The fall of Bhishma is the first great turning of the war and one of its most tender passages. The grandsire — the same Devavrata who, generations before, had renounced crown and family with his terrible vow — now stood as supreme commander of the Kaurava host. His tragedy was that his vow bound him to defend the throne of Hastinapura, and so the noblest man on the field fought on the side his own conscience condemned, loving the Pandavas even as he led the armies against them.

For ten days he was invincible. No warrior could stand against him, and the Pandava cause faltered. But Bhishma had told them the secret of his own undoing. He held to an old vow never to strike one who had once been a woman, or who laid down arms, or who was unwilling to fight. On the Pandava side stood Shikhandi, born a girl and later a man, carrying a past life's enmity against Bhishma. When Shikhandi advanced, Bhishma lowered his bow and would not return fire — and under that shield Arjuna loosed the arrows that brought the grandsire down.

So thick were the shafts that pierced him that Bhishma did not fall to the earth; he came to rest upon the very arrows, a bed of arrows (sharatalpa) suspended above the ground. When attendants offered a soft pillow he refused it, asking Arjuna instead for a warrior's pillow; Arjuna fixed three arrows beneath his head to cradle it. Thirsty, Bhishma asked again of Arjuna, who pierced the ground with an arrow and brought up a spring of cool water to his lips. Friend and foe alike gathered around him, the fighting stilled, and the old man lay in the open field.

Then Bhishma exercised the gift granted him at birth — iccha-mrityu, death only when he willed it. He would not die yet. He chose to wait upon his bed of arrows through the long weeks until the sun turned northward, until the sacred season of uttarayana began, for the tradition holds that one who departs in that bright half of the year takes a blessed path beyond. Through the remaining days of the war and after it he lay there, and from that bed he spoke at length to Yudhishthira on duty, kingship, and the soul. Only when the sun began its northward journey did the grandsire, at peace, release his breath at last.

His death gathers up his whole life: the man who chose, once, to sacrifice his own desire for his family, chooses again the very hour of his leaving.