The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore

Devdutt Pattanaik

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317766308
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

A god transforms into a nymph and enchants another god.A king becomes pregnant.A prince discovers on his wedding night that he is not a man.Another king has children who call him both father and mother. A hero turns into a eunuch and wears female apparel. A princess has to turn into a man before she can avenge her humiliation. Widows of a king make love to conceive his child. Friends of the same sex end up marrying each other after one of them metamorphoses into a woman. These are some of the tales from Hindu lore that this unique book examines. The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore is a compilation of traditional Hindu stories with a common thread: sexual transformation and gender metamorphosis. In addition to the thought-provoking stories in The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales from Hindu Lore, you'll also find:

• an examination of the universality of queer narratives with examples from Greek lore and Irish folklore
• a comparison of the Hindu paradigm to the biblical paradigm
• a look at how Hindu society and Hindu scripture responds to queer sexuality
• a discussion of the Hijras, popularly believed to be the "third gender" in India--their probable origin, and how they fit into Hindu society

With the telling of each of these tales, you will also learn how the author came upon each of them and how they relate to the context of dominant Hindu attitudes toward sex, gender, pleasure, fertility, and celibacy.

Chapter 1

Women Who Become Men

Shikhandi is a minor but pivotal character in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. His/her ambiguous sexuality has confounded storytellers, playwrights, and filmmakers for generations. In 1988, in a mega-teleserial called Mahabharata produced by B. R. Chopra and telecast by Doordarshan (India’s state-owned television broadcasting service), the role of Shikhandi was played by a male actor who walked with an exaggerated feminine gait, his entry accompanied by a sinister background music. In Ramanand Sagar’s teleserial Shree Krishna, telecast a few years later, the role was played by a female actor sporting a moustache. Renowned playwright Peter Brook also used a woman to portray Shikhandi in his internationally acclaimed play Le Mahabharata. Shikhandi is neither male nor female. Or rather, Shikhandi is both male and female. A woman in her/his former life, she/he is born with a female body, but is raised as a man. Though she/he acquires a male body on her/his wedding night, in the climax of her/his life, she/he is treated as a woman.

A man with a woman’s heart? A woman with a man’s body? A hermaphrodite? A Hijra? Nobody is sure, yet the term “Shikhandi” continues to be used in common parlance in a derogatory manner to refer to an effeminate man or a masculine woman. This is often done without knowledge of the details of Shikhandi’s life that are edited out of most abridged and popular versions of the Mahabharata. For example, in Iravati Karve’s Yuganta, the now legendary commentary on the great epic, the author describes Shikhandi as a man who in his last life was a woman called Amba. This detail is well known as it plays a crucial part in the unfolding of the narrative. The same line of thought is expressed in Kamala Subramaniam’s Mahabharata. What is left unsaid is that Amba was reborn with the body of a woman, but was raised as a man by her father. What is also left unsaid is how the female body transformed into a male body.

To understand Shikhandi, we must learn more about Amba. To learn about Amba—and her tragedy in a man’s world—we have to make our way through a labyrinth of plots and search the multitude of personalities who populate the epic, until we stumble upon a character called Bhisma. Before narrating the story of Bhisma and how he is related to Amba and how Amba becomes Shikhandi, let us take a closer look at Mahabharata itself.

Mahabharata is an epic written in Sanskrit (Hindu equivalent of Latin) verse that is nearly eight times larger than the Iliad and Odyssey put together. It reached its final form somewhere between 300 B.C.E. and 300 C.E., the period that saw the rise and fall of the Classical Roman Empire. It is generally accepted that the epic was originally a smaller simpler folk story. Over time, it was appropriated, “sanskritized,” and sanitized by Brahmins, the priestly caste that has dominated the traditional Hindu caste hierarchy for over 3,000 years. The plot revolves only around priests and their patrons, kings, and warriors, while common folk—such as traders, farmers, herdsmen, and craftsmen—are reduced to narrative props. Earlier the book was known as Jaya (meaning “victory”) and comprised of a few thousand verses. Later, as the tale moved from the tongues of wandering minstrels into the libraries of priests, it was embellished with the genealogies of kings and other didactic material such as cosmogonies, cosmologies, philosophies, and astrological forecasts.

The present version, called Mahabharata (Maha means “great”; bharata is both the traditional name of India as well as an ancient line of kings), includes eighteen chapters and spans over seven generations of Bharata kings, beginning with Pratipa, Bhisma’s grandfather, and ending with Janamajeya, Bhisma’s great-great-grandson. At the heart of the narrative is the struggle between the Pandavas and their cousins, the Kauravas, for the throne of Hastinapur, which culminates in a terrible war on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

Most Hindus do not consider Mahabharata to be a work of fiction. It is treated as itihasa, or history. Some may call it legendary history based on a real fratricidal struggle that took place around 1000 B.C.E., about the time it is believed Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem and the Myceneans attacked the city of Troy. Traditional dating systems push back the date of war to around 3000 B.C.E. Vyasa, the legendary compiler of the Vedic scriptures, is believed to be the author of the epic. Ganapati, the elephant-headed god of beginnings, served as his scribe. This makes Mahabharata a religious scripture. It also acquires the status of a sacred book because one of its characters is Krishna, believed by many to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead. More about him and his divine discourse the Bhagavad Gita will be discussed later. Let us focus on Bhimsa first.

Bhisma: The Son Who Swore Celibacy

The river-nymph Ganga agreed to marry Shantanu, King of Hastinapur and Lord of the Kuru clan, only if he swore never to question her actions after marriage. Blinded by desire, Shantanu agreed. He was, as a result, forced to remain silent when Ganga drowned their seven sons as soon as she gave birth to them (to liberate them from a curse). When Ganga was about to kill the eighth child, Shantanu could remain silent no more. He spoke up, stopped her, saved the newborn, but lost the river-nymph’s affection forever. The eighth son was named Devavrata, who grew up to be a skilled archer and a worthy crown prince greatly loved by the people. Then, one day, Shantanu fell in love with a fisherwoman called Satyavati, who agreed to marry him only if he promised to make her children his heirs. Shantanu hesitated until Devavrata came to his aid and gave up his claim to the throne. This did not satisfy Satyavati. “What if Devavrata’s children fight my children for a share of the kingdom?” To put her mind to rest, Devavrata took a vow: “I will take no woman to my bed and so never father children.” For this act of filial affection, the gods blessed Devavrata and renamed him Bhisma, the awesome one.

The renaming of Devavrata to Bhisma after he took the vow of celibacy makes one wonder what is so awesome about not fathering a child. In Jain retellings of the Mahabharata, it is said that to leave no doubt in the mind of Satyavati, Devavrata performed the awesome act of castrating himself.¹ This detail is not found in Hindu retellings of the epic. The answer to the renaming probably lies in the Hindu belief in the cycle of rebirth. In the Hindu scheme of things, every man is indebted to his ancestors, the venerable Pitrs, for his existence. He repays his debt by fathering children and facilitating their rebirth. A son is called put-ra and a daughter put-ri because their birth saves fathers from the dreaded realm known as Put, reserved for childless men. The Pitrs hang over the precipice of oblivion in the land of the dead until a living descendent comes to their rescue. During the ceremony of shraadh, devout Hindus make offerings of rice balls to their forefathers and promise to fulfill their biological obligation. By refusing to father children, Devavrata incurs the wrath of his ancestors and condemns himself to an eternity in the land of the dead. Sacrificing his very existence for the sake of his father earns him the admiration of the gods and transforms him into Bhisma. The admiration for Bhisma is so great that every year on the eight day of the waxing moon in the month of Magha (late January or early February), the day Bhisma is said to have died, devout Hindus perform funerary rites in Bhisma’s name and offer rice balls to the eternally suffering, childless son of Shantanu, to assuage his interminable hunger.

The tale of Bhisma is a reminder of the fate of a childless man in the Hindu worldview. It is also the tale of the ideal Hindu son: he who subsumes personal desire to please his father. The following story from the Markandeya Purana (c. 250 C.E.) is the tale of another such ideal son. It is retold by Sadashiv Ambadas Dange in his Encyclopaedia of Puranic Beliefs and Practices, Volume I.

Avikshita: The Prince Who Believed He Was a Woman

Many women wanted to many Avikshita, son of King Karandhama, but he turned them down because he believed himself to be a woman. When he rejected Princess Vaishalini, she decided to kill herself, but was stopped by a celestial being who foretold that she would be the mother of a great king. She went to the forest and decided to perform austerities until circumstances changed in her favor. Avikshita’s mother, Vira, began a fast and observed a vow to get what she desired most (the marriage of her son). Meanwhile, Avikshita—on the way to the forest—gallantly declared that before leaving he would fulfill the wishes of anyone who approached him. His father, the king, went to him and said, “Fulfill my wish. Give me a grandson.” While wandering in the forest, Avikshita heard a woman cry out for help as she was being abducted by a demon. He rushed to her rescue. The woman was Vaishalini, who eventually bore his son, Marutta.

Avikshita believes himself to be a woman. Nevertheless, his mother wants him to marry and his father wants him to produce a child. Even the woman who wants to marry him is unconcerned about his self-identification. Ultimately, probably under societal pressure (though the narrative does not make this clear), Avikshita gets married. Similar to Bhisma, Avikshita is the selfless son, much desired by Hindu families. For the sake of his father, Bhisma does not marry. For the sake of his father, Avikshita does marry. Personal desires are crushed on the altar of filial duty.

Mahabharata informs us of another such ideal son, Prince Puru (Bhisma’s ancestor), who endures his father’s old age so that his father can continue enjoying the joys of youth. For this action, the father makes Puru his heir, even though he is born of a concubine and is the youngest of four sons.

Admiration for a man who sacrifices his pleasures for the sake of his father has been described by some Indian psychoanalysts as “reverse-Oedipus” complex.² Unlike the Freudian model based on Greek myths where the son kills the father who he perceived as a sexual rival, in the Indian model, it is the father who overpowers his sexual rival, the son.

Getting back to Bhisma, even though he turns away from women, circumstances entwine his life with the life of Amba, the princess of Kashi, the woman who ultimately becomes his nemesis.

Amba’s Quest for Manhood

Satyavati had two sons by Shantanu. The first, Chitrangada, was killed in war before he could marry and father children. The second, Vichitravirya, was so weak that he could not find himself a bride. So, on his behalf, in keeping with the ancient code of marriage, Bhisma—now patriarch of the Kuru clan, abducted the three daughters of the king of Kashi and brought them to Hastinapur. Two of the three princesses, Ambika and Ambalika, agreed to marry Vichitravirya. The eldest one, Amba, wished to marry the man she was in love with. Content with two wives, Vichitravirya let Amba go to her beloved. Unfortunately, Amba’s lover refused to accept her as she had been “touched by another man.” Desperate, Amba sought shelter in Hastinapur. Vichitravirya refused to take back “that which is once given away.” Destitute, she begged Bhisma, who she blamed for her misfortune, to marry her. When Bhisma refused, Amba decided to use force to make him change his mind. She sought a champion who would fight, defeat, and compel Bhisma to marry her. Failing to find one, she invoked Shiva, lord of destruction. Shiva promised her that in her next life she would be the cause of Bhisma’s death. Impatient to kill Bhisma, Amba killed herself and made a hasty journey to her next life.

Vyasa portrays Bhisma as a tragic figure. He abandons family life, but family life does not abandon him. He is a bachelor by choice but a householder by obligation. The early death of his father forces Bhisma to become the head of a household, become regent, and take care of the women and children. He is forced to become a patriarch, despite his great vow of renunciation. He rejects the traditional key to worldly life, marriage, but ends up a worldly man nevertheless. In many ways he is a non-son: he does not marry, he does not continue his father’s lineage, he does not inherit his father’s crown, and ultimately, he dies at the hands of one who is not a man, a shameful fate for a proud warrior.

In the world that is Mahabharata, things are different for men and women. While Bhisma takes his decision, decisions are taken for Amba. Her abduction at the hands of Bhisma deprives her of the right to choose her husband (this ceremony where women chose their husbands from a gathering of men known as swayamvara died out in ancient India with the rise of patriarchy). Her father, the king of Kashi, refuses to take any responsibility for her once she has crossed his threshold, never mind that she is carried over by force by a man who gives her away, like a gift, to his younger brother. Her lover rejects her because “she is touched by another.” Vichitravirya refuses to take her back because “gifts once given cannot be taken back.” Bhisma refuses to accept responsibility for Amba’s misfortune. When she seeks justice by force, social laws prevent her from taking up arms; she needs a champion to fight her case. When she fails to find a suitable champion, she does not give up. Determined to have her revenge, she kills herself and hopes to be reborn as a man, thus acquiring the biology that earns her the right to bear weapons.

What happens between Amba’s death and rebirth? The following story concerns Bhisma’s half-brother, Vichitravirya, scion of the Kuru clan, whose name can be translated as “queer virility” or “odd semen” (in Sanskrit, vichitra = odd, virya = semen, manliness, virility).

Children of the Man with Queer Virility

Vichitravirya died before he could make either of his wives pregnant, so Satyavati asked Bhisma to go to the widows and give them children. He refused, reminding her of his vow. Desperate, Satyavati sent for a sage who impregnated the two queens. Ambika gave birth to Dhritarashtra, while Ambalika gave birth to Pandu. Dhritarashtra was born blind. His physically imperfection denied him kingship. He married Gandhari and fathered the hundred Kauravas. During a hunt, Pandu accidentally killed a sage and his wife while they were making love. Before dying, the sage cursed him, “If you ever touch your wife you will die.” The curse prevented him from impregnating his two wives, and Pandu gave up his crown. He appointed Dhritarashtra regent and retired to the forest, considering himself unworthy of kingship. Pandu’s wives found a solution to this situation, however. They invoked the celestial Devas, who gave them five sons, who came to be known as the Pandavas, the sons of Pandu. The two branches of the Kuru clan, the Kauravas and Pandavas, grew up hating each other, each one believing they had a greater claim to the throne of Hastinapur, much to the chagrin of their great-grandmother Satyavati.

There is poetic justice in this narrative. Satyavati prevents Bhisma from fathering children in order to secure her children’s hold on the crown. What she does not anticipate is that her own progeny will end up fighting over the crown. Thus, the Mahabharata captures the grand Hindu discourse on destiny: no matter how hard man may seek to manipulate destiny, he will always fail. No human can fathom the mysterious workings of karma.

Traditionally, a direct relationship is believed to exist between potency of semen and strength of body. An impotent/sterile man is considered to be a physically weak man, and a physically weak man is considered to be an impotent/sterile man. Thus, there may be a link between Vichitravirya’s name, his dependence on his half-brother Bhisma to get him a wife, his inability to father a child, and his early death. Though functionally male, he is effectively a non-man, because he does not impregnate either wife.

In Jain retellings,³ Dhritarashtra’s physical defect (blindness) extends to his sexual prowess: he is said to be sterile. In desperation, his wife Gandhari, who shares his blindness as a dutiful wife by blind-folding herself, copulates with one hundred billy goats. The goats are sacrificed to the gods by Dhritarashtra in his quest to father children. The slaughtered goats, who are reborn as celestial beings, visit Gandhari, one who loved them in her last life, and give her one hundred sons.

The story alludes to the practice of niyoga or levirate, which enables Pandu—rendered functionally impotent by a curse—to father sons. Niyoga was a ritually prescribed course of action open to all men who could not beget children on their own: the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Placing Stories in Context
• Chapter 1. Women Who Become Men
• Chapter 2. Pregnant Kings
• Chapter 3. Cross-Dressing Tricksters
• Chapter 4. Castrated Men and Women
• Chapter 5. Neither This nor That
• Afterword
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index