Rajput Painting, Being an Account of the Hindu Paintings of Rajasthan and the Panjab Himalayas from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century v2.c19.261

v2.c19.261

**The death of Bhīṣma.** Bhīṣma reclines upon the bed of arrows, surrounded by the seven Rishis, including Nārada with the *vīṇā*; Krishna, four-handed, with mace, conch, and lotus; Yudhiṣṭhira, and the other Pāṇḍavas; and Duryodhana. Bhīṣma, the venerable uncle of Pāṇḍu and Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and instructor of the Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas alike, fought on the side of the latter in the Great War. On the tenth day the aged hero grew weary of the slaughter, and desired to meet his own fate. At last he fell, wounded by many arrows. When he fell from his car the hearts of all fell with him. ‘That foremost of all bowmen, that mighty-armed hero, fell down, like an uprooted standard of Indra, shaking the earth as he fell. Pierced all over with arrows, his body touched not the ground. At that moment a divine nature took possession of that great bowman lying on a bed of arrows.’ The sun was then in the southern solstice, an inauspicious time for death. Wounded as he was, Bhīṣma resolved to hold his life until the sun should reach the north; so, ‘having recourse to that Yoga which is taught in the great Upaniṣads, he remained quiet, expectant of his hour’. Subsequently Bhīṣma, in response to the inquiries of Yudhiṣṭhira, instructed him in the Four Branches of Knowledge at great length. The story says that when Yudhiṣṭhira came to Bhīṣma, ‘he lay stretched on his arrowy bed, resembling in splendour the evening sun’; ‘like unto a fire that is about to go out’. When at last the sun turned towards the north, Bhīṣma gave up his life-breaths: ‘in the midst of those great-hearted men it was a marvellous thing to see.’ Pahāṛī (?), 17th century (?). Size of original. Collection of the author. Vol. i, pp. 8, 21, 61, 62.