Story of battle between Parasurama and Bhishma

The first story that I am going to discuss is the story of the fight that was supposed to have taken between Parasurama and Bhishma. In this volume of Mahabharata Parasurama was simply reffered as Rama. To begin about the story, we have to discuss a small story that has happened before. The story goes as follows. Once Bhishma had conquered the kingdom of Kasi and had taken the three princess of Kasi with him to marry to his brothers. One of the captured princess called Amba had already loved the king of Shalva. Upon bringing her to the kingdom, Bhishma had a conversation with her. In that conversation Amba said that she belonged to the king of Shalva. So Bhishma releases her. She goes to the king of Shalva who had doubted her as she had been captured by Bhishma. So he rejected Amba. When Amba goes back to Bhishma, he rejects her. Amba goes to Parasurama who had conquered the world for seeking some help. Parasurama asked her whether she wanted him to kill Bhishma or conquer the kingdom of Shalva. Amba said that Bhisma was the genesis for all the distress that she had suffered and she wanted her death. A sage gives his opinion that Parasurama cannot ignore the plea of the women who had taken refugee under him. For this Parasurama replied that he would try to solve the problem by peaceful means. He said that he would try to solve the problem peacefully and try to talk to Bhishma and if the talks fail, then he would start a war and defeat him So the stage was set for the meeting between Parasurama and Bhishma. In the conversation, Parasurama asked Bhishma to accept Amba. But Bhishma says that he had abandoned her after she had claimed that she belonged to the king of Shalva and now he cannot accept her or marry her to his brothers. Bhishma asks Parasurama how he could accept an women who had her heart elsewhere. The refusal of Bhishma had enraged Parasurama and had blown the lid of his anger. Parasurama said he should accept Amba or his whole family would be killed. Bhishma had tried to cool the anger of Bhishma down but he failed in his attempt. Parasurama was the guru of Bhishma and as Parasurama is determined to fight with him, Bhishma says that he would follow the law of the Puranas which dictates that noone should slay his guru unless the guru had swayed away from his duties. Bhishma says as he had been acting unrighteously, he would be ready to battle Bhishma. Bhishma had the confidence of beating Parasurama when he said that Parasurama had defeated the kings when He was not born. The stage was set for a war. Bhishma had gone to his step-mother and narrated her all the events that had taken place. Her mother did not like the idea of Bhishma going

against Parasurama and asked him not to fight. Bhishma rejected her plea. So she went to Parasurama who was in no mood to relent. The fight started and went on for several days. The fight was very violent. As the war had become a great cause for suffering, many gods tried to stop the world.But in the end, Parasurama had withdrawn the war after the advice of his forefathers. At the same time Bhishma ended the war on the advice of many people. Amba left the battle field to practice austericism to take revenge of Bhishma. There are many contradictions in the story that itself. It is rumoured that the story has been incorporated later to show the strength of Bhishma. Originally Bhishma appears in Ramayana and it is impossible for a person to live for such a long time. Then during the end of the fight, they come to the conclusion that neither Bhishma nor Parasurama can kill each other. There is an apparent paradox in this statementy. How can a war be not concluded? And how can some one say that Parasurama cannot beat Bhishma and Bhishma cannot beat Rama. In a war, we can be assured thatsome one would be killed. Also in this war, it is not as if there are kingdoms fighting against kingdoms.As the description of the war says, it was a one on one war and there was ought to be a end result. After the war was over, Parasurama says that Bhishma was unbeatable and he is one of the best at the art of warfare. He also says that he had been vanquished by Bhishma. This was an interesting statement because to be vanquished means that you had accepted defeat and are willing to concede that the opposition is superior to you. But in the battle field it was said that both had been on level terms although both had bruises that had been inflicted while they had fought the battle over many days. These above reasons add weight to the argument that the story might have been incorporated to show the strength of Bhishma, the ancestors of Kauravas and Pandavas. At the same time, they maynot have wanted to tarnish the reputation of Parasurama and had incorporated a story in which the authors could prove that Bhishma was able to withstand an experienced warrior who is also a guru to him. At the same time, Parasurama had given a good account for himself and was made to look invincible. There was the constant reference to the reverence paid to the teachers during that period of Mahabharata. Before the start of the war, Bhishma had gone to Parasurama for his blessings as he is his guru for victory in the war. Then Parasurama was pleased with what he has seen and said that he would not bless him for the victory as he is the one who is fighting Bhishma. So,Parasurama was pleased with the conduct of Bhishma. Bhishma replied that he would kill the kshtriyahood of Parasurama and not the Bramhana inside Parasurama. There are three different type of philosophies that were seen in the Bhagwadgita The Vedic, the Samkhya and the Yogic philosophy. In this story, we will be able to find two philosophies

1) The vedic Philosophy: There is the constant reference to the word Bramhana in the story especially when the story refers to Parasurama and talking about his good virtues.In Vedic Philosophy, everybody has a Bramhan inside them. Even every thing has a Bramhan inside it. 2) Samkhya Philosophy: There is a constant reference to Regeneration in the story. As per the Samkhya philosophy, Every process has a cycle, so does the birth There are also many non believable events taken place like the chariot being built on the will of Parasurama when Bhishma refused to fight with a person without chariot. At the same time there were indirect references to the Kshatriya code of conduct like the reason given by Bhishma to reject Amba etc.

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