Metaheuristic algorithms are generally used to solve complex problems in various fields including engineering, medicine, and other sciences. Many metaheuristic algorithms are already proposed and developed for many applications. Many algorithms involved either attack or defense strategies which inspired by behaviors of various natural phenomena of any evolution based process. However, still new methods need to be developed to obtain best results under various conditions. A new optimization method called “Padmavyuha Optimization Algorithm (POA)” is developed in this paper which inspired by war strategy used in Mahabharata to catch enemy easily. The Padmavyuha is an intelligent military formation where the army takes tactical steps in accordance with the orders of the strategist who has established the strategy. This complete process is involved selection, sequence arrangements, attack, defense, offensive, counter attack, strategy, and counter strategy including time bound. Due to these features, the proposed POA can be applied to solve many problems with accurate performance. The POA is tested with ten benchmark functions and compared with twelve new optimization algorithms in this paper. A detailed mathematical analysis involved in POA also presented in this paper.