Born a Daughter, Raised as a Son
Amba's self-immolation, prayed through in pursuit of Shiva's promise that she would one day cause Bhishma's death, was answered with a rebirth in the household of King Drupada of Panchala, born as a daughter Drupada had, according to most tellings, specifically asked the gods for as a means of eventually facing Bhishma - some versions have Drupada praying for a son capable of avenging an old grievance against Bhishma and Drona together, folding Amba's private vow into Drupada's own larger dynastic resentment.
Drupada raised the child, named Shikhandini, openly as a son from the start, training her in weapons and warfare exactly as a prince would be trained, and even arranged a marriage for her to a princess from a neighboring kingdom in keeping with that public identity. The deception could not survive the wedding night. Shikhandini's bride, discovering the truth, was outraged and sent word back to her own father, who threatened war against Drupada for the insult of marrying his daughter to a woman presented as a man.
Shikhandini, distressed and facing the collapse of both her marriage and her father's kingdom's standing, went alone into the forest, intending in some tellings to end her own life rather than bring ruin on her family.
A Yaksha's Bargain
In the forest, Shikhandini encountered a yaksha named Sthunakarna, who, moved by her situation, agreed to a temporary exchange: he would lend her his own masculine form for a fixed period, long enough to satisfy her bride's father and settle the crisis, on the condition that she return and give his form back once the danger had passed.
Shikhandini returned to Panchala in the yaksha's borrowed body, convincingly enough that the threatened war never happened, and the marriage stood. When the agreed period ended, she went back to return the form as promised, but by then Kubera, the yaksha's overlord, had discovered Sthunakarna's arrangement and, displeased that his own subject had given away his manhood so casually, cursed him to remain in the exchanged, feminine form himself, permanently, releasing Shikhandini from any obligation to give anything back at all.
Shikhandini returned home fully and permanently male by every account that mattered to the society around her, and from that point the epic refers to the figure as Shikhandi, a man who had once, earlier in the same life, been a woman - a distinction the text keeps precise, because that exact history, not a simple change of name, is what makes the rest of the story possible.
The One Shield Bhishma Would Not Raise
Bhishma had made a personal vow, separate from his vow of celibacy, never to raise a weapon against a woman or against anyone who had been born a woman, a standard of conduct he held to with the same rigidity he applied to every promise he ever made. When the Pandavas, deep into the eighteen days of Kurukshetra and unable to break through Bhishma's defense by any ordinary means, learned of Shikhandi's history from Krishna, they understood exactly what it meant: Bhishma would not fight him.
On the tenth day, Arjuna positioned Shikhandi at the front of his own chariot and advanced on Bhishma directly. Bhishma, recognizing Shikhandi and true to the standard he had kept his entire life, lowered his weapons and refused to strike back, even as arrows came at him. Arjuna, using Shikhandi as cover, fired the arrows that brought Bhishma down, riddling him with wounds until he fell from his chariot onto a bed made of the very arrows piercing him, famously remaining alive on that arrow-bed for weeks afterward by his own power to choose the moment of his death, a gift granted to him by his father Shantanu.
Amba's original vow, made across an entire earlier lifetime and carried forward through a second birth, a borrowed body, and a permanent change of form, closes here: Bhishma falls not to Shikhandi's own weapons, since Bhishma never engaged him as a combatant at all, but to Arjuna's arrows fired from behind the one shield in the entire war Bhishma's own code would not let him lower. The vow Shiva had made her, that she would be the cause of Bhishma's death, is kept to the letter, without Shikhandi ever striking the decisive blow himself.
Common Questions From Devotees
Did Shikhandi personally kill Bhishma?+
No - Bhishma refused to fight Shikhandi at all because of his vow, and it was Arjuna, using Shikhandi's presence in front of the chariot to keep Bhishma from retaliating, who actually fired the arrows that brought Bhishma down.
Is Shikhandi considered male, female, or both in the tradition?+
By the time of Kurukshetra the text treats Shikhandi as fully male following the exchange with the yaksha Sthunakarna, while still preserving the fact of an earlier female birth as Shikhandini and, before that, as Amba - it is precisely that layered history, not an ambiguous present identity, that the story depends on.
Why did Kubera curse the yaksha instead of simply taking his form back?+
The texts frame it as Kubera's displeasure at Sthunakarna giving away his masculine form on his own authority without permission, and the curse of permanent exchange functions as the resolution that conveniently also frees Shikhandini from any obligation to return the form.
Where is this story told?+
Amba's vow and self-immolation appear in the Udyoga Parva, and Shikhandi's role in Bhishma's fall is narrated in the Bhishma Parva's account of the tenth day of the war.
About the author
Anjali Mehta · Editor, M.A. Religious Studies
Anjali is the managing editor for Vandnaa and oversees the festival and vrat coverage. She holds an M.A. in Religious Studies and reviews every published article for accuracy, accessibility, and tradition-fidelity.
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