Reason for Bhishma Pitamah's Death on a Bed of Arrows
thedivineindia.com | Updated UTC time: 2025-06-02 11:52:34
Bhishma Pitamah died on a bed of arrows (bayon ki shayya) because he had obtained the boon of his ichcha mrityu — that is, he could die whenever he wanted. During the Mahabharata war, Arjuna showered arrows on Bhishma on the orders of Shri Krishna, which made him fall to the ground, but did not die. There were so many arrows stuck in his body that they were not touching the ground — that is his “bed of arrows”.
Now the question: Why did Bhishma Pitamah suffer this pain?
Shri Krishna told Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata that no person suffers this kind of pain without karma. He indicated that Bhishma Pitamah received this bed because of an old karma of his.
The story told by Shri Krishna:
According to a legend, Bhishma Pitamah was a king in his previous life who once killed a snake with an arrow and trapped it in the trunk of a tree. The snake died in immense pain. He neither killed it nor saved it, but left it in the lurch. This cruelty and insensitivity was unjust to that being.
Therefore, Lord Krishna indicated that "He who had allowed a serpent to writhe on the ground would himself now writhe on a bed of arrows."
This is an example of the principle of karma - where actions from past lives also bear fruit.
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