6. Bhishma Parva
The Book of Bhishma · 117 adhyayas
The war at Kurukshetra begins, with Bhishma leading the Kaurava army for ten days. It is here — between the two armies, as Arjuna sees his own kin and lets the Gandiva fall — that Krishna gives him the teaching we know as the Bhagavad Gita. On the tenth day, with Shikhandi placed before him, Arjuna brings Bhishma down onto a bed of arrows.
What Happens in Bhishma Parva
Bhishma Parva opens the war books. The armies are drawn up at Kurukshetra, eleven akshauhinis against seven, and the conventions of dharma-yuddha are still being observed — fighting stops at sunset, the unarmed are not struck, like meets like.
Before any of it begins, Arjuna asks Krishna to drive his chariot into the space between the two armies so he can see who he is about to fight. What he sees are his teachers, his cousins and his grandfather, and the Gandiva slips from his hand. The seven hundred shlokas that answer him are the Bhagavad Gita, which sits inside this parva as chapters twenty-five to forty-two. Krishna's reply moves from the immortality of the self, through karma yoga and the duty of action without attachment, to bhakti and finally to the Vishwaroopa — the universal form that Arjuna asks to see and then begs to have withdrawn.
Then the fighting starts. Bhishma commands for ten days and is unkillable; he has the boon of choosing his own death and no Pandava will strike him. On the tenth day Shikhandi, born a woman and remembered by Bhishma as such, is placed at the front of Arjuna's chariot. Bhishma lowers his weapons rather than fight him, and Arjuna's arrows bring him down onto a bed of arrows that will not let him touch the ground. He does not die; he waits, for months, for the sun to turn north.
Key Episodes
- The two armies drawn up facing each other at Kurukshetra
- Arjuna's despair, and the Bhagavad Gita — 700 shlokas across 18 chapters
- Krishna's revelation of the Vishwaroopa
- Bhishma's ten days in command
- Bhishma laying down his weapons before Shikhandi
- The bed of arrows — his boon of chosen death, and the wait for Uttarayan
Who Appears in Bhishma Parva
- Arjuna
- Lays down the Gandiva between the armies, receives the Gita, and takes up the bow again.
- Krishna
- Arjuna's charioteer and teacher; speaks the Bhagavad Gita and shows the Vishwaroopa.
- Bhishma
- Commands the Kaurava army for ten days, then lays down his arms before Shikhandi and falls on a bed of arrows.
- Shikhandi
- Born Amba, reborn to bring Bhishma down; his presence is what makes Bhishma stop fighting.
- Sanjaya
- Granted divine sight by Vyasa, he narrates the entire war to the blind Dhritarashtra — and so narrates the Gita to us.
- Yudhishthira
- Crosses to the enemy lines before the first arrow to ask his elders' permission to fight them.
What Bhishma Parva Teaches
Action without attachment
The Gita's central instruction is that Arjuna has a right to the action and none to its fruit. It does not tell him the war will be worth it, or that the dead will not be dead. It tells him that withdrawal is itself a choice with consequences, and that duty performed without craving the outcome is the only ground he can stand on.
Grief as the beginning of knowledge
The Gita begins because Arjuna breaks down. The epic treats his despair not as weakness but as the necessary condition of the teaching — the question has to be asked from inside real anguish before the answer can mean anything.
A boon that becomes a sentence
Bhishma's power to choose his own death keeps him alive on a bed of arrows through the destruction of both families, watching. The Mahabharat's gifts have a way of turning into their opposites.
Shlokas
Bhishma Parva
यतः कृष्णस्ततो धर्मो यतो धर्मस्ततो जयः
yataḥ kṛṣṇas tato dharmo yato dharmas tato jayaḥ
Where Krishna is, there is dharma; and where dharma is, there is victory. Repeated through the war books as the Mahabharat's verdict on how the battle would end.
Bhishma Parva — Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The Gita occupies adhyayas 25 to 42 of Bhishma Parva — 700 shlokas in 18 chapters, spoken between the two armies before the fighting begins.
The war begins at Kurukshetra. Arjuna's despair leads to the Bhagavad Gita, and Bhishma commands the Kaurava army for the first ten days before being brought down by Arjuna with Shikhandi placed before him.
Shikhandi had been born Amba, a woman whom Bhishma had wronged, and had been reborn to cause his fall. Bhishma refused to raise weapons against one he regarded as a woman, and lowered his bow — which let Arjuna shoot.
His father had granted him icchamrityu, death only when he willed it. Fallen but not dead, he chose to wait for Uttarayan, the sun's northward turn, considered the auspicious time to depart — and so lived on through the rest of the war and the teaching of Shanti Parva.
The universal form Krishna reveals in the eleventh chapter of the Gita, in which Arjuna sees all of creation and all of time within him, including the warriors of both armies already destroyed. Arjuna, terrified, asks him to return to his familiar form.