Shloka 69
भीष्मपर्व — अध्याय ७२: सैन्यगुणवर्णनम्, व्यूहरक्षा, दैव-पुरुषकारचिन्ता
इति श्रीमहाभारते भीष्मपर्वणि भीष्मवधपर्वणि पञ्चम दिवसयुद्धारम्भे एकोनसप्ततितमो<5ध्याय:
iti śrīmahābhārate bhīṣmaparvaṇi bhīṣmavadhaparvaṇi pañcama divasayuddhārambhe ekonasaptatitamo 'dhyāyaḥ
Thus, in the Śrī Mahābhārata, within the Bhīṣma Parva—specifically in the section concerning the slaying of Bhīṣma—begins the battle of the fifth day; this is the sixty-ninth chapter.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
This line is a colophon rather than a doctrinal verse: it frames the narrative by marking the textual division (parva/adhyāya) and situating events ethically within the war-chronicle—reminding the reader that the account is organized around pivotal moral and martial turning points, here associated with Bhīṣma’s eventual fall.
The text signals a transition: the commencement of the fighting on the fifth day of the Kurukṣetra war, within the Bhīṣma Parva and the episode leading toward Bhīṣma’s downfall; it identifies the chapter as the sixty-ninth.