Shikhandi

A daughter raised as a son

Drupada of Panchala had done penance to Shiva for a son who would bring about the death of Bhishma. Shiva told him a daughter would be born who would later become a man. When the child arrived, the queen announced a son, and Drupada, trusting the god's word, performed all the rites of a son for her. She was called Shikhandini.

The child was Amba reborn, the princess of Kashi whom Bhishma had carried off from her swayamvara and who had burned herself on a pyre after Shiva promised her Bhishma's death in another life. Shikhandini was raised as a prince, learned writing and the arts, and studied arms under Drona in the same yard as the Pandavas and the Kauravas.

The yaksha in the forest

Drupada married his supposed son to a daughter of Hiranyavarman, king of the Dasarnas. The bride soon discovered the truth and sent word home, and Hiranyavarman marched on Panchala, threatening to kill Drupada and his whole house for the deception.

Believing herself the cause of the war, Shikhandini went into a lonely forest to die. The yaksha Sthuna, who lived there, took pity on her and agreed to exchange sexes with her for a time. She returned to Kampilya as Shikhandi, a man, and the women sent by the Dasarna king confirmed it, so Hiranyavarman went home. Kubera, lord of the yakshas, then cursed Sthuna to keep the woman's form until Shikhandi died.

The tenth day at Kurukshetra

Shikhandi commanded one of the seven Pandava divisions. Before the war Bhishma told Duryodhana plainly that he would not fight Shikhandi, because Shikhandi had been born a woman. On the ninth night the Pandavas went to Bhishma's tent and asked how he could be defeated, and he gave the same answer: set Shikhandi before him and let Arjuna shoot from behind.

On the tenth day Shikhandi rode at the head of the attack with Arjuna close behind him. Bhishma lowered his bow and would not shoot back. Shikhandi's arrows struck him without bringing him down, and Bhishma remarked that the arrows cutting through his armour were Arjuna's, not Shikhandi's. Arjuna's shafts brought the grandsire down onto his bed of arrows.

The last days and the night raid

Shikhandi fought on for the rest of the war, guarding Yudhishthira and meeting Ashwatthama, Kripa and Kritavarma in the line. He survived all eighteen days. On the night after Duryodhana's fall, Ashwatthama entered the sleeping Pandava camp and killed him with a sword, soon after killing Dhrishtadyumna. With Shikhandi dead, Sthuna regained his own form.

A vow carried across two lives

Shikhandi is the epic's clearest case of a purpose that outlives a body. Amba's grievance against Bhishma passes through death, a birth as a girl and a change of sex before it is settled on the tenth day. Yet the Mahabharata also gives him the eight days after it, when he did an ordinary soldier's work without complaint.