Abstract
The story of Ambā and her rebirth as the Pāñcāla warrior Śikhaṇḍin is fully narrated by Bhīṣma in the Ambopākhyāna (5.170-5.193). Some of the most prominent events of the story, namely the abduction of the princesses of Kāśī, Bhīṣma's victorious fight against the assembled kings, his victory over Rāma Jāmadagnya, Ambā's austerities and death, her rebirth as Drupada's daughter and her sex change, are partly narrated in the Ādiparvan (1.96.1-51), and also summarized or alluded to on various occasions in the Udyogaparvan, Bhīṣmaparvan and Anuśāsanaparvan, to name only the most important occurrences.
These events are narrated from different perspectives by different narrators to different listeners and with different intentions, and often present a considerably varied set of fictional facts. The event of abducting the princesses of Kāśī can be narrated or alluded to as: 1. the beginning of the story of Ambā ("Ambā and her sisters were abducted by Bhīṣma"); 2. a story about the birth of the Vaicitravīryas ("Bhīṣma secured wives for Vicitravīrya"); 3. a story about Bhīṣma's greatest deeds ("Bhīṣma defeated all the assembled kings and Rāma Jāmadagnya").
There are traces of all three perspectives in most of the narrations but usually one is prevalent and expanded and the other two are suppressed or even omitted. Different perspectives also continually renegotiate interpretations of the fictional facts without providing any unanimous solution.
In this paper, the perspectives used to narrate the abduction of the princesses of Kāśī will be compared to one another in order to describe how the Mahābhārata works with the polyphonic and aspectual nature of its storyworld