Shikhandini

Shikhandini — Wife of Antardhana, Mother of His Sons

Shikhandini · Sikhandini · Shikhandini of the Prithu dynasty

Shikhandini is the wife of Antardhana — also known in some recensions as Vijitashva — a son of the celebrated sovereign Prithu, who is regarded in the Puranic tradition as the first consecrated king of the earth and a partial avatar of Vishnu. Shikhandini appears in the Vishnu Purana, the Bhagavata Purana, the Brahmanda Purana, the Matsya Purana, the Vayu Purana, and the Harivamsha solely in her capacity as Antardhana's wife and the mother of his sons. She receives no independent narrative episode, no account of her own lineage beyond a connection in one recension to the dynasty of the fire deity Agni, and no further characterisation in any primary text. The profile below reflects this limited textual basis and records the significant textual inconsistency in what the different sources assign as her children.

✦ The Name

The name Shikhandini is the feminine form of Shikhandi or Shikhandin, derived from the Sanskrit shikha, meaning a crest, tuft, flame, or peak, with the suffix denoting one who possesses such a crest. The name thus means she who bears a crest or flame, and carries associations with both the peacock's crest — shikha being used for the peacock's distinctive plume — and with the tip of a flame. It is a name found in several distinct contexts in the Puranic and epic traditions and does not function as a unique identifier for any single figure. Most notably, a separate figure named Shikhandini appears in the Mahabharata as the daughter of Drupada, king of Panchala, who was born female and later exchanged her sex with a Yaksha named Sthuna, becoming the male warrior Shikhandi who played a decisive role in the Kurukshetra war. That figure is entirely distinct from Antardhana's wife, the two sharing only the name.

✦ Lineage

• Husband: Antardhana — also known as Vijitashva and as Antardhi in the Vishnu Purana — a son of the sovereign Prithu, the first consecrated king of the earth in the Puranic tradition, himself born through the churning of the arms of the dead king Vena by the assembled sages. Antardhana is noted in the Bhagavata Purana for having declined to punish Indra when the god of heaven was found stealing a sacrificial horse at a rite, out of reverence for Indra's divine status.
• Sons (per the Vishnu Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Matsya Purana, Vayu Purana, and Harivamsha): Havirdhana — a son who married Dhisana, a princess described in the Harivamsha as born of the lineage of Agni, and who fathered six sons upon her: Prachinabarhis, Sukra, Gaya, Krishna, Vraja, and Ajina. In this account Shikhandini is the mother of Havirdhana alone.
• Sons (per the Bhagavata Purana, Book IV, Chapter 24): Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi — three divine beings, forms of the fire deity Agni, who had been cursed by the sage Vasishtha to take birth as human beings and who were born as sons of Antardhana through Shikhandini. Having attained perfection through mystic yoga during their human lives, they were restored to their original divine stations. In this account Shikhandini is the mother of these three fire-god sons, and Havirdhana is instead born to Antardhana through a separate wife named Nabhasvati.

✦ Textual Variants and Inconsistencies

The most significant inconsistency in Shikhandini's profile concerns which sons the primary sources assign to her. The Vishnu Purana, together with the Brahmanda Purana, the Matsya Purana, the Vayu Purana, and the Harivamsha, names Shikhandini as the mother of Havirdhana and makes no mention of Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi as sons of Antardhana through her. The Bhagavata Purana, by contrast, names Shikhandini as the mother of the three fire-god sons — Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi — and assigns Havirdhana to a different mother, Nabhasvati, as the son of Antardhana through that wife. These two accounts cannot be reconciled: the Vishnu Purana tradition and the Bhagavata Purana tradition preserve genuinely different genealogical schemes for Antardhana's household, and Shikhandini's role differs materially between them. Neither account gives Shikhandini an independent lineage of her own; the Harivamsha passage describes her with the epithet Agneyidhishana — suggesting a connection to the lineage of Agni — but this is applied to the wife of Havirdhana rather than consistently to Shikhandini across all recensions.

✦ References

• Vishnu Purana, Book I, Chapter 14: Names Shikhandini as the wife of Antardhana and the mother of Havirdhana within the genealogical sequence of the Prithu lineage.
• Bhagavata Purana, Book IV, Chapter 24: Names Shikhandini as the queen of Vijitashva — that is, Antardhana — and identifies her as the mother of the three fire-god sons Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi, while assigning Havirdhana to a separate wife, Nabhasvati.
• Brahmanda Purana, Book II, Chapter 37: Names Shikhandini as the wife of Antardhana in the parallel genealogical account of the Prithu lineage.
• Matsya Purana, Chapter 4: Names Shikhandini in the same genealogical context as the Vishnu Purana.
• Vayu Purana, Chapter 63: Names Shikhandini as the wife of Antardhana in the lineage sequence.
• Harivamsha, Chapter 82: Names Shikhandini as Antardhana's wife in the genealogical account connecting Prithu's descendants to the Prachetas.
• Vettam Mani, Puranic Encyclopaedia (Motilal Banarsidass, 1975): Summarises both traditions regarding Shikhandini's sons and identifies the relevant chapter references across the primary sources.
• H. H. Wilson, The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition (1840): English translation with notes; used for locating the genealogical passage in which Shikhandini appears.