Testing Alain Testart's Hypotheses About Female Martiality through the Analysis of the Episode of Ambā-Śikhaṇḍinī-Śikhaṇḍin in Vyāsa's Mahābhārata.

This paper attempts to test hypotheses of the French anthropologist Alain Testart, for whom women have been almost universally excluded from martial practices involving bloodshed due to an unconscious law consisting of an avoidance of blood accumulation (blood from a wound and menstrual blood), on the basis of Ambā’s episode in the Mahābhārata. The study of this literary example reveals that Ambā reincarnated as a woman under the name of Śikhaṇḍinī, then cross-dressed and transformed into a man under the name of Śikhaṇḍin, can express her desire of death and her warrior-like anger, can receive a martial initiation, can become an excellent warrior described as “man-woman” but will act merely as a protective shield during the final battle. Moreover, the analysis of Bhīsma’s discourse shows a new line of research not noted by Testart: the warrior act toward a woman is likened to an act of sexual nature.