शिखण्डिन् a. [शिखंडोऽस्त्यस्य इनि]
Crested, tufted. −m. A peacock; नदति स एष वधूसखः शिखंडी U. 3. 18; R. 1. 39; Ku. 1. 15.
2 A cock.
3 An arrow.
4 A peacock's tail.
5 A kind of jasmine.
6 N. of Viṣṇu.
7 N. of a son of Drupada. [Śikhaṇḍin was originally a female, being Amba born in the family of Drupada for wreaking her revenge upon Bhishma; (see Amba). But from her very birth the girl was given out as a male child and brought up as such. In due course she was married to the daughter of Hiraṇyavarman, who was extremely sorry to find that she had got a veritable woman for her husband. Her father, therefore, resolved to attack the kingdom of Drupada for his having deceived him; but Śikhaṇḍin contrived, by practising austere penance in a forest, to exchange her sex with a Yakṣa, and thus averted the calamity which threatened Drupada. Afterwards in the great Bhāratī war he proved a means of killing Bhīshma, who declined to fight with a woman, when Arjuna put him forward as his hero. He was afterwards killed by Aśvatthāman]
.