Reasons behind creating this post are;
1 - back in the year of 2018 or possibly 2019 a vishnu bhakt/vaisnavite (named "nayonika vats") and the translator's/editors of bori critical edition tried to make false claims of the parshurama-bhishma fight being a interpolation.
2 - My purpose will be to prove that this battle actually did happen since theirs no point in proving that bhishma won fairly cause i already proved that a long time ago in 2022. But i do not by any means consider bhishma to be a great fighter/warrior based on his victory over parshurama, cause for me parshuram is not among the top 10 warriors of MB or Ramayana.
3 - Their have been multiple tv serials about mahabharat, but only a couple have actually tried to portray the fight between parshurama/bhishma. One was chopra's MB (1988) the other was the serial of Sanjay Khan and of course the third is starplus's MB show. Ironically it was the muslim sanjay khan who showed his parshuram (anil yadav) dominating bhishma, their parshurama used an axe and bhishma used a double edged blade/sword, while in starplus (the lesser said the better besides the fact their presentation was the worst). But point is that sanjay khan showed parshuram disarming bhishma then giving him his weapon back so bhishma could continue the fight (basically sparing bhishma's life) yet sanjay khan isn't even a hindu let alone a vishnu bhakt.
The only presentation here which was close to accurate was the one done by CHOPRA cause he showed the battle as it was written which was a ARROW FIGHT. Unfortunately he failed to show parshuram getting knocked out by arrows of bhishma. Overall what im trying to get through to readers is that no tv serial showed parshuram losing even chopra's showed it as a stalemate mostly.
4 - Tv serial's in India have always done their best to guard the reputation of warriors & characters that are vishnu avtaars, even to the limit of insulting Shiva himself. Like in the "DevonKeDevMahadev" serial the directors did not want to show Jalandhar defeating Vishnu so they decided to never show a jalandhar vs vishnu fight, instead they show parshuram insulting & threatening jalandhar to harm his reputation more.
They also dont show that when lord Shiva disguised himself as a yaksha then he wielded a twig which even vishnu failed to move or lift, but these same tv serials will show ravan failing in the fake swayamvara of Seetha. All because of cognitive bias that society has.
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POST BEGINS.
Cross references for his fight against bhishma:
Anusasana Parva.
"He could not be vanquished by even Rama of Jamadagni's race with his celestial weapons of great energy."
Drona Parva;
"Who is there that is competent to vanquish him who could not be vanquished by thee before, although thou, endued with great energy, hadst vanquished Rama himself in battle, that fierce destroyer of the Kshatriya race, worshipped, besides, by the gods and the Danavas?"
Logic - though this quote is a cross reference for the fight another possibility that is implied by this quote is that the reason parshuram did not take action against danavas is probably due to the fact that they worshiped him. I assume these danavas feared the kshatriyas so thats why they worshiped the man who terrorized kshatriyas (parshuram).
Bhishma Parva.
[quote]
"Jamadagni's son Rama, who was acquainted with every weapon and whom none excelled, when addrest for battle on behalf of Amvya, was vanquished by Bhishma in combat. Thou tellest me that that Bhishma, who was the foremost of all warriors and who resembled Indra himself in the feats he achieved, hath been slain. What can be a greater grief to me than this? Endued with great intelligence, he that was not slain even by that slayer of hostile heroes, that Rama, the son of Jamadagni, who defeated in battle crowds of Kshatriyas repeatedly, he hath now been slain by Sikhandin."
Conclusion - i provided enough quotes directly from Mahabharat which show that the fight happened outside of udyoga parva.
