To Krsna, Bhisma’s Arrows Were Like ‘Love Bites’

Enjoying the intimate rasa of chivalry, Krsna enjoyed the wounds Bhisma inflicted on him. Srila Prabhupada writes about Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura’s explanation of this phenomenon as follows: “…the wounds created on the body of the Lord by the sharpened arrows of Bhismadeva were as pleasing to the Lord as the biting of a fiancee who bites the body of the Lord directed by a strong sense of sex desire. Such biting by the opposite sex is never taken as a sign of enmity, even if there is a wound on the body. Therefore, the fighting as an exchange of transcendental pleasure between the Lord and His pure devotee, Sri Bhismadeva, was not at all mundane (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.9.34)