaisampayna)
>> SECOND TIME -
DURYODHAN LAMENTING ABOUT HIS 7 AKSHAUNIS DESTROYED BY ARJUNA ON 14TH DAY -
Narrative:
(Duryodhan To Drona)
Another disciple of thine, viz., the invincible Savyasachin, having slain seven. Akshauhinis of troops hath despatched king Jayadratha to Yama's abode.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07146.htm
BORI - Drona Parva,Chapter 125,Sloka 12
अपरािपधषःिशससािचना।
अौिहणीःसहाहतोराजाजयथः॥
>> THIRD TIME -
SANJAY TELLS DHRITRASHTRA THAT TOTAL EIGHT AKSHAUNIS OF ARMY HAS BEEN DESTROYED THAT DAY(7 BY ARJUNA,ONE BY OTHERS)-
Narrative:
Even thus, O king, was thy son-in-law, the ruler of the Sindhus, having caused eight Akshauhinis to be slaughtered, himself slain by Partha of inconceivable energy.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07142.htm
SO THREE PEOPLE CAN'T BE WRONG,IN WHICH ONE IS A NARRATOR OF EPIC,SECOND IS WAR CORRESPONDENT AND THIRD IS A WARRIOR PRESENT ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
------------------------------------------
Like we told earlier,A Kaurava Akshauni has a greater head count than a Pandava Akshauni,so Killing 7 Akshauni on a single day is possible.The war correspondents and narrators used the standard measure while poets used 7+11 = 18 measure,because 18 is a very special number.Like number of Parvas in Mahabharat = 18,number of chapters in Bhagwad Geeta = 18 and many many more.So whenever Pandava and Kaurava Akshaunis were named together, usually the poets used 11 + 7 measure,while in war reports the standard measure of Akshaunis were used.(218k)
WHY EIGHTEEN ? CHECK OUT THIS POST TO KNOW THE SPECIALITY OF 18 IN SANSKRIT- https://www.facebook.com/MahabharatKiGalatiyan/posts/574189036027316
1 Kaurava Akshauni had almost 500k resources.
1 Pandava Akshauni had almost 218k resources.
AKSHAUNIS CALCULATION -
(CREDITS PBS SIR.THANKS TO HIM I WAS ABLE TO RESOLVE THIS MYSTERY OF 7 AKSHAUNI KILLS BY ARJUNA ON 14TH DAY)
What is Akshauhini?
What most people don’t realize is that first few chapters of Mahabharata start with a section written by Parasurama. He describes the size of an Akshauhini as 21870 Rathas, 21870 elephant warriors, 65610 Horses and 109350 foot soldiers. This is in ratio of 1:1:3:5.
Smallest unit is called Sena, three Senas make a Vahini, 3 Vahinis make Pratanaa, 3 Pratanaas make Dhawajini, 3 Dhwajinis make Chamu and 3 Chamus make Varuthini and 10 Varuthinis make an Akshauhini.
In modern terms, Sena is a Platoon. Vahini is a company, Pratanaa is a Battalion, Dhwajini is a Regiment, Chamu is a Division, Varuthini is Corps and Akshuahini is an Army.
Number of soldiers for 1 akshauhini is 2,18,700 aka 18 Akshauhinis are 39,36,600. Pandavas would be 15 lakhs and Kauravas 24 lakhs based on 7 and 11 akshuahinis.
The real numbers were slightly more: Pargiter and others came up with similar slokas in Puranas identifying Pandava numbers as 16 lakhs and change.
Udyoga Parva tells us that Kaurava numbers are 10,000 senior sergeants, 49,50,000 men and the Rathis.
Notice how Poet mentions the Senior sergeants and not higher officer while describing Kaurava army but Pandava army is detailed at each level.
Pandava army layout:
Smallest unit is called Sena, three Senas make a Vahini, 3 Vahinis make Pratanaa, 3 Pratanaas make Dhawajini, 3 Dhwajinis make Chamu and 3 Chamus make Varuthini and 10 Varuthinis make an Akshauhini.
Sena has 9 Rathas, 9 Elephants, 27 horses and 45 Foot. (90 soldiers including charioteers)
In modern equivalent, the officers would be Lieutenant Senanayaka, Captain Vahinipati, Major Prataanartha, Colonel Dhwajapala or Ketupati, Brigadier Chamupati, Major General Varuthinirata, Lt General at Akshauhini level, Akshuahinpati.
Commanding them would be Yuthapati or General and on top would be Yuthpatipati or Modern Field Marshall.
Pandavas grouped all forces under Seven Akshauhinis.
Kaurava army layout:
Kauravas took all the soldiers from all armies and merged them together to destroy any chance of a group of like minded people leaving army together. They divided them in units under 10,000 senior sergeants or Ganas. These senior sergeants were all grandsons of Dhritrashtra.
Thus, each Patti has 55 soldiers in Kaurava lowest group.
Each Platoon has separate unit for foot soldiers alone called Patti headed by Corporal. Word Patti is the root for Platoon.
Three of these are under a Senamukha also called Gulm, who is the sergeant now.
Three of these are under the Senior Sergeant or Gana.
Kaurava army had Gana and then the Maharathis. There was no other lower officer rank described in between. Ten thousand Gana units were in Kaurava army, size of which was 49,50,000. Each nominated Gana was a Kaurava rajkumara.
Pandava army had graded ranks. Poet doesn’t describe the whole officer layout for Kauravas and unit sizes are different. Kaurava army is thus less mobile and Pandava is shown to be more mobile.
Duryodhana does inform Dhritrashtra that he has three times as many soldiers.
Now Smallest Pandava unit is Sena with 9 Rathas, 9 Elephants, 27 horses and 45 Foot. (90 soldiers including charioteers)
Smallest Kaurava Unit is also called Sena with 500 elephants, 500 ratha, each ratha has 4 soldiers and each elephant had 7 soldiers. These form the foot soldiers and cavalry as needed. There are 2000 horses of which 1000 can be attached to chariots and 1000 can act as cavalry or all 2000 attached to Rathas. Thus, A Kaurava Sena has 5500 soldiers. (Pandava unit of same name has 90 soldiers and much more smaller and mobile.)
Pandava Sena is lead by junior officer who would be familiar to his men. Kaurava smallest unit is 5500 men and headed mostly by higher royals.
Next unit is group of ten such Senas or Pratna. Each Kaurava Pratna contains 55000 soldiers.
Next Unit is called Kaurava Vahini which has 10 Pratnas and hence 550,000 soldiers.
Kaurava army is thus divided into these 11 huge Vahinis also called by Kauravas haphazardly as Sena, Dhwajini, Chamu, Varuthani or Akshauhini.
Thus these 11 groups or Vahinis has some 6 million soldiers. That count is also again stated in Bheeshma Parva as well as Udyoga Parva. Of these, about one million are non-combatants. Of the base unit where 1 ratha and 1 hathi is described with 11 soldiers, 2 are in non combat role. That makes the combatants equal to 49,50,000 which is stated again twice in Udyoga Parva plus 10,000 Senior sergeants or Ganas. And separately the Rathis.
Hence Pandavas have 7 Akshauhinis and Kauravas has 11 Vahinis or groups haphazardly called Akshauhinis. They total 18 and poet can then use term Jaya or 18 again and again all over the War Parvas reminding listener this is a Sacrifice.
When Pandavas count the Kaurava dead, they use their own terminology. Thus, Kauravas who had bloated Vahinis lost 16 lakh men on 14th day, Pandavas state Seven Akshauhinis, from Kaurava point of view, 3 Vahinis.
Extra equipment and horses
Kauravas has no problems fielding in the extra animals or men. They have extra to begin with. They had extra 2 men to take care of horses for each chariot so deaths of charioteers were not going to hurt them. They had six extra men for each elephant so each elephant Bhima kills only adds 6 more soldiers to their infantry, two of which would be archers. Kauravas, thus, had a large foot bound archer force also which is not very mobile but can be very effective in vyuha formations. That is one reason that they could absorb huge losses but also not allow Pandava rathis to run rampant through their lines (well not often anyway.).
The description in Udyoga Parva indicates that Kauravas spent their wealth like water to get extra elephants, horses and rathas. Each ratha had 100 extra bows. Kauravas would have won a battle of attrition if they managed to kill enough Pandava soldiers. Thanks to Salya, they almost did.
Officers
A Pandava Gulm or senior Sergeant has 9 rathas, 9 elephants, 27 horses and 45 men. He reported through 6 levels of officers before reaching royalty and Akshauhinipatis.
A Kaurava Gulm has 495 men under their command. So Kauravas could plug in gaps from their inflated divisions alone. A Gulm reported to a battalion commander who reported to Royalty. Pandava army has 6 levels of officers, Kauravas had two.
A Pandava Pratana or Battalion has 81 Rathas, 81 Elephants, 243 horses and 405 men. And then graded ranks going up through six levels of officers.
Kaurava battalion commanders had 5000 Rathas and 5000 elephants. Next level was Royalty Akshauhinipatis.
A Pandava Akshauhini had 21870 Rathas, 21870 elephants whereas Kauravas had 50,000 Rathas and 50,000 elephants.
Kauravas thus, had huge number but flatter organization. They had extra men but as it looks from this structure described by Sanjaya, they had same number of officers.
And one of major descriptions Sanjaya has been telling us through these seven days of battle is Pandava targeting Kaurava officers. Arjuna is especially targeting Rathi officers. We see that he killed 64 such officers on 7th day. Thus, Pandava small masses of soldiers while fighting will be rallied by 6 levels of officers and thus small units can coalesce and fight the enemy despite horrible losses in men and officers.
In Kaurava case, take out one officer and the confused mass panics and runs.
This huge count of soldiers could only be put in 11 front-line divisions indicate a very high number of reserves Or very low caliber of officers. Or inability of the quarter masters to present all troops at same time. Chinese army of 1962 campaign was like that. Literally thousands marching ahead with unarmed, poorly equipped troops following and then picking up weapons and clothes from losses already suffered to plug in the gaps. Of course they had 18 divisions to 4 Indian Brigades.
Duryodhana is a very inspiring commander who castigates Eleven of his closest officers and relations as totally unworthy of trust!! These include Vahalika, Bhurishrwas (The Field Marshall), Bheeshma, Drona, Kripa, Sanjaya, Vikarna, Satyavrata, Purumitra, Asvwathamma. The fact that seven of these are his top commanders, indicate that General staff and King are on different wavelengths throughout. The fact that Two of these are his first two Chief Commanders indicate that this huge lumpy, incoherent mass of soldiery and officers were voting against King’s wishes.
Warriors and Officers come from all over the world to be in his army and his top ten commanders are all close family and service officers. Only Salya who is also a relation is outsider in this group of eleven.
The main issue was that Duryodhana was a distrusting, envious and grasping ruler.
Extra Rathas
On second day after the Kaurava preponderance and Bheeshma Rathi skills defeated Pandavas, Dhrishtardamyuna organized the Vyuha in a special form, Kraunch or Stork. What he did was he lengthened the neck of the stork allowing for creating a trench like situation to hide his smaller army behind a wall of chariots. He thus fashioned defensive protection for his army while allowing the MahaRathis to fight Kauravas.
The Krauncha wings had 10,000 rathas, head had 10,000 rathas, back had 20,000 rathas and the long neck had the 170,000 rathas. (Pandava army with 7 akshauhini would have 150K Rathas but this number 220K shows the reserve of 70000 rathas are brought in and used to buttress the long neck like the trench lines.
And you can easily convert a 20K Ratha force to 40K by giving reins to warriors of course then you don’t have shooters which is problem solved by loading your infantry on to the Rathas. Thus, giving infantry extra protection.
This is an old tactic still relevant in modern Warfare till 1980s. NATO or American think tanks created 4 member Tank crews who on a pinch can be reduced to three men tank crews and use the extra men to crew up the reserve tanks. This would be needed when 10000 Russian tanks would cross the Vistula gap and roll across the West German plains. Both Russian and NATO practiced all maneuvers with three and four men crews for this eventuality. The second innovation which Russians did and Americans copied with M2 Bradley was to create Battle Taxis now called Armored Personnel Carriers for NATO and Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty or BMPs by WTO and India.
Dhrishtadamyun did that thousands of years back!!
Also, most likely, fresh animals can be brought in easily each day, Arjuna for example had 100 horses which he rotated through wisely. He shared these with few of his brothers and sons as well. There were 2 lakh extra horses in Pandava reserves and 60000 elephants described in Udyoga Parva. Some of the reserves would have stayed with Queen Draupadi at Upalavya.
As an aside, Jarasandha army against Krishna was 23 Akshauhinis which is almost same size as 11 Vahinis of Kauravas.
It is clear that Kauravas outraised Pandavas on troops levels by huge amount but they in the end did not have enough officers (they could trust) to put them in field properly. This is again an indication of Kaurava administration or lack of it. Furthermore, Kaurava officers were picked out and finished regularly by Pandavas so that broke continuity of operations and identification by common soldiers to follow an officer. Pandava armies rarely broke and when they did there was a Bhima, a Satyaki, a Arjuna, a Yudhishthara, a Abhimanyu to rally them. Kauravas broke and fled too often, their sheer numbers covered the inability or disinterest of their officers in rallying them.
The disaster that was Kaurava battlefield management is illustrated by the fact that Jayadratha’s body was eaten by jackals and only recognized by his wives by his jewels. That was the royal son-in-law, what would have happened to just facebook friends of Duryodhana.
Yes, Kauravas had greater number of Maharathis, Atirathis and crème de crème from round the country and they ended up just providing rich battlefield target environment for Pandava warriors and kept their painters/leather workers busy if they were wont to put notches on the belts for Pandava Maharathis.
One of my friends asked me about Arjuna destroying seven Akshaunis on 14th day to kill Jayadrath.I would like to repost our former article on Akshaunis.
TOTAL THREE MENTIONS IN MAHABHARAT OF ARJUNA DESTROYING SEVEN AKSHAUNIS ON 14TH DAY-
>> FIRST TIME -
SAUTI TELLING THE RISHI'S ABOUT ARJUNA DESTROYING 7 AKSHAUNI'S ON 14TH DAY -
Narrative:
then after the death of Abhimanyu, the destruction by Arjuna, in battle of seven Akshauhinis of troops and then of Jayadratha;
www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m01/m01003.htm
BORI - Adi Parva,Chapter 2,Sloka 163
हते ऽभिमन्यौ करुद्धेन यत्र पार्थेन संयुगे
अक्षौहिणीः सप्त हत्वा हतॊ राजा जयद्रथः
(Sauti is also a Narrator of Mahabharat,like Vaisampayna)
>> SECOND TIME -
DURYODHAN LAMENTING ABOUT HIS 7 AKSHAUNIS DESTROYED BY ARJUNA ON 14TH DAY -
Narrative:
(Duryodhan To Drona)
Another disciple of thine, viz., the invincible Savyasachin, having slain seven. Akshauhinis of troops hath despatched king Jayadratha to Yama's abode.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07146.htm
BORI - Drona Parva,Chapter 125,Sloka 12
अपरािपधषःिशससािचना।
अौिहणीःसहाहतोराजाजयथः॥
>> THIRD TIME -
SANJAY TELLS DHRITRASHTRA THAT TOTAL EIGHT AKSHAUNIS OF ARMY HAS BEEN DESTROYED THAT DAY(7 BY ARJUNA,ONE BY OTHERS)-
Narrative:
Even thus, O king, was thy son-in-law, the ruler of the Sindhus, having caused eight Akshauhinis to be slaughtered, himself slain by Partha of inconceivable energy.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07142.htm
SO THREE PEOPLE CAN'T BE WRONG,IN WHICH ONE IS A NARRATOR OF EPIC,SECOND IS WAR CORRESPONDENT AND THIRD IS A WARRIOR PRESENT ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
------------------------------------------
Like we told earlier,A Kaurava Akshauni has a greater head count than a Pandava Akshauni,so Killing 7 Akshauni on a single day is possible.The war correspondents and narrators used the standard measure while poets used 7+11 = 18 measure,because 18 is a very special number.Like number of Parvas in Mahabharat = 18,number of chapters in Bhagwad Geeta = 18 and many many more.So whenever Pandava and Kaurava Akshaunis were named together, usually the poets used 11 + 7 measure,while in war reports the standard measure of Akshaunis were used.(218k)
WHY EIGHTEEN ? CHECK OUT THIS POST TO KNOW THE SPECIALITY OF 18 IN SANSKRIT- https://www.facebook.com/MahabharatKiGalatiyan/posts/574189036027316
1 Kaurava Akshauni had almost 500k resources.
1 Pandava Akshauni had almost 218k resources.
AKSHAUNIS CALCULATION -
(CREDITS PBS SIR.THANKS TO HIM I WAS ABLE TO RESOLVE THIS MYSTERY OF 7 AKSHAUNI KILLS BY ARJUNA ON 14TH DAY)
What is Akshauhini?
What most people don’t realize is that first few chapters of Mahabharata start with a section written by Parasurama. He describes the size of an Akshauhini as 21870 Rathas, 21870 elephant warriors, 65610 Horses and 109350 foot soldiers. This is in ratio of 1:1:3:5.
Smallest unit is called Sena, three Senas make a Vahini, 3 Vahinis make Pratanaa, 3 Pratanaas make Dhawajini, 3 Dhwajinis make Chamu and 3 Chamus make Varuthini and 10 Varuthinis make an Akshauhini.
In modern terms, Sena is a Platoon. Vahini is a company, Pratanaa is a Battalion, Dhwajini is a Regiment, Chamu is a Division, Varuthini is Corps and Akshuahini is an Army.
Number of soldiers for 1 akshauhini is 2,18,700 aka 18 Akshauhinis are 39,36,600. Pandavas would be 15 lakhs and Kauravas 24 lakhs based on 7 and 11 akshuahinis.
The real numbers were slightly more: Pargiter and others came up with similar slokas in Puranas identifying Pandava numbers as 16 lakhs and change.
Udyoga Parva tells us that Kaurava numbers are 10,000 senior sergeants, 49,50,000 men and the Rathis.
Notice how Poet mentions the Senior sergeants and not higher officer while describing Kaurava army but Pandava army is detailed at each level.
Pandava army layout:
Smallest unit is called Sena, three Senas make a Vahini, 3 Vahinis make Pratanaa, 3 Pratanaas make Dhawajini, 3 Dhwajinis make Chamu and 3 Chamus make Varuthini and 10 Varuthinis make an Akshauhini.
Sena has 9 Rathas, 9 Elephants, 27 horses and 45 Foot. (90 soldiers including charioteers)
In modern equivalent, the officers would be Lieutenant Senanayaka, Captain Vahinipati, Major Prataanartha, Colonel Dhwajapala or Ketupati, Brigadier Chamupati, Major General Varuthinirata, Lt General at Akshauhini level, Akshuahinpati.
Commanding them would be Yuthapati or General and on top would be Yuthpatipati or Modern Field Marshall.
Pandavas grouped all forces under Seven Akshauhinis.
Kaurava army layout:
Kauravas took all the soldiers from all armies and merged them together to destroy any chance of a group of like minded people leaving army together. They divided them in units under 10,000 senior sergeants or Ganas. These senior sergeants were all grandsons of Dhritrashtra.
Thus, each Patti has 55 soldiers in Kaurava lowest group.
Each Platoon has separate unit for foot soldiers alone called Patti headed by Corporal. Word Patti is the root for Platoon.
Three of these are under a Senamukha also called Gulm, who is the sergeant now.
Three of these are under the Senior Sergeant or Gana.
Kaurava army had Gana and then the Maharathis. There was no other lower officer rank described in between. Ten thousand Gana units were in Kaurava army, size of which was 49,50,000. Each nominated Gana was a Kaurava rajkumara.
Pandava army had graded ranks. Poet doesn’t describe the whole officer layout for Kauravas and unit sizes are different. Kaurava army is thus less mobile and Pandava is shown to be more mobile.
Duryodhana does inform Dhritrashtra that he has three times as many soldiers.
Now Smallest Pandava unit is Sena with 9 Rathas, 9 Elephants, 27 horses and 45 Foot. (90 soldiers including charioteers)
Smallest Kaurava Unit is also called Sena with 500 elephants, 500 ratha, each ratha has 4 soldiers and each elephant had 7 soldiers. These form the foot soldiers and cavalry as needed. There are 2000 horses of which 1000 can be attached to chariots and 1000 can act as cavalry or all 2000 attached to Rathas. Thus, A Kaurava Sena has 5500 soldiers. (Pandava unit of same name has 90 soldiers and much more smaller and mobile.)
Pandava Sena is lead by junior officer who would be familiar to his men. Kaurava smallest unit is 5500 men and headed mostly by higher royals.
Next unit is group of ten such Senas or Pratna. Each Kaurava Pratna contains 55000 soldiers.
Next Unit is called Kaurava Vahini which has 10 Pratnas and hence 550,000 soldiers.
Kaurava army is thus divided into these 11 huge Vahinis also called by Kauravas haphazardly as Sena, Dhwajini, Chamu, Varuthani or Akshauhini.
Thus these 11 groups or Vahinis has some 6 million soldiers. That count is also again stated in Bheeshma Parva as well as Udyoga Parva. Of these, about one million are non-combatants. Of the base unit where 1 ratha and 1 hathi is described with 11 soldiers, 2 are in non combat role. That makes the combatants equal to 49,50,000 which is stated again twice in Udyoga Parva plus 10,000 Senior sergeants or Ganas. And separately the Rathis.
Hence Pandavas have 7 Akshauhinis and Kauravas has 11 Vahinis or groups haphazardly called Akshauhinis. They total 18 and poet can then use term Jaya or 18 again and again all over the War Parvas reminding listener this is a Sacrifice.
When Pandavas count the Kaurava dead, they use their own terminology. Thus, Kauravas who had bloated Vahinis lost 16 lakh men on 14th day, Pandavas state Seven Akshauhinis, from Kaurava point of view, 3 Vahinis.
Extra equipment and horses
Kauravas has no problems fielding in the extra animals or men. They have extra to begin with. They had extra 2 men to take care of horses for each chariot so deaths of charioteers were not going to hurt them. They had six extra men for each elephant so each elephant Bhima kills only adds 6 more soldiers to their infantry, two of which would be archers. Kauravas, thus, had a large foot bound archer force also which is not very mobile but can be very effective in vyuha formations. That is one reason that they could absorb huge losses but also not allow Pandava rathis to run rampant through their lines (well not often anyway.).
The description in Udyoga Parva indicates that Kauravas spent their wealth like water to get extra elephants, horses and rathas. Each ratha had 100 extra bows. Kauravas would have won a battle of attrition if they managed to kill enough Pandava soldiers. Thanks to Salya, they almost did.
Officers
A Pandava Gulm or senior Sergeant has 9 rathas, 9 elephants, 27 horses and 45 men. He reported through 6 levels of officers before reaching royalty and Akshauhinipatis.
A Kaurava Gulm has 495 men under their command. So Kauravas could plug in gaps from their inflated divisions alone. A Gulm reported to a battalion commander who reported to Royalty. Pandava army has 6 levels of officers, Kauravas had two.
A Pandava Pratana or Battalion has 81 Rathas, 81 Elephants, 243 horses and 405 men. And then graded ranks going up through six levels of officers.
Kaurava battalion commanders had 5000 Rathas and 5000 elephants. Next level was Royalty Akshauhinipatis.
A Pandava Akshauhini had 21870 Rathas, 21870 elephants whereas Kauravas had 50,000 Rathas and 50,000 elephants.
Kauravas thus, had huge number but flatter organization. They had extra men but as it looks from this structure described by Sanjaya, they had same number of officers.
And one of major descriptions Sanjaya has been telling us through these seven days of battle is Pandava targeting Kaurava officers. Arjuna is especially targeting Rathi officers. We see that he killed 64 such officers on 7th day. Thus, Pandava small masses of soldiers while fighting will be rallied by 6 levels of officers and thus small units can coalesce and fight the enemy despite horrible losses in men and officers.
In Kaurava case, take out one officer and the confused mass panics and runs.
This huge count of soldiers could only be put in 11 front-line divisions indicate a very high number of reserves Or very low caliber of officers. Or inability of the quarter masters to present all troops at same time. Chinese army of 1962 campaign was like that. Literally thousands marching ahead with unarmed, poorly equipped troops following and then picking up weapons and clothes from losses already suffered to plug in the gaps. Of course they had 18 divisions to 4 Indian Brigades.
Duryodhana is a very inspiring commander who castigates Eleven of his closest officers and relations as totally unworthy of trust!! These include Vahalika, Bhurishrwas (The Field Marshall), Bheeshma, Drona, Kripa, Sanjaya, Vikarna, Satyavrata, Purumitra, Asvwathamma. The fact that seven of these are his top commanders, indicate that General staff and King are on different wavelengths throughout. The fact that Two of these are his first two Chief Commanders indicate that this huge lumpy, incoherent mass of soldiery and officers were voting against King’s wishes.
Warriors and Officers come from all over the world to be in his army and his top ten commanders are all close family and service officers. Only Salya who is also a relation is outsider in this group of eleven.
The main issue was that Duryodhana was a distrusting, envious and grasping ruler.
Extra Rathas
On second day after the Kaurava preponderance and Bheeshma Rathi skills defeated Pandavas, Dhrishtardamyuna organized the Vyuha in a special form, Kraunch or Stork. What he did was he lengthened the neck of the stork allowing for creating a trench like situation to hide his smaller army behind a wall of chariots. He thus fashioned defensive protection for his army while allowing the MahaRathis to fight Kauravas.
The Krauncha wings had 10,000 rathas, head had 10,000 rathas, back had 20,000 rathas and the long neck had the 170,000 rathas. (Pandava army with 7 akshauhini would have 150K Rathas but this number 220K shows the reserve of 70000 rathas are brought in and used to buttress the long neck like the trench lines.
And you can easily convert a 20K Ratha force to 40K by giving reins to warriors of course then you don’t have shooters which is problem solved by loading your infantry on to the Rathas. Thus, giving infantry extra protection.
This is an old tactic still relevant in modern Warfare till 1980s. NATO or American think tanks created 4 member Tank crews who on a pinch can be reduced to three men tank crews and use the extra men to crew up the reserve tanks. This would be needed when 10000 Russian tanks would cross the Vistula gap and roll across the West German plains. Both Russian and NATO practiced all maneuvers with three and four men crews for this eventuality. The second innovation which Russians did and Americans copied with M2 Bradley was to create Battle Taxis now called Armored Personnel Carriers for NATO and Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty or BMPs by WTO and India.
Dhrishtadamyun did that thousands of years back!!
Also, most likely, fresh animals can be brought in easily each day, Arjuna for example had 100 horses which he rotated through wisely. He shared these with few of his brothers and sons as well. There were 2 lakh extra horses in Pandava reserves and 60000 elephants described in Udyoga Parva. Some of the reserves would have stayed with Queen Draupadi at Upalavya.
As an aside, Jarasandha army against Krishna was 23 Akshauhinis which is almost same size as 11 Vahinis of Kauravas.
It is clear that Kauravas outraised Pandavas on troops levels by huge amount but they in the end did not have enough officers (they could trust) to put them in field properly. This is again an indication of Kaurava administration or lack of it. Furthermore, Kaurava officers were picked out and finished regularly by Pandavas so that broke continuity of operations and identification by common soldiers to follow an officer. Pandava armies rarely broke and when they did there was a Bhima, a Satyaki, a Arjuna, a Yudhishthara, a Abhimanyu to rally them. Kauravas broke and fled too often, their sheer numbers covered the inability or disinterest of their officers in rallying them.
The disaster that was Kaurava battlefield management is illustrated by the fact that Jayadratha’s body was eaten by jackals and only recognized by his wives by his jewels. That was the royal son-in-law, what would have happened to just facebook friends of Duryodhana.
Yes, Kauravas had greater number of Maharathis, Atirathis and crème de crème from round the country and they ended up just providing rich battlefield target environment for Pandava warriors and kept their painters/leather workers busy if they were wont to put notches on the belts for Pandava Maharathis.
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