AMBA AND BHISHMA

Amba was impatient for that rebirth which would give her heart's desire. She made a pyre and plunged into the fire pouring out the flame in her heart into the scarcely hotter blaze of the pyre.

By the grace of Lord Siva, Amba was born as the daughter of King Drupada. A few years after her birth, she saw the gar land of never-fading flowers that still hung at the palace gate and had remained there untouched by anyone through fear. She put it round her neck. Her father Drupada was in consternation at her temerity which be feared would draw on his head the wrath of Bhishma.

He sent his daughter in exile out of the capital to the forest. She practised austerities in the forest and in time was transformed into a male and became known as the warrior Sikhandin.

With Sikhandin as his charioteer, Arjuna attacked Bhishma on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Bhishma knew that Sikhandin was born as female, and true to his code of chivalry he would not fight him under any circumstance.

So it was that Arjuna could fight screened by Sikhandin and conquer Bhishma, especially because Bhishma knew that his long and weary probation on earth was finished and consented to be vanquished.

As the arrows struck Bhishma in his last fight, he singled out those which had pierced him deepest and said: "This is Arjuna's arrow and not Sikhandin's." So fell this great warrior.

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