Bhishma Parva

The first ten days of the war, fought under the command of the grandsire Bhishma. It opens with Arjuna's collapse between the two armies and Krishna's answer to it, the Bhagavad Gita, the eighteen chapters that turn a battlefield into the epic's philosophical centre. Then the fighting begins, day after day of formations and duels in which Bhishma cuts down the Pandava ranks while refusing to kill the sons of Pandu. On the tenth day Shikhandi rides before Arjuna, Bhishma lowers his bow, and the old warrior falls on a bed of arrows to wait for the sun to turn north before he dies.