Every day thousands of
people die but none of us know when the end comes to us. We don’t have the will
power to decide the time of thee end of our life.. We, Hindus believe that
one’s span of life is in the hands of god. However there was one man in the
epic, Mahabharata, who was ‘Icchamarani’. That was Bhishma Pitamaha. This boon
was given to Bhishma by his father Shantanu. Death wouldn’t approach Bhishma
until he himself gave consent to death. Bhishma
was the second most important character in Mahabharata after Krishna.
Shantanu, the emperor,
was enjoying the beauty of the holy Ganga, where he saw a young heavenly
maiden. Instantly Shantanu approached her with a marriage proposal. She agreed
to Shantanu’s proposal on one condition that the king shouldn’t object to
anything she does. If there were to be any objection she says she would leave
the king. The king agreed to this condition.
Years rolled by. The
queen gave birth to a handsome boy. The queen took the child to the river Ganga and threw the baby into the river.In
this way the queen threw seven children into the river. Then the queen gave
birth to her eighth child which also a boy. She took the child to the river.
Shantanu couldn’t withstand this anymore. He shouted ‘Stop your cruelty’. Then
the queen said ‘The time has come for me to go for you have broken your vow’.
She revealed herself that she was Ganga Devi and disappeared. The survived
eighth child was Bhishma.
After Several years Shantanu made Bhishma (Devavrata) as his heir
(Yuvraja) to the throne. At this juncture, life took another turn for Bhishma.
Shantanu went hunting. And while returning back he saw a beautiful lady and
became mad after her. He wanted to marry her. Her name was Satyavati. Shantanu didn’t express his desire to anyone. Devavrata
understood his father’s worry. Then he met Satyavati’s father to marry his
daughter to king Shantanu. But Satyavati’s father put a condition that
Satyavati’s children should become heirs to the throne. Devavrata readily
agreed and also made a vow that he would remain unmarried. Satyavati gave birth
to two boys-Chitrangadha and Vichitraveerya. Shantanu passed away. The elder
son Chitrangadha became the king but in a war, Chitrangadha was killed. Hence
after Vichitraveerya became the king. Bhishma wanted to perform his marriage
and went to Kashi where the Kashi king had arranged for a swayamvara. Here life
took another fateful turn for Bhishma. Amba, Ambika, Ambalika the three
daughters of the king of Kashi were
taken away by Bhishma after defeating the other ambitious kings who had attended the the swayamvara with the aim of marrying the
princesses.. Ambika and Ambalika married the king Vichitraveerya. Amba the
eldest daughter, vowed to take revenge on Bhishma and went away to do tapas and
turned herself into Shikandi (transgender) who ultimately became the reason for
the downfall of Bhishma in the kurukshetra war.
Arjuna took shikandi
with him on his chariot to fight Bhishma who flatly refused to fight with a
Shikandi. Arjuna took this opportunity and showered arrows at Bhishma. Bhishma
rolled down on the ground but Arjuna made a bed of arrows for Bhishma to lay
down, without touching the ground. Bhishma spent 58 nights on the bed of arrows
to wait for Uttarayana to set in.
The only icchamarani
in the mankind and a matchless warrior, Bhishma Pitamaha chose his time in
Uttarayana to breathe his last.
No comments:
Post a Comment