Day nine: Bhīṣma's fury, Kṛṣṇa charges again, and how Bhīṣma can be defeated

Classical

On the ninth day Bhīṣma fought with unusual fury. Against the Pāṇḍavas, Droṇa and Śalya and the Kaurava kings fought in separate duels all along the line, but Bhīṣma burned through the Pāṇḍava host like a fire in a forest. His chariot was the fire-chamber, his bow the flames, and his arrows the sparks. Fourteen thousand chariot-warriors of the Chedis, Kāśis and Karūṣas, who had sworn not to retreat, went to Yama's abode with their chariots and elephants. Pāṇḍava soldiers threw away their armour and ran with their hair loose. No two fled together.

Kṛṣṇa, seeing the army break, stopped his horses and said to Arjuna that the hour he had been waiting for had come. He reminded him of what he had said in Virāṭa's city, that he would kill Bhīṣma and Droṇa. Arjuna hung his head, looked sideways at Kṛṣṇa, and said he did not want to win a kingdom by killing those who should not be killed. Then, unwillingly, he told Kṛṣṇa to drive on. Arjuna cut Bhīṣma's bow twice, and Bhīṣma praised his skill and took another and covered Arjuna's chariot with arrows.

Kṛṣṇa saw that Arjuna was only fighting mildly while Bhīṣma showered arrows, and he could stand it no more. He abandoned the silver horses, jumped down, and ran at Bhīṣma on foot with a whip in his hand, roaring like a lion. Everywhere the cry went up: ‘Bhīṣma is slain!’ Bhīṣma lowered his bow and said without fear: ‘Come, lotus-eyed god. Throw me down in this battle. To be struck by you is a blessing in this world and the next.’ Arjuna ran after Kṛṣṇa, embraced him with both arms, and was dragged along until he could clasp his legs at the tenth step.

Arjuna said that Kṛṣṇa should not make his own word false. He had promised not to fight, and people would call him a liar. ‘All this burden is on me,’ he said, and he swore by his weapons and by truth that he would kill the grandsire. Kṛṣṇa said nothing, still angry, and climbed back on the chariot. Bhīṣma poured his arrows again until the sun set. The Pāṇḍava army, soaked in fear, withdrew.

That night Yudhiṣṭhira, deeply shaken, said to Kṛṣṇa that he would go to the forest, but Kṛṣṇa offered to kill Bhīṣma himself. Yudhiṣṭhira would not let him break his word and proposed instead: since Bhīṣma had once said he would give advice though he could not fight for them, they should go and ask him how to be defeated. They went unarmed to Bhīṣma's tent and bowed. Bhīṣma welcomed them and said he would do anything to make them happy, even something very hard. Yudhiṣṭhira asked how they could win. Bhīṣma told him he would not die while he stood with his weapons and bow, but he could be killed if he laid them down. He listed the people he would not fight: those who have thrown down their weapons, who have fallen, who are fleeing, who say ‘I am yours’, women or men with a woman's name, and Śikhaṇḍin, who was a woman in an earlier life. Let Arjuna put Śikhaṇḍin in front of him, he said, and shoot him from behind.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Bhīṣma, Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna, Yudhiṣṭhira, Śikhaṇḍin

Bound to

Days two and three: Bhīma among the Kaliṅgas, and Kṛṣṇa runs at Bhīṣma mirror

Day ten: Śikhaṇḍin and Arjuna fell Bhīṣma; the bed of arrows, the pillow and the water origin

Ambā curse

The yaksha Sthuna lends Shikhandi his sex origin

The eight Vasus, Vasishtha's cow, and Bhishma's birth origin

Places: Kurukṣetra

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (read via archive.org copy of the sacred-texts text) Bhishma Parva, Sections CVII–CVIII

See it on the tree · All stories

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