After eighteen days the Kaurava host was destroyed and Yudhishthira was crowned at Hastinapura.
01Eighteen days
Maharshi Vyasa’s Mahabharata gives the war four books of its own, named for the four Kaurava commanders. Bhishma led for ten days until he lay on the bed of arrows. Drona led for five, Karna for two, Shalya for the last. Eighteen akshauhinis took the field, seven for the Pandavas and eleven for Duryodhana. Abhimanyu fell in the chakravyuha on the thirteenth day. On the eighteenth Bhima broke Duryodhana’s thigh at the lake Dvaipayana. Sanjaya, given divine sight by Vyasa, told the whole of it to the blind king Dhritarashtra.
02The date tradition keeps
By the traditional reckoning Shri Krishna left the world in 3102 BCE, the day Kali Yuga began, and Yudhishthira had ruled thirty-six years after the war. That puts the war at about 3138 BCE. Modern scholars have proposed other dates from astronomy and archaeology; none has displaced the traditional one in Hindu practice. Pilgrims still go to Jyotisar near Thanesar, where the Gita is said to have been spoken, and the Kurukshetra tanks fill with bathers at solar eclipses.
The war closed the Dvapara Yuga, and the Gita spoken on its field became the most read scripture of Sanatan Dharma.
