ಭೀಷ್ಮ ಅಷ್ಟಮಿ | Bhishma Ashtami

Bhishma Ashtami is the day on which Bhishma, lying on the bed of arrows, gave up his body. It is not a festival. Nothing is celebrated on it, and what is done is tarpana, an offering of water.

When it falls and why

The tithi is Ashtami of the bright fortnight of Magha, and the day that carries it is the day on which Ashtami is running at midday.

Tarpana belongs to the middle of the day, in the aparahna, and so the day is chosen by the tithi at that hour rather than at sunrise. An Ashtami that is present at dawn but ends in the morning does not take the day; an Ashtami that begins before noon does.

It follows Ratha Saptami by a day, and the sequence is the point of the story. Bhishma had the power to choose the hour of his death, and he held on through the days on the field of arrows until the sun turned north, which the tradition places at Ratha Saptami. He died the next day.

What is done

The offering is water with sesame and, where the full form is followed, darbha grass, given with the sacred thread over the right shoulder in the manner used for the departed. The sankalpa names him as Bhishma, of the Vaiyaghrapada gotra and the Sankriti pravara, who died sonless, and the water is given to him on that account.

That last phrase is the whole reason the day exists for everyone and not only for his descendants. Bhishma took the vow that left him without a wife and without a son, and so there is no line to give him water. The rite makes every man who performs it stand in for the son he did not have. For the same reason it is performed by those whose own fathers are living, which is otherwise not done: this tarpana is not for one’s own ancestors.

Practice differs on how far it extends. Many households do it as a single offering after the midday bath. Some perform an ekoddishta shraddha in the fuller form. In Karnataka it is kept most carefully in smarta and Madhva households that maintain daily or fortnightly tarpana, and it is common not to observe it at all in households that do not.

A confusion worth clearing

Bhishma Ekadashi is a different day. It is the ekadashi of the same bright fortnight, three days earlier, called Jaya Ekadashi, and it is kept as the day on which Bhishma, still lying on the arrows, recited the Vishnu Sahasranama to Yudhishthira. That day is for the recitation. This day is for the water.

Bhishma Ashtami is also not connected with the observances of Magha bathing, which continue independently through the month and close at Magha Purnima.