I was just relaxing after coming from the office, my mom served me with a cup of hot coffee and switched on the TV in an hurry as her serial are going to start (same story in many of our Indian houses).
Udaya TV is telecasting one mythological serial called “Seethe” it’s the story of goddess Seethe. I am watching the episode where sage Brahmarshi Vishvamitra is asking King Dasharatha to send his son Rama to protect Yajna from two asuras Subahu and Maricha. Dasharatha replied that “Rama is still not matured enough to fight against these deadly asuras, so if you wish I can protect your yajna as I am having one Akshauhini force”.
Akshauhini is the word which I always come across in many historical epics, so I was very much eager to know how big will be one Akshauhini as king Dasharatha is very proud to say he has one. When I asked my mom she told me that it’s very big in size consists of chariots, elephants, horse riders, infantry etc but she doesn’t remember the exact numbers. Next day I started my search on Google to find out the answer, I really amazed to see so many articles with clear cut numbers. Here I am giving some extract of my search, hope useful for one interested in history.
An Akshauhini is a unit of measurement used in ancient India to calculate the fighting force. It consisted of 21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants, 65,610 horse-mounted warriors and 109,350 infantry a total of 2,18,700 items. In order to manage this huge force efficiently items further subdivided into smaller units with one person as a commander per unit.
The atomic part in Akshauhini is called Pathi consist of 1 Chariot, 1 Elephant, 3 Horses with soldiers and 5 infantry soldiers as show in below picture and it is commanded by Pathipal.
The next layers are just the multiple of this Pathi as shown in the below figure.
Glimps of Akshauhini in Mahabharata:
As we all know Kurushetra was the war fought by Pandavas against Kauravas in order to get the crown of Hastinapur. Pandavas own 7 Akshauhini where as Kauravas own 11 akshouhini a total of 18 akshauhini force was used in Kurshetra war.
As per the about information we will have a small calculation on how big will 18 akshauhini be.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshauhini
Note:
Images used in this blog are taken from other sites this blog does not have any rights on these images
something interesting stuff to know!
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