Search:
Bhakti List Archives

bhishma-stuthi-5

From the Bhakti List Archives

M K Sudarshan • June 5, 1997 


srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNE namaha
sri vedanta guravE namaha

Dear "bhAgavatOttamA-s", 

Recalling the demise of my grandmother in Tirupati, I've always found,
somehow makes it so much easier for me to picture vividly the scene of the
great Bhishma's passing away. It helps, too, in the appreciation of his
poignant "stUthi" uttered during his dying moments in praise of Lord
Krishna, the "para-brahmham".

The scene in the Mahabharata of the "pitAmahar" lying on a "space-frame" bed
of arrows -- "shara-tantra" -- is an extremely painful one, indeed, to imagine.

It certainly could not have been a pleasant sight to see an old, venerable,
valiant and royal warrior spend the last moments of his life in the world
lying awkwardly on a make-shift death-bed of arrows. 

Bhishma's body was riven, having been shot through and through, like a
desk-top pin-cushion, with the ferocious missiles Arjuna had pumped into
him. The shafts, more than a dozen of them, piercing through metal and
leather armour, had crushed flesh and bone alike. On any battle-ground the
sight of thick blood spurting from a dying soldier's wounds and drying up
with grime and dust across his brows is a heart-rending one, indeed. In
Kurukshetra, the sight of Bhisma's utterly crippled and bloodied frame, too,
was a painful reminder of such typical horrors of war.

Bhishma's dear kin, the Kauravas and Pandavas, all stood around him ruing
the day when a fratricidal urge had overtaken them all ...and led them all
to mutual hatred ... to war ..to bloodshed.. and, now, to the death of one
of their family-elders .... the most honourable and the most beloved one of
all, the great and mighty BhismAcharyar.

As life ebbed away from the frail body of Bhishma, his kith and kin, the
scores of royal scions from both the Kaurava and Pandava families, began
leaving his death-bed one by one. They were all sad, no doubt, but also
restless. They realized the end was inevitable and there was nothing anyone
could do about it. They had to leave and rest for the night since, in the
morning, there was more urgent business at hand: a brutal battle still left
to be waged.     

Many days passed.

The last to depart from Bhishma's side was Yudhishtara who was loath to
leave the "pitAmahar" unattended in the final moments. It is written in the
Mahabharatha that Yudhishtara sat beside Bhishma's death-bed for many days
and  listened to the venerable old soul recount some its memories and
explain a great many truths or "dharmA" it had realized in life.... much
like Arjuna had sat listening to the exposition of the Lord's 'Gita' earlier
during the battle at Kurukshetra.  

Finally, Yudhishtara, too, had to leave the "bed-of-arrows" --- a most
unusual "rEzhi" as far as Bhishma was concerned --- and return to the call
of duty on the battle-field.

In the end Bhishma lay alone ..... much like any mortal in the throes of
death; (a bit like, I can't help saying to myself sometimes while reciting
the "bhishma-stuthi".. ... a bit like my own grand-mother!).

Bhishma died alone....like all humans do.

It was precisely that moment Lord Krishna gently appeared before him.

Bhishma turned his bruised face to look at the approaching Vasudevan.....
and behold ! there was His Splendorous form -- the Lord of the Yadavas !

And in that precise moment of Glory the first majestic lines of the
"bhisma-stuthi" poured forth like torrential spring from the mouth of the
dying warrior :

         iti matirupakalpitA vitrishnA
           Bhagavati sAtvata-pUngavE viBhUmni !        

                  ***************************************

We will next take up for study the "stuthi" itself, stanza by stanza, in the
next few posts.

srimathe srivan satagopa sri narayana yathindra mahadesikaya namaha
sudarshan