“Gather around children and listen to the story of my upbringing. You may only think of me as your uncle Bhishma, but what you may not know is that I am the son of the Goddess Ganga. My mother took on human form, and my father fell madly in love with her. I was the eighth child. My mother drowned the other seven. My father finally stopped my mother from drowning. My mother finally revealed to my father who she was. She then took me away to be trained from Vasishtha.”
“Growing up I never knew who my father was. I always wondered if he ever thought about me. Having Vasishtha as a mentor was an interesting experience. He taught me many different things. He taught me how to speak to another royalty, how to pray to the gods, how to go into a deep meditation, how to perform a purification ritual. But the thing I excelled in the most was fighting and weaponry. From an early age I seemed to excel at the bow. Vasishtha was a very impressed at my skill. Vasishtha had me shot with a blindfold over my eyes. He would take the target as far as the eye could see and make me shoot it. Finally Vasishtha had nothing left to teach me so we traveled to the different lands of the gods.”
“First we went to see Indra. The kingdom of Indra was like nothing I had ever seen in my entire life. Imagine the finest kingdom you have ever seen. This would look like dirty compared to Indra’s kingdom. Everything was made from the finest jewels. The streets seemed to glow like the sun. I came to Indra to learn mantras that would help me when I made my return back to my father. Indra taught me how to burn an object by just looking at it. He warned me that this mantra was a great responsibility. If I used this against an inferior opponent, the mantra would backfire, and burn me alive. After staying with Indra for a little while longer, we continued our travels.”
“We traveled to countless kingdoms so that I could learn different mantras from the gods. After many years of traveling I was finally able to complete my studies. I had finally become the man that could help lead this world into a better future. I was finally able to go to my father, and I have been here ever since.”
Author’s Note- I chose to write about the time that Bhishma spent away from his father growing up. I decided that I wanted this to be a story that Bhishma is telling all of his nephews when they were younger. Also I decided that I wanted Bhishma to travel to the different kingdom of the gods so that he could learn different mantras that he could eventually teach to his nephews.
Bibliography-Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata.
Bhishma with his family. Source
