Bhīshma Svargārohaṇa

This account tells the death of Bhīshma Pitāmaha on his bed of arrows at Kurukshetra. It is the last sub-parva of the Anuśāsana Parva of the Mahābhārata, called the Bhīshma Svargārohaṇa Parva.

Bhīshma had held his death back by icchā-mṛtyu (death at will) for fifty-eight nights, waiting for the sun’s turn to the north, Uttarāyaṇa. Yudhishṭhira, newly crowned at Hastināpura, came back to Kurukshetra with the whole Kuru household and Kṛshṇa. Bhīshma spoke to Dhṛtarāshṭra and to Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa, asked Kṛshṇa’s leave to give up his body, and then drew his prāṇa up through the dhāraṇā-sthānas (the seats of concentration, the cakras), one by one. As he did so the arrow-shafts fell out of his body. His prāṇa burst through the crown of his head and rose as a great meteor-light. The parva closes with the funeral, and with the lament of Gaṅgā Devī, who rose from her waters to mourn her son. Kṛshṇa and Vyāsa comforted her, and Kṛshṇa said that it was Arjuna, not Śikhaṇḍī, whose arrows struck Bhīshma down.

Bhīshmānujñā: leave to go to Hastināpura (Chapter 166)

For many days Yudhishṭhira had sat at Kurukshetra by the śara-talpa (bed of arrows) of his grandsire. He had received from him all the teaching that fills the Śānti Parva and the Anuśāsana Parva: rājadharma (the duty of kings), mokshadharma, and dānadharma. In the chapters just before this one Bhīshma had given the Sāvitrī-mantra, the glory of brāhmaṇas, the Pavana-Arjuna Saṃvāda, the Viśvarūpa of Kṛshṇa, the Durvāsa episode, the praise of Śiva, and the way to know dharma. Last came the Vaṃśānukīrtanam, the great protecting litany of devas, ṛshis and kings. It ends at Bhīshma’s own nearest ancestors, at the very door of his death.

When Yudhishṭhira’s questions were finished and his doubts were settled, the whole assembly at Kurukshetra fell silent for a muhūrta. The text says they were as still and wordless as a painted picture. Then Vyāsa, the son of Satyavatī, thought for a short while and spoke to Bhīshma. Yudhishṭhira and his brothers and their allies had by now settled back into ordinary life. It was time, Vyāsa said, for Bhīshma to give the king leave to return to his city and take up the burden of rule.

Bhīshma gave leave at once and spoke to Yudhishṭhira like a tender father. He told him to enter Hastināpura and let the grief in his heart grow quiet. He told him to perform great yajñas, full of generous anna-dāna (gifts of food) and rich dakshiṇās (priests’ fees), with the same śraddhā (faith) and self-mastery as King Yayāti once had. He told him to keep the kshatriya-dharma he was born to, and to satisfy both devas and pitṛs (the ancestors). He told him to please his subjects and every rank of royal officer, and to reward his allies and friends as they deserved:

“So that friends and kinsmen may cling to you, as birds cling to a fruit-laden tree at a crossroads.”

Bhīshma asked for one thing only in return. Yudhishṭhira must come back to him when the sun turned toward Uttarāyaṇa.

Yudhishṭhira agreed, bowed to his grandsire, and set out for Hastināpura. Dhṛtarāshṭra and the devoted Gāndhārī walked in front, his brothers were beside him, and Keśava (Kṛshṇa) went with him, along with the whole company of priests, ministers and townspeople. With Bhīshma’s blessing given and the king’s departure told, the text ends the Anuśāsana Parva proper with its colophon, and at once opens a new last sub-parva, the Bhīshma Svargārohaṇa Parva.

The return to Kurukshetra (Chapter 167)

Yudhishṭhira entered Hastināpura. He honoured his tired subjects and townspeople with gifts and sent each of them home. He comforted the war-widows with generous dāna (gifts) and settled every officer of state in his post. Then he was formally consecrated (paṭṭābhisheka) as king, and he took the blessings of the brāhmaṇas, men of great learning and virtue. For fifty nights the newly crowned Dharmarāja stayed in his capital, and through every one of those nights he kept in mind the hour his grandsire had named.

When he saw the sun begin its turn to the north, the coming of Uttarāyaṇa, he knew the time had come. He left Hastināpura at once with the ṛtvijas (the officiating priests). He carried ghee, garlands, sandal-paste, silks, agaru and other sweet-smelling woods, and the finest gems and garlands for Bhīshma’s saṃskāra (funeral rite). Dhṛtarāshṭra, the glorious Gāndhārī and his mother Kuntī went before him, and his brothers walked at his side. Janārdana (Kṛshṇa) himself, Vidura, Yuyutsu and Sātyaki went with the party. Hymn-singers (stotra-pāṭhakas) sang praises. The whole company followed behind Bhīshma’s sacred fires, like the retinue of Devendra, and so they left the city and came at last to Kurukshetra.

There the king found the field already full. Vyāsa, the son of Parāśara, Nārada and Asita Devala sat beside Bhīshma. The kings of many lands who had lived through the war stood guarding him on every side. Bhīshma still lay on his vīra-śayana (hero’s bed), the bed of arrows, just as he had lain since the tenth day of the war.

Yudhishṭhira got down from his chariot with his brothers and bowed to his grandsire, to Vyāsa and to the brāhmaṇas, and they returned his greeting. Then he stood before the arrow-bed with his brothers and the priests and spoke to the still form of the son of the river:

“Rāja! Jāhnavī-tanaya! I am Yudhishṭhira. My salutations to you. Mahābāhu! Do you hear me? Speak, and tell me what I am to do. I have taken up your fires and come at the hour you named. I have brought ācāryas and brāhmaṇas; the ṛtvijas have come, and my brothers; your own son, the great King Dhṛtarāshṭra, has come with all his kin; the mighty Vāsudeva has come. All the kings of the Kuru-jāṅgala who survived the war have come, and stand before you. Look upon them. Purushottama, open your eyes. Everything you told me to do, I have now done.”

Bhīshma wakes and counts the time

Hearing this, Gaṅgā’s son opened his eyes and looked on the gathered kin of the Bharata line. Then, in a voice like thunder rolling up from the depths, and with a strength of speech that startled the whole assembly, Bhīshma took Yudhishṭhira’s broad arm and spoke the words that suited the hour:

“Nāyanā! Kuntī-tanaya! Yudhishṭhira! You have come with all your own. Bhagavān Divākara of a thousand rays has turned to the north.”

“I came to this bed of arrows, and today fifty-eight nights have passed. Yet with these sharp and deeply driven shafts in my flesh, it has felt to me like a hundred years. Yudhishṭhira, the gentle month of Māgha has come, and three quarters of the śukla-paksha (the bright fortnight) still remain.”

Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary fixes this as the Ashṭamī tithi of Māgha śukla-paksha, the eighth day of the bright fortnight.

To Dhṛtarāshṭra: do not grieve for your sons

Bhīshma turned next to Dhṛtarāshṭra and spoke words fitting the moment. He told the blind king that he already knew every dharma, had settled every doubt through the śāstras, and had served many learned brāhmaṇas with true śraddhā. He told him that he carried the Vedas and every branch of the dharma-śāstra in his heart, with nothing left out. Bhīshma said:

“Mahātmā, born in the line of the Kuru-cakravartins, you must not grieve. What had to happen has happened. From Kṛshṇa Dvaipāyana himself you have heard even the deva-rahasya, the secret counsel of the devas.”

Bhīshma then declared with full authority that Pāṇḍu’s sons were Dhṛtarāshṭra’s own true sons by dharma, devoted to serving the guru and set firm in dharma. He praised Yudhishṭhira in particular as pure of mind, obedient to Dhṛtarāshṭra’s own word, deeply compassionate, and wholly devoted to his elders. Of Dhṛtarāshṭra’s own hundred sons he spoke plainly and without softening. They were dushṭa-buddhi (evil-minded), overcome by krodha (anger) and lobha (greed), their minds ruined by īrshyā (envy) and evil in conduct. “Do not grieve for them,” he said.

To Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa: the request for leave

After speaking to Dhṛtarāshṭra, Bhīshma turned to the mighty-armed Vāsudeva and offered him a hymn of address before making his last request:

“Devadevesa! Receiver of the salutations of suras and asuras! Trivikrama! Bearer of shaṅkha, cakra and gadā! Salutations to you. You are Vāsudeva, the Hiraṇmaya Purusha, the birthplace of all creation, the Virāṭ-svarūpa, the jīva dwelling within all beings, the sanātana Paramātman. Puṇḍarīkāksha! Purushottama! Vaikuṇṭha! May you hold me always in your mind.”

Bhīshma then placed the Pāṇḍavas in Kṛshṇa’s eternal keeping:

“These Pāṇḍavas are always to be protected by you; you alone are their final refuge.”

He recalled, with something between grief and vindication, that he had told the “evil-minded, witless” Duryodhana this very thing again and again, and Duryodhana would not listen:

“Wherever Kṛshṇa is, there dharma is; wherever dharma is, there victory is. This is the season for the two of you to make peace, taking refuge in the tīrtha named Vāsudeva.”

But the fool had heeded not one word, and had destroyed the whole earth and himself with it.

Bhīshma then declared that he knew Kṛshṇa to be none other than the purāṇa-ṛshi Nārāyaṇa himself, who together with Nara had lived for ages at Badarikāśrama. He had learned this from Nārada and from the great tapasvin Vyāsa, who had told him that Nara and Nārāyaṇa had taken birth among men. With that recognition offered, Bhīshma made his formal request:

“Kṛshṇā! Grant me your leave. I will now give up this body. Having obtained your permission, I shall go to the highest goal.”

Vāsudeva answered at once:

“Bhīshma! I grant you leave. Rāja, take up what you have earned. Mahādyuti! In this world there is not the smallest pāpa (sin) on you. You have shown supreme devotion to your father; you are another Mārkaṇḍeya. Mṛtyu (Death) itself therefore stands bowed before you, waiting like a servant at your command.”

This exchange is the formal telling of the icchā-mṛtyu boon that Śāntanu gave his son when Bhīshma took his great vow, the Bhīshma-pratigñā.

Last words to all: truth, restraint, compassion, dharma

With Kṛshṇa’s leave given, Bhīshma spoke his last words to the whole company, the Pāṇḍavas, Dhṛtarāshṭra and all his kin:

“I now wish to give up my prāṇas. Grant me leave. Be steadfast in satya (truth). Satya alone is the highest strength.”

He told them all to keep their minds always under restraint and to grow a heart of dayā (compassion). He told them to be brahmaṇya (devoted to brāhmaṇas), dharma-śīla (of righteous conduct) and steady in tapas. Then he embraced each of his kin tightly in turn. The wise Bhīshma spoke once more to Yudhishṭhira alone:

“Rāja, brāhmaṇas, the discerning and wise, ācāryas and ṛtvijas are, for you, always to be honoured.”

The departure: withdrawal through the cakras (Chapter 168)

Having spoken to everyone there, Bhīshma, greatest of the Bharata line, fell wholly silent for one muhūrta.

Then, in full view of Vyāsa and the assembled mahā-ṛshis, of Vāsudeva, and of every king and kinsman present, he began the yogic withdrawal that only a lifetime of tapas and self-mastery can bring. In order, he fixed his mind on the dhāraṇā-sthānas of the body, the successive seats of concentration. Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary names them as the cakras: mūlādhāra, then svādhishṭhāna, then maṇipūra, then anāhata, then viśuddhi, and last ājñā. He drew his breath (vāyu) upward together with his mind, station by station, from the base of the body to the crown.

As his prāṇa was drawn fully inward and made to rise, it began to leave each limb of his body in turn. In that same instant, as each limb gave up its prāṇa, that limb became viśalya (free of arrows). The shafts had been driven deep into his flesh fifty-eight nights before and had held his body above the ground on the day of his fall. Now they simply came away, because the flesh that had gripped them so long had lost the life-hold that kept them fixed. Limb after limb shed its shafts in this way before the whole assembly, until within moments every part of Bhīshma’s body stood free of arrows.

Vyāsa, Nārada, Asita, Vāsudeva and every king and kinsman present watched this as a mahā-āshcharya (a great wonder) taking place before their eyes.

Then, with all the stations mastered in order, his prāṇa, his ātmā joined with the mind, burst through the very crown of his skull (kapāla) and rose into the sky. At that moment kettledrums (dundubhi) sounded in the sky of their own accord, and flowers rained down. The perfected ṛshis and brahmarshis in the sky cried out together, “Sādhu! Sādhu!” From the place where his skull had opened, a great meteor-light (ulkā) burst forth and filled the whole sky for a moment. In the space of an instant it vanished into the sky.

At that hour Bhīshma, son of Śāntanu and glory of the Bharata line, merged back into his own first nature. As the text has told throughout this parva, he was one of the eight Vasus, born into a mortal life under Vasishṭha’s śāpa (curse). Now that mortal life was complete exactly as promised, and he returned to his true form among the Vasus.

The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa tells the same death in a shorter way. There Bhīshma fixes his mind and gaze on Kṛshṇa and sings a single hymn before he gives up his prāṇa. The Mahābhārata’s Anuśāsana Parva tells the withdrawal through the cakras and the arrows falling away from his body limb by limb.

The funeral at Kurukshetra

The Pāṇḍavas, Vidura and Yuyutsu brought great quantities of sandalwood and built the chitā (funeral pyre) for the great departed one. Yudhishṭhira and Vidura together covered Bhīshma’s body with fine silk and garlands. Yuyutsu held a pure white umbrella over him. Bhīmasena and Arjuna fanned him with spotless chāmaras. Nakula and Sahadeva, the two sons of Mādrī, held his crown and turban. The women of the Kaurava court stood on every side and fanned him with hand-fans.

Then a full pitṛ-medha (the funeral rite for the ancestors) was performed, with great homas and the chanting of Sāma hymns by those learned in the Sāmaveda. Sandalwood and agaru were heaped on the pyre, and the fire was lit. Dhṛtarāshṭra and the others walked round the burning pyre apasavya, keeping it on their left. This is the counter-clockwise direction proper to funeral rites, unlike the clockwise pradakshiṇā of auspicious occasions.

Afterward the whole company went to the Gaṅgā, the river loved and held sacred by ṛshis. They were Vyāsa, Nārada, Asita, Kṛshṇa, the women of the Bharata line and the townspeople who had gathered. There all the kshatriyas and all the people present performed udaka-kriyā, the water-offering rite, for the great departed.

Gaṅgā’s lament

Then Gaṅgā Devī herself rose weeping from the waters of the river, overcome with śoka (grief), and spoke to the Kauravas standing on her bank:

“Puṇyātmulārā! Hear what I say. This one was endowed with kshatriya-dharma, of great intellect, the honour of his line. He did great good for the Kuru elders. He bore the highest bhakti toward his father. His vratas (vows) could not be broken. He fought Jamadagni’s son Paraśurāma himself to a standstill and was never defeated. And such a mighty hero has today died at the hand of Śikhaṇḍī. My heart, it seems, must truly be made of vajra, for even seeing my own dear son so slain, it has not shattered.”

She recalled how, at the Kāśī svayaṃvara, Bhīshma alone had defeated all the assembled kings and won brides for his brothers. She said that in strength he had no equal on the whole earth. Even Paraśurāma, who had fought him at Kurukshetra itself, had been driven to great difficulty by him. Yet, she wept, it was Śikhaṇḍī who had killed him.

Kṛshṇa’s comfort and correction

Dāmodara (Kṛshṇa) comforted the grieving river:

“Mahātmurālā! Shubhadarshanā! Do not grieve. This son of yours has gone, without doubt, to the best of worlds.”

Kṛshṇa explained that this great being was one of the Vasus and had taken mortal form only because of a śāpa. Such a one is not to be mourned. Then, gently but plainly, Kṛshṇa put right the account of how Bhīshma had fallen:

“This great one fought on the battlefield according to kshatriya-dharma. It was Dhanañjaya who killed him, Devī, not Śikhaṇḍī.”

Kṛshṇa gave his reason. With his bow raised on the field of battle, not even Devendra himself could have struck down this Kuru hero. Śikhaṇḍī was there, and Bhīshma had indeed lowered his weapons before him. But the blows that actually felled Bhīshma were Arjuna’s. Bhīshma went to svarga by his own will (icchā), Kṛshṇa said, and not all the devas together could have killed him against that will. He ended:

“Therefore, O mother of the river, do not grieve for this son of Kuru. He has gone to take on the Vasus’ own nature. Let your sorrow pass.”

Gaṅgā heard this from Kṛshṇa and Vyāsa together. She put her grief aside and went back down into her waters, to be seen no more. Kṛshṇa and the assembled princes honoured her with due respect, and with her leave given, the whole company turned back from the bank of the Gaṅgā.

The closing of the Anuśāsana Parva

After Bhīshma’s cremation and Gaṅgā’s comforting, the Mahābhārata’s own colophon says:

“anuśāsanaparvamu muginchenu”

This means: the Anuśāsana Parva has ended. The text of this recension then adds the credit of its commentator. He is Nīlakaṇṭha, son of Govindasūri, of the Caturdhara line. He studied the Vedas under Gopālayogī, the Upanishads under the brahmavettā (knower of Brahman) Lakshmaṇārya, tarka (logic) under Dhīreśamiśra, vyākaraṇa (grammar) under Polagaṅgādharārya, and Bhāṭṭa-mīmāṃsā under Nārāyaṇa. He reached mastery in the upāsana of Dakshiṇāmūrti and in śruti under Chintāmaṇi. He composed the “Bhārata Bhāva Dīpa”, the commentary that lights up this whole Dāna-Dharma Parva, which is the Anuśāsana Parva.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 166 (Bhīshmānujñā)
• Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Bhīshma Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapters 167–168
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa (the account of Bhīshma’s death, for comparison)