THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 (38 page)

Suddenly, Dhrishtadyumna, Satyaki, Abhimanyu and Bheema are between Bheeshma and his protectors, holding the Kauravas away. Krishna cries, “The moment is here! Shikhandi, ride before us.

In a trance, sensing the moment Amba has waited so long for, Shikhandi flies at Bheeshma. Krishna’s chariot is perfectly positioned, a hand’s width behind Shikhandi’s. Yudhishtira, Nakula and Sahadeva fly at their Pitama, their eyes terrible and their arrows. His grandsons surround the Kuru patriarch; Shikhandi and Arjuna face him.

Bheeshma sees the noble Yudhishtira, who was prepared to take five towns to prevent this war. He sees Bheema, made older by the years of exile, the sinews of the wind standing taut in his great body. He sees the motherless princes, Nakula and Sahadeva. In his mind, he sees Kunti, her eyes brimming. He sees the day, fourteen years ago, when the sacrosanct sabha of Hastinapura was desecrated. He sees Draupadi before him again, sobbing in wretchedness. He hears her cry to him, ‘Pitama! You are the eldest in this sabha. How can you let this happen? Won’t you say anything to protect me?’

A sob wracks Bheeshma. He sees Arjuna and dark Krishna. His mind a storm, the mighty Kuru thinks, ‘Ah, I could kill all these young men except that Krishna watches over them. But what am I thinking? I have done enough killing for this life and ten more. My debts are paid. I will not spill another drop of blood. Enough, Devavrata, enough!’

In the echoing silence, the Pandavas move closer. Shikhandi glides closer. Vivid memories sweep Bheeshma’s mind. At the heart of these final moments, he sees his father Shantanu before him. He sees him on the day he took his oath. Shantanu says, ‘I grant you a boon, my son. You will die only when you will it yourself.’

That was it! He had forgotten. He would die only when he called his death to him. He sees Amba in Shikhandi’s chariot, lovely and young, as she was on the day he took her from her swayamvara in her father’s house. She says to him again, smiling so strangely, ‘You took me by my right hand. You are my husband. Make me your wife, Devavrata.’

A cry breaks from Bheeshma. He says in an ecstasy, ‘I had forgotten my secret over the years. I can die when I please. I will die now, this very moment!’

There are subtle voices everywhere, speaking from the sky and within his heart, unearthly voices. They say, ‘Your time has come, Devavrata.’

Bheeshma hears another voice, the tenderest of all. He hears his mother’s river-voice calling him, ‘Come, my son, come to me. You are so tired, poor child. Your body burns with the burden of the years. Set the burden down. Let me wash you in my waters of light. Let me heal you, Devavrata; come to me, my son.’

So far, the Pandavas’ arrows glance off Bheeshma like flowers. Krishna watches his face intently. The Dark One sees the moment has arrived. He cries to the waiting, trembling Shikhandi, “Your time is here, Amba. Kill him now!”

Shikhandi cries out, long and loud, a woman’s thin roar and plunges at Bheeshma. In his chariot, Bheeshma throws down his bow and folds his hands to Shikhandi. A hush deep as the sky falls on Kurukshetra. From five sides, five grandsons ride at their Pitama and once his bow is down, once he has decided to die, their arrows pierce him. Still, he stands like a rock before their onslaught. Everywhere across Kurukshetra the fighting stops. Only Amba’s frenzied screams break the silence; and from the depths of the Kaurava army, Duryodhana’s desperate cries.

Bheeshma stands, pierced but unharmed, invincible to all the shafts with which they have shot him so far. But one Pandava has yet to shoot at his Pitama. Arjuna still hesitates. Then, Krishna roars at him in the huge silence, “Kill him, Arjuna, or the war is lost!”

At the critical moment, Arjuna cannot resist that command. His eyes bright with tears, he raises the Gandiva. With a heartbroken cry, Arjuna looses his first arrow at his grandfather. Even Shikhandi is quiet. The silence is broken by the hum of Arjuna’s arrow and the soft noise it makes when it crashes into Bheeshma’s body: the sound of skin and flesh being ruptured, of bones giving way, of blood spurting, all in an instant. Bheeshma roars.

Dusasana has dodged past Satyaki and Abhimanyu, to be at his grandfather’s side. Such a smile lights Bheeshma’s face. He shines like a lamp of heaven on that field, when Arjuna’s arrow strikes him. He cries to Dusasana, “That was not Shikhandi’s arrow. It was Arjuna’s!”

Another shaft from the Gandiva smashes into his chest, drawing a font of blood. Bheeshma, the kshatriya, cannot help himself. He seizes a javelin and casts it at Arjuna like a bolt of light. Arjuna cuts it down. Another arrow takes his grandsire in his stomach, flinging him back against his flagstaff. Bheeshma cries out again, in agony, in joy.

“Yes! These are Arjuna’s arrows. How powerful he is, stronger than I ever was. Aaahh!”

Three more shafts shatter his chest. The other Pandavas and Shikhandi shoot at him again, from every side, their barbs more telling, now that Arjuna has broken him. Bheeshma staggers in his chariot, hardly an inch of space left on his body where no arrow protrudes. Time assumes an extraordinary aspect on the field of war, when his grandsons cut their Pitama down. Each shaft with which Arjuna strikes his grandfather seems to age the day by an hour: as if the sun fled from this slaying. Shaking with grief, but his hands steady as if they belonged to someone else and his aim unerring, Arjuna strikes Bheeshma with five more arrows, burning astras that could consume legions. They light up Kurukshetra like five suns. They flash into the Kuru patriarch’s breast and light him up like a God being worshipped with lamps.

His eyes never leaving Krishna’s blue face, Bheeshma falls out of his chariot with a sigh. So many shafts have pierced him that he falls not on to the earth, but on a bed of arrows! Some are longer than others and, with the weight of his body, they pierce him right through, so their points break out of his chest; blood from a hundred wounds forms a sacral pool under him. Yet, he lies in uncanny contentment, having set down his intolerable burden. His face shows no sign of the pain he is in; instead, the smile still creases it. A fine lambency enfolds his body, torn by his grandsons’ arrows, ruined by Arjuna’s virile arrows.

From the Kaurava soldiers the most dreadful lament rises, a great scream, as if the earth cried out at the fall of Devavrata: a cry to shake the Devas in their heaven. A shower of rain falls on Kurukshetra. Bheeshma sees stern figures of light in the twilight sky; he hears divine voices all around him. The voices speak to one another. “The son of Ganga is the greatest of men. How has he fallen during the dakshinayana, when the sun moves south? This is not an auspicious time to die.”

A pale flight of birds lights the dim sky. A flock of luminous swans flies down to the fallen patriarch. Ganga sent the rishis who live in dhyana beside the Manasarovara to her dying son and they have come as swans.

Bheeshma says in a whisper, “Devavrata has fallen, but he is not dead. My spirit will stay in this body until the sun resumes his northern course. Tell my mother I must not die before uttarayana, if I am to be who I was before.”

The swans rise away from the earth with his message. The soldiers watch them, until they vanish in the deepening night. Again, Kurukshetra echoes with bitter wailing. Duryodhana’s brothers are afraid now; they sob like children. Some of the Kauravas faint at the sight of Bheeshma like that. Panic rips through the Kaurava army, while the Pandava soldiers shout their jubilation.

Bheeshma lies with his eyes shut, his head lolling back. Near him stands Duryodhana, stricken.

When the patriarch fell, Dusasana roared in shock, turned his chariot and dashed away from the field in terror. He met Drona riding toward the alarm.

Drona shouted, “What is it, Dusasana? What is the outcry about?”

Dusasana panted, “Pitama has fallen!”

Drona keeled over. Some men had to rush back to the camp to fetch water and salts, to revive the Acharya. When Drona awakes, the first command he gives is to sound the conches to stop the fighting. Like sleepwalkers, the Kaurava soldiers move slowly back to their camp. One by one, the kshatriyas from both sides begin to arrive at Bheeshma’s side. They come divested of armor and weapons: to pay homage. He lies there on his bed of arrows, like Brahma surrounded by the Devas. Kauravas and Pandavas alike weep, but not Duryodhana.

Daylight fades swiftly from the world and torches are lit around the patriarch. His body still glows with its own luster. His voice low and hoarse, Bheeshma says, “My head hangs loose, I need a pillow.”

At once, a score of men run to the camps and fetch the softest silk pillows and bolsters. The patriarch turns his face from them in disgust. “These are fit for sleeping on at home. I am a kshatriya fallen on the battlefield. Arjuna, give me a pillow for a warrior’s head.”

Arjuna raises the Gandiva in the gloom. Three arrows flash down into the earth behind Bheeshma. Arjuna kneels beside his Pitama, gently lifts his head and sets it on those shafts. Bheeshma sighs, “This is a pillow for a kshatriya.”

His breath comes hard. He shuts his eyes and falls silent. After some moments, he flutters them open again. He beckons to the princes to come nearer. Bheeshma says, “I will wait for uttarayana, before my life leaves my body, like a friend leaving his dearest friend. Have a ditch dug around me, so I can worship the sun, undisturbed by the scavengers, until Surya Deva returns to his northern course.”

Duryodhana has called his royal physicians to attend to the fallen patriarch. They have come to remove the arrows from his body and smear his wounds with potent herbs. Bheeshma sees them standing at his side. He sees Duryodhana beside them, speechless for once. Bheeshma says, “Reward them for coming, my child and send them away. I have no need of physicians. I have fallen as a kshatriya should and here I am on a bed of arrows, which is also as it should be. These shafts are sacred to me. They must remain in my body and be burnt with it when I am dead.”

The physicians are sent away. Bheeshma is tired and shuts his eyes again
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. His breath heaves, shallow and rasping. He must rest if he is to live to see the sun turn north again. Night advances and, one by one, the kings and warriors return to their tents. By flickering lamplight, Duryodhana keeps a lone vigil near his grandfather. The ancient kshatriya seems to drift away, at times and his breath is low. Then he opens his eyes and stares at the moon and stars above.

Duryodhana sees his Pitama in intolerable pain, which he fears will force his spirit from his body. The Kaurava sits frozen in the night, unable even to cry for the tumult of grief he feels. Then, Bheeshma says through bloody lips, “Water! Duryodhana, I am parched with thirst.”

Duryodhana rushes away and brings sweet water and syrups and wines that were his grandsire’s favorites. When he kneels to offer them to Bheeshma, the old man says, “No. None of these will quench the thirst that burns me. Send for Arjuna, only he can give me the water I crave.”

Arjuna comes running when he gets word. In agony now, but his face still bright, Bheeshma manages to smile at him. Arjuna kneels beside him. Bheeshma whispers, “Water, my child, only you can give me the water I want.”

Arjuna runs back to his tent for the Gandiva. He murmurs a mantra to invoke the parjannyastra, the weapon of rain. Arjuna drills an arrow into the ground beside Bheeshma. The earth trembles under them. She opens in a cleft deep as a hand and from it a crystal spring wells, like amrita and scented like nectar. The water rises into Bheeshma’s lips, bathing his face, letting him drink where he lies, whenever he wants. The holy spring is the Ganga herself and his mother slakes the raging thirst of Shantanu’s dying son: the thirst of his soul.

All the Pandavas and Kauravas have returned to Bheeshma’s side, all his grandsons. The light on his face is brighter, after he has drunk. The water seems to have quenched his pain, as well. Bheeshma smiles more easily at them. He says, “Only Krishna and Arjuna know the mantra for the parjannya. They are Nara Narayana. Duryodhana my son, come closer, listen to what I have to tell you. Let my death not be in vain; let your enmity with your cousins end with it. You cannot vanquish Nara and Narayana. Look how Arjuna has cut me down, as not even my guru Bhargava could. Give Yudhishtira back half the kingdom, or you and your brothers will perish. I am a dying man and as I love you, you must listen to me. End this war tonight.”

The breath rattles in his chest and Bheeshma cannot go on. Duryodhana’s eyes smolder in the torchlight and, by the look in them, his dying grandfather knows his plea has been fruitless. Agony sears through him again and he shuts his eyes over his twin torments: the one which feeds on his body and the other that feeds on his heart even as he lies dying. Bheeshma drifts away on a dream of his mother. Tenderly she caresses him, wafts him out of reach of the anguish of the earth.

Seeing him suspended between pain and forgetfulness, his grandsons touch his feet and leave him on his bed of arrows, watched by the guards they have posted around him. Bheeshma must lie on Kurukshetra for sixty days and nights more, before the sun turns north at the solstice and he can finally leave the world.

TWENTY-TWO
‘I NEVER HATED YOU’ 

In his tent, Karna gets news of Bheeshma’s fall. At midnight, Duryodhana comes to Karna’s tent. Duryodhana has not shed a tear yet. But when he sees his friend, when Karna rises silently to embrace him, the Kaurava breaks down. He sobs piteously in Karna’s arms.