Amba Reveals Her Prior Pledge to King Shalva
As Bhishma prepares to marry his brother to the princesses he abducted, the eldest, Amba, steps forward. She reveals she had already pledged herself to King Shalva with her father's consent, and now asks Bhishma to decide what is right.
The preparations for the wedding were underway. Bhishma had brought the three princesses of Kashi to Hastinapura to be brides for his younger brother, Vichitravirya. But before the rites could begin, the eldest daughter approached him. She was devoted to the truth, and she spoke in an assembly of Brahmanas.
“I have earlier chosen the king of Soubha as my husband,” she said. King Shalva had accepted her, and this was her father’s desire too. At the svayamvara Bhishma had interrupted, she would have chosen Shalva. “You know dharma well,” she told Bhishma. “Now knowing this, decide what the course of dharma entails.”
Her words, spoken plainly in front of witnesses, stopped the proceedings. The brave Bhishma considered what should be done. He consulted the Brahmanas who were learned in the Vedas. The matter was one of dharma — of rightful conduct — and the counsel was clear.
Bhishma, who had knowledge about dharma, gave permission to Amba, the eldest daughter of the king of Kashi, to leave. He released her from the abduction that had been an act of kshatriya (warrior) force. In accordance with the prescribed rites, he then gave the two others, Ambika and Ambalika, in marriage to his younger brother Vichitravirya.
Amba walked away free, her story now separate from her sisters’, set on a path that would lead back to the king she had chosen and then far beyond him.