Amba’s Quest for Home: A Case from The Mahabharata

Abstract

This article examines the myth of Amba from the perspective of hero's quest for home. According to The Mahabharata, Bhisma abducts Amba, one of the three maidens, for his half-brother Vichitravirya. After Bhishma abducts her, Amba finds her homeless. Shalva refuses to marry her, Bhishma denies going beyond his celibacy and her father also surrenders before Bhishma. In spite of his denial, Amba considers Bhishma an alternative to Shalva, with whom she could create a dream house. So, she agrees with Parasuram who intends to marry her with Bhishma. Similarly, she goes ahead in her journey and meets archetypal figures: Hotravahana, Parasuram, Ganga, and Shiva. Three of them remain helping hands to her while Ganga curses Amba. Amba goes on three phases of the Campbellian hero’s journey: separation, initiation and return. Her separation is caused by Bhishma’s kidnap, Shalva’s refusal to adopt her and her father’s inability to protect her. In her initiation phase, she goes through a series of transformation enabling her to fight against Bhishma. She only intends to defeat him for his misdeeds. Death is metaphorically extended to intensify defeat in the epic. Fire signifies positive action, passion, warmth and sexual prowess in the myth of Amba, where she enters. In other words, fire signifies home where one gets warmth, love and attachment. This paper basically answers three research questions. How does Amba become homeless? In what way does Amba get assistance from archetypal characters in her quest for home? How does Amba exploit her achievement for the transformation of the society? This reading exploits the Campbellian paradigm as the conceptual frame work and hermeneutic phenomenology as a theoretical one to explore the journey of Amba. It takes the myth of Amba and Shikhandi as a whole not the separate ones. The story of Amba ends as Shikhandi gets killed in the epic.