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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Udyoga
Ambā
Classical
Bhishma refuses to shoot because Shikhandi was once a woman.
The story of Amba is told by Bhishma himself, and he tells it for a startling reason. Duryodhana has asked why the old general, who will fight anyone, refuses to raise a hand against the warrior Shikhandin even when Shikhandin attacks him. Bhishma answers by going back to the day his youngest brother needed a bride.
After his father Shantanu died, Bhishma put his brother Chitrangada on the throne, and when Chitrangada died he crowned Vichitravirya, on Satyavati's advice. Then word came that the king of Kashi was holding a svayamvara for his three daughters, Amba, Ambika and Ambalika, and had invited kings from everywhere. Bhishma drove there alone in his chariot, announced before the whole assembly what he meant to do, and carried the three princesses away. The furious kings took up arms. Bhishma cut down their banners, their horses, their elephants and their charioteers, and brought the sisters home to Satyavati, to be wives for his brothers.
Amba, though, had already set her heart on Shalva. Bhishma took counsel with his mother, his advisers and his priests, and then let her go to him, with old Brahmins and her nurse for company. It looked like the end of the trouble. It was the start of the real one.
Shalva laughed when she arrived. He would not take a woman who had been meant for another man's wedding and then seized by Bhishma, and he told her to go back. Amba protested that she had gone unwillingly, weeping the whole way, that Bhishma had released her himself, and that her sisters had been given to Vichitravirya. She swore on her own head that she spoke the truth. He sent her off a second time, as a snake sheds its skin, saying only go, go, because he was afraid of Bhishma. Amba told him that if he cast her off, then the good would protect her, since truth cannot be destroyed. She left his city wailing like a she-osprey.
Outside the walls her grief turned in a single direction. She asked whom to blame: herself, her father, fate, Shalva, or Bhishma. She cursed them nearly all, and settled on Bhishma. She would take revenge, by austerity or by battle, though she doubted any king alive could stand against him. That night she reached a hermitage, told the ascetics everything, and asked to be taught penance. They promised to help her.
What follows, in the passages I could read, is the long grinding of a woman's resolve. A duel was fought between Bhishma and Rama, son of Jamadagni, and it ended with Rama admitting he could gain nothing against Bhishma and telling Amba to seek Bhishma's own protection, since she had no other. She refused to give in and set about finding a way to kill him herself. Bhishma, hearing of her penances, posted spies and went to the sages Narada and Vyasa, who told him not to grieve, since destiny is not overcome by effort alone. Amba starved on air for six months, stood a year in the river Yamuna, stood another year on her toes eating one fallen leaf, and kept it up for twelve years. The river goddess Ganga warned her that her aim was crooked and that if she died in it she would become a river that runs only in the rains. Half her body did become that river; half stayed a woman.
Among the ascetics of Vatsabhumi she finally said it plainly: Bhishma had cast her out of any married life, she meant to kill him in battle, and for that she wanted to be a man. Shiva appeared with his trident and bull and granted the wish. She would kill Bhishma. She would be born in Drupada's family as a fine fighter, remember this life, and at some point after her birth become a man. Amba gathered wood, built a pyre on the bank of the Yamuna, lit it, and walked in, saying aloud that she did it for Bhishma's destruction.
That is why, years later on the field of Kurukshetra, Bhishma will not shoot at Shikhandin. He knows who is standing there.
Told by Bhīṣma → Duryodhana
Who: Amba, Arjuna, Bhishma, Bhīṣma, Drupada, Shikhandi, Shiva
Bound to
Bhaṅgāśvana twin
The yaksha Sthuna lends Shikhandi his sex causes
The Mausala (Yādava fall) twin
Bhīṣma's conditions: the rathas and atirathas assessed curse
Day nine: Bhīṣma's fury, Kṛṣṇa charges again, and how Bhīṣma can be defeated curse
Day ten: Śikhaṇḍin and Arjuna fell Bhīṣma; the bed of arrows, the pillow and the water curse
Where this comes from
- CE · Mahabharata, Critical Edition 5.170-193 5.170-193
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Udyoga Parva, Section CLXXIV (Bhishma to Duryodhana: the svayamvara of Kashi)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Udyoga Parva, Section CLXXVI (Amba and Salwa)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Udyoga Parva, Section CLXXVII (Amba's lament, the hermitage)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Udyoga Parva, Section CLXXXVII (duel of Bhishma and Rama)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Udyoga Parva, page shows no section number (end of the duel, Amba's penance)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Udyoga Parva, Section CXC as labelled on page (Shiva's boon, the pyre)
Another telling
Amba, the Kashi princess abducted by Bhishma and then refused by him and by Shalva, performs penance; Shiva grants that she will be reborn as a daughter of Drupada who will become a man and slay Bhishma. She immolates herself. Variant (Rajagopalachari): Kartikeya gives her a garland of blue lotuses.