THE TALLEST KURU ELDER FROM THE MAHABHARATA

FEBRUARY 5 was a little-known event on the Indian calendar called Bhishma Ashtami. On this day, those who observe it offer tarpan or the water of remembrance to the soul of Bhishma, the Kuru elder in the Mahabharata.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

FEBRUARY 5 was a little-known event on the Indian calendar called Bhishma Ashtami. On this day, those who observe it offer tarpan or the water of remembrance to the soul of Bhishma, the Kuru elder in the Mahabharata. It is said by some that those who do not have a father or don't know his gotra (ancestry) and nakshatra (birth star) to offer tarpan during shraadh (ancestral remembrance), may do so during Bhishma Ashtami.

Bhishma towers over the epic landscape, and therefore over India, with his extraordinary personality. His given name was Devavrata. But he came to be called Bhishma, the Terrible, on account of the humanly terrible vow he took as a young man and the crown prince of the Kuru kingdom of Hastinapur. As is well-known, his father Shantanu—desolate after Bhishma's mother, the goddess Ganga, left him—fell in love again, this time with Satyavati, the daughter of a fisherman.

But Satyavati's shrewd father did not agree to the match as there was already a crown prince in place and none of Satyavati's future children could inherit the throne. It's a revelation about the norms of old Indian society that Shantanu as king did not just carry off Satyavati as 'droit du seigneur' (right of the lord) but required her father's permission to marry her honourably. Also known as jus primae noctis (the right of the first night), it was a supposed legal right in medieval Europe allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with any female subject, particularly on her wedding night.