Shloka 86
Chapter 89: Bhīma dispatched to protect Ghaṭotkaca amid escalating engagements
इति श्रीमहाभारते भीष्मपर्वणि भीष्मवधपर्वणि सप्तमदिवसयुद्धावहारे षडशीतितमो<ध्याय:
iti śrīmahābhārate bhīṣmaparvaṇi bhīṣmavadhaparvaṇi saptamadivasayuddhāvahāre ṣaḍaśītitamo 'dhyāyaḥ
Thus, in the Śrī Mahābhārata, within the Bhīṣma Parva, in the section concerning Bhīṣma’s fall, in the account of the battle on the seventh day, the eighty-sixth chapter comes to an end. This closing colophon sets the tale within the war’s ethical frame: fate and duty (dharma) unfolding toward the climactic descent of Bhīṣma, while marking the day-by-day course of the Kurukṣetra conflict.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
This verse is a colophon rather than a doctrinal statement; its implicit teaching is structural and ethical: the war narrative is presented as a day-by-day unfolding of duty and consequence, and the approach to Bhīṣma’s fall is framed as a pivotal dharmic turning point within the epic.
The text is marking the end of the eighty-sixth chapter in the Bhīṣma Parva, specifying that the chapter belongs to the account of the seventh day’s fighting and to the episode concerning Bhīṣma’s slaying, thereby locating the reader precisely within the Kurukṣetra war sequence.