How Indian epics broke the gender binary

In his navagraha kriti, 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.


Dikshitar alludes to a story in the Puranas where Brihaspati (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.

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. Though awkward, these were not stray references. Such tales were consistent and recurring, narrated matter-offactly, 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, a rock, 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 question before us is: does the human mind have the empathy to include gender and sexual ambiguity in civil 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 with any man they chose. This changed when Shvetaketu instituted marriage laws. We have lived through a Yuga where we left unchallenged laws of old imperial masters that dehumanised and invalidated sexual minorities. Hopefully now, this will change.