For generations, many people have imagined Sanjaya sitting inside the royal palace at Hastinapura and describing every moment of the Mahabharata war to the blind King Dhritarashtra. It is one of the most familiar images associated with the epic. But a passage in the Bhishma Parva presents a detail that challenges this popular understanding. The text describes Sanjaya returning from the battlefield and then approaching the worried Dhritarashtra with news about Bhishma's fall. So was Sanjaya actually travelling to the battlefield before reporting the events? The answer lies in how the Mahabharata itself describes his return.
