"You are the same Śikhaṇḍinī": narrative construction of Śikhaṇḍin's (gender) identity in the Mahābhārata
Abstract
In the Mahābhārata, Bhīṣma creates the narrative of his own death; he connects his own refusal to fight Śikhaṇḍin, an alleged (former) woman, to his famous vow of celibacy, thus also to his boon of svacchandamaraṇa, whilst claiming that killing a woman would mean killing himself (yadi bhīṣmaḥ striyaṃ hanyād dhanyād ātmānam apy utaǀ 5.193.65). Bhīṣma is the primary source of information about Śikhaṇḍin, as well as the person most affected by it.
The problem of Śikhaṇḍin's gender is discussed on several occasions in the Udyogaparvan and the Bhīṣmaparvan, and its importance is limited to Bhīṣma's "death", i.e. falling on the bed of arrows, after which, Śikhaṇḍin's attribute is practically forgotten. The truthfulness of Śikhaṇḍin's (former) womanhood is almost exclusively dependent on Bhīṣma's reliability as a narrator, and his entire character is authoritatively defined by Bhīṣma as well.
In this paper, the problem of Śikhaṇḍin's status as a liminal figure, i.e. both as a (former) woman and a character defined by another character, is evaluated in connection to how Bhīṣma created not only the means but the whole narrative of his death using Śikhaṇḍin's gender. Bhīṣma presents the issue slightly differently to the Kauravas (the emphasis is on Śikhaṇḍin's current womanhood), to the Pāṇḍavas (former womanhood), and to Śikhaṇḍin himself (current womanhood), and also creates presumably deliberate ambiguity between Śikhaṇḍin's birth gender and previous life as Ambā.
Other characters merely quote him and are obviously puzzled by the news of Śikhaṇḍin's status as a strī [woman], strīpuṃs [woman-man] or strīpūrvaka [former woman], and simply use the fact without confirming or denying it, thus taking part in the narrative presented by Bhīṣma, which authoritatively defined Śikhaṇḍin's character and created a powerful self-myth.