In his navagraha kirti, the great
19th century Carnatic music composer, Muthuswami Dikshitar describes Budh
(the planet Mercury) as Napumsakam or one who is not quite male, or female. He
alludes to a story in the Puranas where Brihaspati (the planet
Jupiter) discovers that his wife Tara (the goddess of stars) is pregnant with
the child of her lover, Chandra (the moon-god). He curses the love-child to be
born neuter. Budh later marries Ila, a man who becomes a woman when he
accidentally trespasses into an enchanted grove. From that union springs the
Chandra-vamsa, or the lunar dynasty of kings. So says the Mahabharata.
As in the story of Ila, Indian lore is
full of tales where men turn into women and women turn into men. Narada falls
into a pond, becomes a woman, discovers the meaning of worldly delusion
or maya. Shiva bathes in the Yamuna, becomes a gopi, a milkmaid, so
that he can dance the raas-leela with Krishna – an idea that has
inspired the temple of Gopeshwarji in Vrindavan. At a short
distance from Ahmedabad, is the temple of Bahucharji, the
rooster-riding goddess, where once it is said there was a pond that turned a
woman into a man, a mare into a horse and a bitch into a dog. The pond has
dried up, but women still visit this shrine seeking a male child. They seek the
blessings of bhagats (some call them hijras) who, though men,
believe they are women and choose to live their life wearing a sari.
Near Pondicherry, in
the village of Koovagam, every year the transgendered alis dance
and sing in memory of an event that took place during mythic times. Aravan, the
son of Arjuna and his serpent wife, Ulupi, had to be sacrificed to ensure
victory of the Pandavas at Kurukshetra. But he refused to die without a taste
of marriage. As no woman was willing to marry a man doomed to die the following
dawn, Krishna took his female form, Mohini, became Aravan’s wife,
spent a night with him and then wailed for him as his widow when he was
beheaded.
In the Valmiki Ramayana, there are
descriptions of Rakshasa women who kiss women on Ravana’s bed on whose lips
lingers the taste of their master. In the Krittivasa Ramayana is the
story of two widows who drink a magic potion and, in the absence of their
husband, make love to each other and end up bearing a child without bones
(traditionally believed to be the contribution of semen).
How does one interpret these stories?
Are they gay stories? They certainly shatter the conventional confines of
gender and sexuality. Ancient Indian authors and poets without doubt imagined a
state where the lines separating masculinity and femininity often blurred and
even collapsed. Though awkward, these were not stray references. Such tales
were consistent and recurring, narrated matter-of-factly, without guilt or
shame. Such outpouring has its roots in Indian metaphysics.
As the wheel of rebirth turns, Indians
have always believed, the soul keeps casting off old flesh and wrapping oneself
anew. Depending on one’s karma, one can be reborn as a tree, as a rock, as a
bird, a beast, a man, a woman, a man with a woman’s heart, a woman with a man’s
heart, even as a god or demon….endless possibilities exist in the infinite
cosmos. The wise see masculinity and femininity as ephemeral robes that wrap
the sexless genderless soul. The point is not to get attached to the flesh, but
to celebrate its capabilities, discover its limitations, and finally transcend
it.
The question before us is: does the
human mind have the empathy to include gender and sexual ambiguity in civil
human society? It does. In every Yuga new rules come into being that redefine
world order. Mahabharata mentions a Yuga when there was no marriage – women
were free to go any man they chose. This changed when Shvetaketu instituted the
marriage laws. We have lived through a Yuga where we left unchallenged laws of
old imperial masters that dehumanized and invalidated sexual minorities. This
has to change – hopefully now.
