February 5 was a little-known event on the Indian calendar called Bhishma Ashtami. On this day, those who observe it offer tarpan or the water of remembrance to the soul of Bhishma, the Kuru elder in the Mahabharata. It is said by some that those who do not have a father or don’t know his gotra (ancestry) and nakshatra (birth star) to offer tarpan during shraadh (ancestral remembrance), may do so during Bhishma Ashtami.
Bhishma towers over the epic landscape, and therefore over India, with his extraordinary personality. His given name was Devavrata. But he came to be called Bhishma, the Terrible, on account of the humanly terrible vow he took as a young man and the crown prince of the Kuru kingdom of Hastinapur. As is well-known, his father Shantanu––desolate after Bhishma’s mother, the goddess Ganga, left him––fell in love again, this time with Satyavati, the daughter of a fisherman.
But Satyavati’s shrewd father did not agree to the match as there was already a crown prince in place and none of Satyavati’s future children could inherit the throne. It’s a revelation about the norms of old Indian society that Shantanu as king did not just carry off Satyavati as ‘droit du seigneur’ (right of the lord) but required her father’s permission to marry her honourably. Also known as jus primae noctis (the right of the first night), it was a supposed legal right in medieval Europe allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with any female subject, particularly on her wedding night.
Bhishma noticed his father’s melancholy and found out the reason from Shantanu’s charioteer. He went to Satyavati’s father, took a solemn oath never to have children, and sought Satyavati’s hand for his father. Satyavati’s father was deeply impressed and agreed.
This astounding sacrifice by Devavrata won him the name of Bhishma. But as we know, the princely restraint about kidnapping women from other strata of society did not extend to princesses. Bhishma kidnapped Amba, Ambika and Ambalika, the three princesses of Kashi, from their swayamvar or bride-choice of marriage as wives for Satyavati’s son, Pandu. When Amba begged Bhishma to free her so she could marry the king she loved, Bhishma set her free, but she found to her shock that the man she loved rejected her as “another man’s leavings”. Pandu, too, refused to marry her. Neither did Bhishma agree to marry her in reparation due to his vow.
Tender-hearted Amba turned into a fury scorned and vowed to kill Bhishma in her next birth for spoiling her life. And so she was reborn as Shikhandin, the transgender brother of Draupadi, and enabled Bhishma’s downfall from Arjuna’s chariot on the 10th day of the 18-day Battle of Kurukshetra.
But Bhishma had a boon that he could choose his time of death, and so he waited for 58 days on his bed of arrows to die on the auspicious day of Magha Shukla Ashtami, which is observed even today as Bhishma Ashtami. We cannot imagine his suffering in that hugely uncomfortable state.
Bhishma is a complex character like so many in the Mahabharata, which is a living testament to Veda Vyasa’s genius as a master storyteller. On the one hand, we have Bhishma’s exalted love as a son for his father, that he could make such a superhuman sacrifice to make him happy. And his stoic acceptance of his fate at the end as a true warrior sets an example to all on how to face misfortune with courage and without complaint.
But the Amba story, even though it was then socially permitted to kidnap a princess, robs him of sympathy from a modern person. Princess Rukmini pleaded with Sri Krishna to kidnap her. Her letter to him began with the words ‘Bhuvana sundara’, ‘O most handsome man on earth’. She wanted Krishna to kidnap her because she was in love with him from afar and was repulsed by her brother’s plan to marry her off to the unworthy Shishupala. But poor Amba did not want to be kidnapped and all her rightful hopes and dreams came crashing down because of it. So Bhishma does not shine in this episode.
For me, personally, the biggest blot on Bhishma is that, even though he was the ultimate Kuru elder, he did absolutely nothing to stop Draupadi’s public humiliation by Duryodhana. Many stories were highlighted later to malign Draupadi, that she brought it on herself by laughing at Duryodhana and mocking Karna.
But nothing justifies what Duryodhana did out of hatred and malice. And Bhishma did not speak up even once for a woman, the daughter-in-law of his own house. Some people like to say that it was ‘loyalty to the throne’ that kept him silent. However, a dharmic warrior is supposed to uphold dharma and what Duryodhana did was utterly adharmic.
But in the end, Bhishma did something that redeems him in another way. It does not reduce the enormity of his crime against Draupadi, but there is no denying that he gave mankind a lasting gift––the Vishnu Sahasranamam or ‘Thousand Names of Vishnu’ that he imparted to Yudhishthira from his bed of arrows.
I was woken up every morning as a child by the sound of the Vishnu Sahasranamam record, chanted by M S Subbulakshmi, being played by my parents as auspicious sounds to start the day with. So Bhishma is an irrefutable part of ‘me’, as he is with millions.
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan
