Bhishma

The tenth evening at Kurukshetra ended with an old man falling off a chariot and never reaching the ground. So many arrows stood out of Bhishma’s body that they held him clear of the churned earth, and the first thing he complained about was his head, which hung back off the edge of that bed at an angle no man could sleep at. Kings came running with pillows of fine soft cloth. He laughed at them, told them such things were not a hero’s bed, and asked Arjuna, the man who had just shot him to pieces, for something a warrior could use. Arjuna fitted three shafts to Gandiva and drove them into the ground under the old man’s skull. Bhishma said that was the only bedding he would accept, and that if his grandson had handed him a cushion instead he would have cursed him for it.

He had started out as a god, and a badly behaved one. On a mountain in a wood where every season flowered at once, the sage Apava, who is Vasishtha, kept a cow called Nandini who granted whatever was asked of her. The eight Vasus came walking through with their wives. One of those wives saw the animal, noticed the full udders and the fine tail, and wanted her milk for a mortal friend, a princess named Jitavati. Her husband Dyu, who is the old sky, stole the cow to please her, and his brothers helped. Vasishtha came home at dusk with an armful of fruit, found the pasture empty, and cursed all eight to be born as men. The seven who only assisted were let off within a year of birth. Dyu, who did the stealing, was sentenced to a long human life, no children, and no company of women.

Ganga married the Bharata king Shantanu on one condition, that he never question anything she did. She bore him eight sons and carried each newborn straight to the river. Seven went into the water and did not come up. Shantanu held his tongue for seven years because he could not bear to lose her, and broke at the eighth, and so the eighth child lived and the marriage ended in the same breath. Ganga took the boy away to raise. Years later Shantanu, hunting a wounded deer along the bank, noticed the Ganges running strangely shallow and found a young man standing in the riverbed who had dammed the whole flow with arrows. That was his son. The father did not recognise him. The son recognised the father, and vanished rather than say so.

The vow came out of an old man’s loneliness. Shantanu wanted a fisherman’s daughter, Satyavati, and the fisherman wanted a guarantee that her sons and no others would inherit. Devavrata went to the fisherman’s court himself with a company of grey-haired chiefs and gave up the throne in front of all of them. The fisherman, still calculating, pointed out that a prince’s children might be less scrupulous than the prince. So Devavrata swore the second half, celibacy for life, and said that if he died sonless he would take his chances with heaven. Flowers came down out of the sky and voices called him Bhishma, the terrible one, which is applause that costs the giver nothing. His father gave him something heavier. Death would never come for him until he sent for it.

He spent that unspendable life fetching wives for other men. At Kashi three princesses were choosing husbands, and Bhishma drove in on one chariot, announced to the assembled kings that he was taking all three by force and invited them to stop him, scattered them, and delivered the sisters to his half-brother. The eldest, Amba, then told him quietly that she had already given her heart to the ruler of the Salwas, and asked a man famous for righteousness to behave like one. He let her go. Salwa would not have her back. Nobody would.

What she did next took twelve years. She fasted until she was dry as a post, stood a whole year in the Yamuna, lived on one fallen leaf, and went from hermitage to hermitage collecting the merit she meant to spend on one death. She got Parashurama to fight her case, and Bhishma and his own weapons master went at each other until the ancestors of both walked onto the field and made them stop, with Parashurama admitting there was no warrior on earth to match him. That left her nothing but the gods. Shiva came to her among the sages and promised she would kill Bhishma herself, remember everything, be born into Drupada’s house, and become a man. She built a pyre on the bank of the Yamuna, lit it, and walked into it saying why.

At Kurukshetra she came back as Shikhandin and stood in the front of Arjuna’s chariot, and Bhishma, who had privately decided that his hour had arrived, would not shoot at someone the Creator had first made a woman. He fought everything else. He killed ten thousand men on the last of his ten days as commander. Bleeding from a body with no space on it two fingers wide that was not pierced, he kept turning to Dussasana and correcting the record: these arrows cutting through the mail like winter cold going into cattle, these are not Shikhandin’s, no one but Arjuna shoots like that.

His gifts were all inherited and all enormous. Ganga had him taught the Vedas by Vasishtha, the statecraft known to Brihaspati, everything Ushanas knew, and every weapon Parashurama had, including the Praswapa that puts an army to sleep, which he aimed at his own teacher and then withdrew when the sky told him to. Nothing in three worlds could kill him against his will.

His limits were the ones he built. He could not father a child, could not take the crown, could not turn his back on a fight or be wounded from behind, and could not raise a hand against anyone he read as female, which is the gap Amba spent a lifetime becoming. Worst of all he was tied to the throne rather than to the person on it, so the dynasty he had gutted himself to preserve could order him to fight his own grandsons and he had no answer to that. On the field he refused the surgeons, told Duryodhana to pay them and send them away, asked for a ditch to be dug around him so he could worship the sun, and lay there through the dark half of the year until it turned north. He used the months to teach Yudhishthira how to be a king.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Bhishma in the Mahabharata?

Bhishma is the grand-uncle and guardian of both the Pandavas and the Kauravas, born Devavrata to King Shantanu and the goddess Ganga. He renounced the Kuru throne and swore lifelong celibacy so his father could marry Satyavati, and he served the kingdom for four generations. He commanded the Kaurava army for the first ten days of the Kurukshetra war.

Why could Bhishma not be killed?

Shantanu granted his son two boons after the vow: that he could not be slain in battle, and that his death would wait on his own command. Bhishma states both of these himself on the tenth day of the war. He was brought down only after he privately decided the hour had come.

Why did Bhishma refuse to fight Shikhandi?

Shikhandin was born a daughter of King Drupada and became a man later, and Bhishma held that he could not shoot at someone the Creator had first made a woman. Arjuna used this, placing Shikhandin in front of his own chariot so that Bhishma would not return fire. Bhishma pointed out to Dussasana that the arrows actually killing him were Arjuna’s.

What is Bhishma’s connection to Amba?

Bhishma abducted Amba and her two sisters from a bride-choosing at Kashi for his half-brother Vichitravirya, then released her when she said she loved the ruler of the Salwas, who then rejected her. Amba spent twelve years in austerities to arrange his death, obtained a promise from Shiva, and burned herself on the bank of the Yamuna. She was reborn in Drupada’s house as Shikhandin.

Why did Bhishma wait to die?

He fell while the sun was still in its southern course and refused to leave his body until it turned north. He lay on the bed of arrows through that interval, dismissing the surgeons and asking for a ditch to be dug around him so he could worship the sun. He spent the time instructing Yudhishthira in kingship, and the day is still observed as Bhishma Ashtami.

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