I N T R O D U C T I O N

 B  ‘B’ (Bhīs.maparvan), the sixth T book of the eighteen-book epic the “Maha·bhárata,” narrates the events that occurred during the first ten days of the great battle between the Káuravas and the Pándavas, fought on the vast plain of Kuru·kshetra, the sacrificial ground of their common ancestor Kuru. Books Six through Nine, which cover the eighteen-day war, are named after the four successive generals: , , and , who lead the Káurava forces and are killed in se- quence. e present CSL volume contains the second of the two parts of ‘Bhishma.’ e Background e epic recounts the story of the great fratricidal war waged by the descendants of the lineage for the suc- cession of the kingship. e text views this war as merely an episode in the eternal cosmic struggle between the gods and the demons, transferred to the Earth. e Pándavas are de- scribed as the sons of the gods, whereas the Káuravas as in- carnate demons. On the earthly plane, the conflicting par- ties are represented by two groups of cousins, the sons of the royal Dhrita·rashtra and . Since the for- mer had been born blind, the latter, his junior, rules in his place. Pandu dies, leaving five young sons, the Pándavas, born from his two wives: Yudhi·shthira, and Árjuna from , also named Pritha, and twins Nákula and Saha· from . Dhrita·rashtra, now regent, has a hun- dred sons, called the Káuravas. e eldest of them, Duryó- dhana, is born after Yudhi·shthira who is thus recognized

xv             as legitimate heir. Duryódhana envies his cousin and plots against the Pándavas, but the five brothers manage to es- cape, wander in disguise and marry the Panchála princess Dráupadi. Dhrita·rashtra, attempting to reconcile the ri- valry, partitions the kingdom. Yet Duryódhana seeks to de- prive his cousins of their share. He challenges Yudhi·shthira to a ritual game of dice, during which, through the trick- ery of Duryódhana’s uncle Shákuni, Yudhi·shthira loses his part of the kingdom. As a penalty, the Pándava brothers, to- gether with their joint wife humiliated by the Káuravas, are exiled to the forest for twelve years, after which, in order to regain their kingdom, they are to spend one year incognito. Upon return from their exile the Pándavas justly claim their share, but Duryódhana rejects their demand. Both sides as- semble allies and start preparations for war. ‘Bhishma’ com- mences on its very eve.

‘Bhishma’ e first half of ‘Bhishma’ comprises a discourse on tra- ditional cosmology, the famous “” (“Song of the Lord”), and the detailed description of the first four days of the great battle, as related to the blind King Dhrita· rashtra by his divine-sighted messenger the charioteer Sán- jaya who acts as a war reporter. e narration of warfare begins with a flash-forward (a pattern common to the four war books) in which Sánjaya suddenly returns from the battlefield to announce to Dhrita·rashtra the fall of general Bhishma and, at the request of the lamenting king, reports to him at length what had happened during the preceding days. xvi             e second half of ‘Bhishma’ recounts the battle events which take place from the beginning of the fifth day of the war till the end of the tenth. It opens with King Dhrita· rashtra, the father of the Káuravas, asking Sánjaya about the cause of their cousins being invincible. Referring to the same question posed by the eldest of the Káuravas, Dur- yódhana, before grandfather Bhishma, the patriarch of the family and the commander of the Káurava army, Sánjaya quotes the latter’s reply, in which Bhishma explains that the major reason for the Pándavas’ invincibility and in- evitable victory is that their ally , the charioteer of Árjuna, is the incarnation of the Lord -Naráyana himself, while Árjuna is the incarnation of the god Nara (“Man”). Despite Bhishma’s appeal to Duryódhana to con- clude peace with the Pándavas, he decides to continue the hostilities. Formations of troops, heroic feats of arms, bloody mas- sacres, fierce duels, tremendous confusion of routed forces, and scenes of violence and valor are depicted in ‘Bhishma’ in great detail. Fighting with varying success, the two armies suffer heavy casualties and, after an overnight retreat, driven by Fate and by Time, they resume their horrible fight at the dawn of each following day. e key role in the strategy and tactics of battle through- out the present book belongs to general Bhishma, the com- mander of the Káurava forces. Due to his outstanding mil- itary skills, he draws up the troops in the most effective way and leads the army in the course of battle. Whenever the Káuravas suffer a reverse, the mighty and heroic warrior Bhishma interferes and always succeeds in improving the

xvii             situation and inflicting heavy losses on the Pándavas. At the war’s outset he promises Duryódhana to kill ten thousand warriors of the Pándava army every single day of battle; and he fulfills his promise. Nevertheless there is some ambiguity in Bhishma’s role. He is obligated to the court of King Dhrita·rashtra for giv- ing him a livelihood and has no choice but to side with his patron. According to his own words, it is his weakness for material wealth that has made him dependent on the Káu- ravas and compelled him to fight for them. Yet his sym- pathies are clearly with the Pándavas and he wishes them to win. Bhishma promises Yudhi·shthira to help him with good counsel. After the ninth day of war, when Bhishma has wreaked havoc on their troops, the Pándavas realize that they will be unable to win as long as unconquerable Bhishma is alive, and decide to concentrate all efforts on slaying him. Krishna even expresses his readiness to break his vow of non-engagement in the fight, however Yudhi· shthira rejects that proposal as unrighteous. Instead he of- fers an alternative plan. He recalls asking Bhishma, on the eve of the great battle, for his blessings, permission to fight against him, and the means to defeat him. Old Bhishma had then blessed the eldest Pándava and, saying that it was not yet the time for his death, invited Yudhi·shthira to come to him on another occasion and inquire again. When the Pándava brothers come now to their old grandfather’s tent to take counsel, Bhishma willingly reveals to them the method of killing him, which they will follow.

xviii             Bhishma’s Past Bhishma, whose original name is Deva·vrata (“Divine Vow”), is a son of King Shántanu by the goddess (the river ). He is an incarnation of the god who, along with seven other , was cursed by the great celestial sage Vasíshtha to be reborn as a mortal for stealing his wish-granting cow. Unlike the other seven, Dyaus was doomed to dwell for a long time in the human world, to become a law-abiding mortal, expert in all weap- ons and devoted to his father’s well-being, yet to give up the pleasure of being with a woman and the begetting of off- spring. e cursed then came to Ganga and begged her to let them be born of her womb and to release them from the world of mortals at birth. e ever young goddess promised to help them, descended to the earth, went di- rectly to King Pratípa of the , sat down on his lap and told him: “I want you to marry me.” e king replied: “Lady, if you wanted me to marry you, you should have sat on my left thigh and not on my right, which be- longs to the son or the daughter-in law. Let a son be born to me, and I will have him marry you.” Ganga agreed and Pratípa got a son, Shántanu. When the son came of age, Pratípa left the kingdom to him and retired to the forest. Once while hunting on the bank of the Ganges, Shántanu saw a beautiful woman, the goddess Ganga, and fell in love with her. She agreed to become his wife, but set her condi- tion: “Whatever I may do, whether you like it or not, you must neither interfere nor blame me. e day you do that, I will leave you.” e infatuated king accepted the terms. Every time a child was born, Ganga would drown him in

xix             the Ganges. Shántanu restrained himself, but when she was about to drown their eighth child, the king exclaimed: “At least don’t kill this one! What a horrible woman you are!” Ganga spared the child, but immediately vanished with him. One day she reappeared to give Shántanu back his son Deva·vrata, a youth trained in all the arts of the war- rior clan. e king took him to the capital and made him the crown prince. Later, however, while out hunting Shán- tanu saw a fair young maiden Sátyavati and asked for her hand. Her father, a chieftain of fishermen, consented to the marriage provided that her descendants would be heirs to the throne. In order to gratify his old father’s desire to marry her, prince Deva·vrata waived his right to succession and took a vow of celibacy. Henceforth, due to his awe- inspiring vow, he is called Bhishma (“Awesome”). Pleased at his son’s extraordinary self-sacrifice, Shántanu granted him the boon of being able to choose the time of his death. Having renounced kingdom and marriage, Bhishma en- throned first his younger Chitrángada and, after the latter’s death, his youngest, Vichítra·virya. To ensure the continuity of the Kuru lineage, Bhishma abducted for Vichítra·virya the three Kashi princesses, , Ámbika and Ambálika, straight from their svayam. vara (a ceremony in which a bride herself chooses a husband) and won a battle against King Shalva. As soon as Bhishma brought the royal brides to the Kuru capital Hástina·pura, the eldest of them, Amba (“Mother”), told him that she had just chosen King Shalva for her husband and had been betrothed to him. Bhishma immediately sent her back to her bridegroom, but Shalva rejected her on the grounds that she had been xx             won and carried away by another man. Amba returned to Bhishma and said, “Since you have abducted me, you must marry me.” Yet because of his oath of celibacy, Bhishma re- fused to accept her. Dishonored and rejected, Amba sought shelter in a hermitage. ere arrived a mighty hero, the son of Jamad·, who promised to help her by fight- ing Bhishma and forcing him to marry her. Close combat ensued between the two equally powerful warriors, end- ing in victory for neither. After Rama had failed to defeat Bhishma, Amba vowed to kill the offender herself. She un- dertook harsh penance in order to accumulate the power to take revenge on Bhishma for all her woes. Bhishma’s mother, the river Ganges, failed to dissuade Amba and so cursed her to turn into a miserable crooked stream, dried up except in monsoon. Yet through her penance Amba suc- ceeded in retaining one half of her own body and became half-river half-woman. By virtue of her severe austerities she managed to propitiate /, who granted her the boon that in her next rebirth she would become a man and bring about Bhishma’s death. ereupon Amba burned herself on a funeral pyre. In the meantime, the Panchála king Drúpada performed rites begging Shiva for a son, and Shiva replied: “You will have a male child who is a female.” In due course the queen gave birth to a daughter Shikhándini, but the parents pre- tended she was a son and raised the child as a boy, whom they called Shikhándin (“Peacock”). Upon coming of age, “he” married a princess; but when the princess found out that the prince was a female, she was deeply insulted and re- ported the matter to her father, who immediately declared

xxi             war on King Drúpada. Shikhándin/Shikhándini fell into despair and left for the forest, intending to commit sui- cide. ere s/he came across a male yaks.a goblin named Sthuna who, in response to Shikhándin/Shikhándini’s des- perate pleas, agreed to a temporary exchange of gender with her, until the hostile army left the city. As soon as the princess’s father became convinced of her husband’s male- ness, he withdrew his troops. When Kubéra, the lord of the yaks.as, learnt of the gender-swap, he punished Sthuna by cursing him to remain female until Shikhándin’s death. When the latter returned to the yaks.a to give back his man- hood, he heard of the curse and was pleased to retain life- long maleness.

Bhishma’s Advice Bhishma, who had vowed not to “release an arrow at a woman, someone who was previously a woman, some- one with a woman’s name, or someone who looks like a woman,” adheres to his firm vows and, strictly observ- ing the warrior code, refuses to fight with Shikhándin who was originally born a female. Otherwise unconquerable, Bhishma advises Árjuna to strike him from behind Shikhán- din’s back. us on the tenth day of battle, following the old man’s advice, Árjuna, in keeping with his own vow to slay Bhishma, launches an attack against him and, us- ing Bhishma’s sworn enemy Shikhándin as a human shield, protecting himself from the enemy forces and enabling him to strike Bhishma, shoots the grandfather with multitudes of arrows without any resistance on Bhishma’s part and xxii             mortally wounds him. Countless arrows embedded them- selves in the old man’s body in such a way that “in his en- tire body there was not even a space two fingers broad that was not pierced with arrows… at mighty-armed hero, the banner of all archers, collapsed to the ground like an uprooted standard of , filling the earth with a great din. Yet Bhishma, pierced all over with hordes of arrows, could not touch the ground” (.–). Granted the boon of fixing the time of death at his own will, Bhishma postpones his death and remains lying on the battlefield upon his honorable bed of arrows. Choosing to die at an auspicious time, he awaits the winter solstice for fifty days, during which he witnesses the rest of the war and delivers long didactic discourses thereafter, instructing King Yudhi·shthira in (his royal duties, law and re- ligion) and moks.a (ways to liberation). Bhishma’s wise and insightful teachings form the content of ‘Peace’ (Śāntipar- van) and ‘Good Counsel’ (Anuśāsanaparvan), books Twelve and irteen of the great epic.

e text used for the present translation is K- ’s edition of the “Maha·bhárata.”

xxiii             Concordance of Canto Numbers with the Critical Edition CSL CE – –  ; .–  .– – –  .–  .– – –

Note

 “Maha·bhárata,” ‘Preparations for War,’ CSL Edition, ..–  (tr. G : ); Critical Edition, ...

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