Bheeshma: A Life by Proxy: Ruler, Father, and Devotee?

The fact of the matter was that with the three children still in their infancy, Bheeshma ruled the kingdom for all of those years by proxy. In the process, he expanded it beyond measure, so that when the sons of Vichitravirya came of age, they had a ready kingdom to rule over. The ruler by proxy had made sure of that.

At the same time, Bheeshma was also their father by proxy. Though technically an elder step brother to Vichitravirya, the age difference ensured that he was even more than a father that Pandu, Dhritarashtra and Vidur never had. Hence the father by proxy also ensured that the marriages of Dhritarashtra to the princess Gandhari (daughter of Gandhari, said to be present day Kandahar), and of Pandu to the princess Pritha (called Kunti because she was brought up by Kuntibhoj, a close friend of her and Vasudeva’s father Shoorsen) and princess Madri (sister of King Shalya) were done properly as per warrior customs.

There is a subplot in how the seeds of discontent were sown in the marriage of Gandhari and Dhritarashtra, unknown to Bheeshma, but indirectly by him. It is said that the alliance was arranged between Gandhari and the eldest son of the royal family of Hastinapur. With that in mind, Gandhari along with her brother Shakuni (sent as a permanent envoy for his sister) made their way to Hastinapur assuming that the eldest son is the heir apparent to the throne. Perhaps due to lack of sufficient due diligence, they were, therefore, surprised to see that the first son was blind, and it was the second son who was the real heir to the throne. In some versions, Shakuni even tried to get Gandhari married to Pandu, but Bheeshma refused saying that the elder will be the first to get married. Gandhari accepted it as her destiny without any compunction but Shakuni didn’t. It was an unhealed sore wound that festered in his evil heart. It was perhaps then that he decided to ensure that his sister’s children should inherit the throne, by hook or by crook. Bheeshma neglected this threat as a minor inconvenience at that time, but one must say that it turned out to be a big pain going forward.

Pandu turned out to be quite an ambitious and skilled ruler. Bheeshma might have deservedly felt proud on seeing his achievements that expanded the kingdom. He might have thought that his time to rest at ease was close when he saw Pandu challenge kingdoms far and wide and expand the boundaries of Hastinapur. But that feeling of relief, if at all, was short-lived. That was because despite all the royal fame and riches at his disposal, Pandu was inclined towards a life of renunciation. He requested Bheeshma for permission to retire to the forests along with his wives and children, and appointed Dhritarashtra to rule on his behalf. It was another surprise development, and it left Bheeshma again in a position to step forward to take care of Hastinapur and its throne. Given Dhritarashtra’s blindness, for all practical purposes, Bheeshma became the ruler by proxy again, while also remaining the chief protector of the King of Hastinapur, who himself was ruler by proxy for his brother.

There is no doubt that Bheeshma might not have envisaged such circumstances when he took the vow of celibacy and loyalty to the King of Hastinapur. There was, of course, more to come which he might not have anticipated then too. The real Mahabharata had just begun.

It turned out that with Pandu and his branch of the family out of the picture, it became more and more apparent that Hastinapur would be ruled by Dhritarashtra and his sons. While Dhritarashtra may have ruled by proxy for a few years, there was no attempt to stop the sense of entitlement that kept growing in Duryodhana. In fact, led by Shakuni but resisted by Bheeshma, it only increased, far beyond what Bheeshma thought possible, to an eventual point of being irreparable.

It would be an interesting thought experiment to wonder whether Bheeshma could have stopped this, not after Dhritarashtra took over but even before. Like it happened when Vichitravirya passed away, when Pandu went to the forests, leaving Bheeshma with a blind replacement, the throne of Hastinapur might have been there for the taking for Bheeshma again. There was no question of anyone challenging a warrior like him, and one might argue that it might have been good for Hastinapur too had he taken over even then. But Bheeshma’s has been a life of sacrifice, a life dedicated to the vows of celibacy and loyalty to the throne without usurping it. Once again, that character came to the fore. He therefore remained a ruler by proxy, and protector and father by proxy for three generations viz. Shantanu’s sons, then Vichitravirya’s sons and eventually to Pandu’s and Dhritarashtra’s sons too. The story of Mahabharata more or less runs in parallel to the story of Bheeshma’s life, therefore.

The story then proceeds further. Pandu became a forced celibate due to the curse of sage Kindam, to which he eventually succumbs to, again highlighting the enormity of Bheeshma’s vow of celibacy and the stringent adherence to it. During this period, Dhritarashtra, though blind but with Bheeshma’s rule by proxy, runs Hastinapur in relative peace. In fact, he turns out to be not such a bad king, but a lousy father – a conflict he didn’t overcome till the end.

The return of Pandu’s wife Kunti and children many years after going to the forest due to the untimely demise of Pandu might have, therefore, been a shock to Dhritarashtra’s side of the family. But even more shocking might have been the warm welcome that Bheeshma gave them, purely on grounds of doing the right thing. In his mind, they were welcome co-owners while for Duryodhana they were unwelcome guests in his territory. The antics of Shakuni and Duryodhana thereafter are well known, which Bheeshma, despite his professed loyalty to Hastinapur, often objected to on grounds of being wrong. But he realised how bad things had come down to, only when Kunti and the Pandavas were thought to have perished in the fire of Varnavrat. It was an open secret that it was an act of arson by Duryodhana with the tacit permission of Dhritarashtra. When the Pandavas were discovered to be alive later, Bheeshma’s lone voice of dissent ensured that Dhritarashtra gave them their share of the kingdom, though unfair in the form of Khandav prastha, a largely inhabited forest.

On many instances during this tumultuous period, Bheeshma played the role of ruler and father by proxy, trying his best to inculcate some sense into Dhritarashtra and his part of the family, but always bound by the vow to serve them, as they were the ones who sat on the throne. These were most amply on display during Yudhisthira’s Rajasuyayagna, the infamous game of dice, Draupadi’s disrobing, and even in the battle of Virata at the end of the Pandavas’ incognito period. On all occasions, Bheeshma found himself in circumstances where his heart was on one side, but his head was bound by his vows of celibacy and loyalty to the throne of Hastinapur. His was a life truly of proxy as a ruler and a father, where the letter and spirit were often in conflict with each other. And it was often the letter that won the day.

But another interesting and often overlooked aspect of Bheeshma’s life of proxy has been his role of a devotee by proxy. At a literary level, while his character is as perfect a depiction of dharma as one could find anywhere, at a spiritual level, Bheeshma is also as perfect a depiction of devotion as one could find.

How is that, one may ask?

Well, it all starts with his deciding to worship Krishna at Yudhisthira’s Rajasooya Yagna as the only person worthy of worship and it ends with his laying down arms and indeed, choosing death, in the final battle of his life on seeing Krishna taking up arms to protect Arjuna. More on that up next.

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