The universe emerged from the nothingness where all forces of nature were coalesced in a singularity. This field was pure potentiality, Pure consciousness, Brahm and several other names were given to it. This purity of singularity first became duality and then multiplicity, starting a domino effect of entropy, creating the material and non-material kshetras (Universe) of consciousness.

Puranic stories are the stories of the multiplicity of creation, without diluting the underlying reality of the singularity, which is the cause and content of creation. Mahabharat is not only an epic story but also an allegorical account of the story of creation. As allegory Shantanu is Para Brahma (The Pure state of Consciousness), Satyavati is Matter principle, Bhishm stands for the collapsed Cosmic consciousness and so on. This blog deals with the story part signifying the surface values that we see as individuals and understand through reason and logic.

Bhishma Pratigya

Shantanu was thoughtful and melancholy. Under the spell of Kama he had fallen in love with a fisherman’s daughter, Satyawati. He wanted to marry her and make her the queen but the fisherman father demanded that the son born out of their wedlock should become the king. Bhishma, his eldest son was the inheritor of the throne. Shantanu did not want to break the law of succession. He was in turmoil. On one side was his intense love for Satyawati and on other his resolve to uphold the law of the land. Bhishma was concerned about his father’s melancholy state. On learning that his father wanted to marry a fisherman’s daughter, immediately went to request the fisherman to give his daughter in marriage to his father. The fisherman expressed no objection but that the son born out of the wedlock should become the king. Bhishma assured the fisherman that for his father’s happiness he was willing to abdicate the throne in favour of Satyawati’s son. But the fisherman expressed his fears that Bhisma’s son would then become the king as per the law of the land and therefore, he was not willing to give away Satyawati in marriage. Without giving a second thought Bhishma immediately vowed that he would not marry at all.

The heavens shook, the Devi, Devtas were stunned by such a vow and a state of gloom pervaded all over the earth. In today’s time thousands of men and women do not get married? What was so special in the case of Bhishma? Someone asked me this question. Bhishma is merely a symbol like many other symbols in the great epic Mahabharat. Bhishm was symbol for the King, like the lion in the jungle. Lion breeds with lion and the progeny is a lion. Imagine if the lion decides not to breed. The King would vanish from the jungle leading to advent of anarchy. Juxtaposed to the circumstances at the present, the lion is nearing extinction resulting in an imbalance of the ecological system for which we are running campaigns. This is exactly what happened when Bhishma took that wow.

Shantanu was the King, like the lion of the jungle, and Satyawati was daughter of a fisherman, like a deer in the forest. They were different species that came together. Through this union, Satyawati bred two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. Chitrangada did not possess required DNA configuration of a warrior like Bhishma and was killed by Gandaharvas in a battle. Vichitravirya was born sick. He married two princesses, Ambika and Ambalika but was unable to impregnate them to further his own species. What followed was a saga of deteriorating values that culminated in the Mahabharat that brought the end of Dwapar Yug. Nature is wholeness and each component from flora, fauna and homo-sapiens have a role to play. Each has a duty to the scheme of grand design laid down by nature. When deviations take place, then Newton’s laws take over – ‘To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’.