The great battle that took place at Kurukshetra was the grand finale of the Mahabharata. A large number of kings took part in it. There was great destruction and almost all of them were killed. Only 10 people survived the war—three people on the Kaurava side and seven on the Pandava side. So how many people died in the war? This question was asked by Dhritarashtra. Yudhishthira replied, ‘One billion, twenty thousand and sixty-six crores.’ The number seems improbably large, so let us try to do our own calculation.
Let us first understand the military formations of the time. The basic fighting unit of an army was a patti, which comprised one chariot, one elephant, five footsoldiers and three horses. Three pattis were known as a senamukha and three senamukhas made up a gulma. Three gulmas were named a gana and three ganas a vahini. Three vahinis collectively formed a pritana. Three pritanas made a chamu, three chamus an anikini and, finally, 10 times an anikini was known as an akshauhini. The strength of an akshauhini was 21,870 chariots, and the same number of elephants, 1,09,350 footsoldiers and 65,610 horses.
The Kaurava army had 11 akshauhinis contributed by kings like Bhagadatta (Pragjyotishpura), Shalya (Madra), Bhurishravas (Bahlika), Jayadratha (Sindhu), Sudakshina (Kamboja) and Susharma (Trigarta), Vinda and Anuvinda (princes from Avanti), Shakuni (prince of Gandhara), Kritavarma (head of Sri Krishna’s Narayani Sena), Kalinga army, and finally Kuru army. So, they must have had 2,40,570 chariots and a similar number of elephants. The number of footsoldiers would have been 12,02,850 while the number of horses would be 7,21,710. Assuming each chariot, elephant and horse was ridden by one warrior, the total number of warriors on the Kaurava side comes out to 24,05,700. This excludes any non-combatants like charioteers or elephant mahouts.
The Pandava army had seven akshauhinis contributed by Kuntibhoja (king of the Yadava Kunti kingdom), Dhrishtaketu (king of the Yadava Chedi clan), Sahadeva (Jarasandha’s son from Magadha), Virata (the king of Matsya), Malayadhwaja (Pandya king), Panchala king Drupada with his sons, and Ghatotkacha (son of Bhima). A calculation for the Pandava army shows the number of chariots and elephants to be 1,53,090 each.
The number of footsoldiers would be 7,65,450, while the number of horses would be 4,59,270. The total number of Pandava warriors comes to 15,30,900. The total number of warriors comes out to be 39,36,600, of which all except 10 died. Though not as large as the number given by Yudhishthira, this is still a huge toll.