Homosexuality and Mythology - Part 1

The theme of homosexuality in mythology is quite common. Many mythologies depict this as a sexual act in terms of same-sex relationships or myths which deal with the subject as it is. No mythologies deal with the subject as a taboo or unnatural, though the modern interpretation does say so. Mythologies of the world treat the subject as just another manifestation of erotic expression and don’t see it as a heterosexual or homosexual act.  Many scholars feel that it is the modern (or rather the Anglo-Saxon education and an influence of Victorian upbringing) outlook that views homosexuality in a ‘different’ manner. Mythology has dealt with the aspects of homosexuality (both gay and lesbian relationship), transgender and transvestites, etc. as just another aspect of a sexual expression – no value judgment was ever made. It is much later that people started interpreting them in their ways and influencing their thought-process on such myths.

Different mythologies have treated the subject in different ways. Some have dealt with the subject of homosexuality, transgenderism and homoeroticism without distinguishing them. Some have references to relationships of same-sex and bisexuality (and even bestiality!) while some have characters with both reproductive organs, and some see it as androgynous. The whole idea is that in some myths the subject might not have been discussed with such clarity of concepts that modern and evolved (?) man has made it out to be. The terms that we use now are modern expressions and it is we who now try to compartmentalize the terms and use it accordingly. Some have subtle references, while some have clear message – without being judgmental (at the cost of repetition).  

Majority of the creation myths have similar themes where the world and its first inhabitants have been created by genderless or hermaphrodite beings, a union between same or opposite genders. (I would avoid giving examples here as this would be a deviation from the theme under discussion).

Let us see how different mythologies have treated the subject and some of the common myths around the said theme.

Many mythologies see the aspects of homosexuality or gender-changes in human beings as acts (or rather errors) of gods. According to the Greek mythology, Prometheus (the god who made man out of clay and later was punished for giving man the gift of fire) was responsible for such gender variance. According to Aesop (of Aesop Fables fame) – Prometheus was making man and woman out of clay and was separately shaping the private parts to attach them later on to the appropriate bodies. Just as he was about to do so, he was invited for dinner. He came late from dinner and under the influence of divine wine, he is supposed to have stuck the female parts on men and vice versa! This is how Aesop explains why some men are effeminate while some females are more-manly and how ‘unnatural’ desires arise leading to ‘perverted-pleasures’!

Tomorrow we will discuss some references of same-sex relationships from Greek Mythology. Keep reading …….

Rechristening of West Bengal

West Bengal just got rechristened to a brand new vernacular name – Pashcimbanga (to be pronounced as ‘Poshchim-bongo’ with all the ‘o’s to be pronounced in different ways!). Just because the Bard of Avon once said “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet", one doesn’t have to take it so seriously! Ask any non-Bong and he would tell you which one is a rose and which one isn’t! This is just first one of the many stages of “poriborton” – or change, that Mamata-di had promised prior to the polls.

This change of name will ‘elevate’ the alphabetical position of the state to seven steps higher – from W to P!! Bravo……never read a reason for a name change more naïve than that. With that logic wouldn’t just a simple Bengal have elevated it to many more steps higher? But then since when did we start crediting our politicians with a sense of logic? Apologies for the error of judgment!

If this is the first step to poriborton, then this is a disaster and the fact that we have not learnt from such errors in the past. Mother Teresa Sarani is still known as Park Street in Calcutta…..oops Kolkata and the famous Netaji Subhash International Airport is still fondly remembered as Dum Dum Airport! Is that kinda dumb? So what, many more things are dumb that our elected politicians do. How many residents of Kolkata can tell me the new names of Camac Street, Canning Street, Amherst Street, Princep Street, and I can go on? By changing the names, have we erased the colonial past? During the 200 years of Imperial rule, the Brits have done many a good and can we respect some for those things? The Railway network, the underground sewage system, the Howrah Bridge, the numerous buildings which have stood the test of time (Victoria Memorial, the Writers Building and so on), the Mint, etc. What is the big deal in renaming all the streets, lanes and bye lanes if people are not going to call them by the new names? What an insult to the memories of all the local personalities!

I would think that it would be more important to focus on tangible change rather than such useless cosmetic changes, which will bring no relief to the Calcuttan (or is it Kolkatan?) The change that all of us are looking for is in the form of development and the image that the now-erstwhile West Bengal carries. I am told that some railway stations are now being painted in shades of green as part of the change-process to the present ruling-party colour from the previous red!

With due apologies to the Bard of Bengal, I can’t help but remember a very famous song written by him – here is the slightly changed version of the same – Aami chini-go chini tomare, ogo didi-moni, tomra neta hole akajer, tomra neta hole akajer, ogo didi-moni, ogo didi-moni !!

Recreated image of Writer's Building

Finally my sincere request to the powers-that-be – Please do not paint the Writer’s  Building, green. Leave it red, it was built that way!!

Visarjan

Last week was Ganapati Puja which marked the beginning of the ten day festival in Maharshtra. Last year during the ten-day Ganapati festival I had covered different facets of Lord Ganapati in details and all the articles are available in the Archives, or you can go through them through the following link – http://utkarshspeak.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

Like every year, the festival ends with various days of Visarjan, or immersion of the idols. After all the fanfare and the festivities, the idols are taken out in a procession and immersed in the sea. This is a ritual that is followed all over the country with all the idols that have been venerated, worshipped, and people go for such immersions with much joy and celebrations. In some parts of Bengal however, many women are seen shedding tears during the immersion of the Goddess Durga after the ten day festival of Durga Puja in Bengal. But this is because Goddess Durga arrives in Bengal as a daughter and the leaving of the daughter is always sad.

This leads to the basic question, why are idols immersed in water (river or sea)?

The arrival of any deity on such festivals is like the arrival of a new being. The entire process of the ceremony from the prana-prathishta to bhog to visarjan is akin to the human circle of life – birth, maturity and death. In Hinduism, death is not the end of the being, but is the beginning of another journey. Also, since gods don’t die, they just depart, immersion processions of idols become a cause for celebrations.  Also for mortals, after death, the ashes are immersed in the water, depicting the return to the basic elements. A visarjan is going back to where one came from. If we leave the modern ingredients (like plaster of paris, plastics, synthetics, etc.), the traditionally idols were made of clay. After visarjan, the clay idols are returned back to where they came from, thus maintaining an ecological balance. (Our forefathers, did not need lessons on ecology, and understood it just too well!)

To take the discussion of Ganapati’s visarjan further, as per the Puranas, Goddess Gauri (aka Parvati) made Ganapati out of clay, infused life in the clay model to make a son out of the same. During visarjan, the clay is just returned back to the mother earth, the universal symbol of Motherhood.

During the Vedic times, idols were made of clay and the immersion took place within one’s own wells and water-bodies. Since Ganapati is a harvest deity, immersing the idols in one’s own water-bodies ensured that the deity remained in one’s own land to ensure prosperity. But modern times do not provide for such rituals to sustain and thus people immerse in rivers and seas.

Many would here ask, then what happens to the idols which are made of metal and installed in the temples. The entire process of installations and the objective of such idols is different from that of the clay idols that are for temporary worship. Also, the deities need regular rituals if they are to be retained which is not possible at households and mandals. Temples can ensure the regularity of rituals and are thus made of materials with a greater permanency like metals, stones, marbles, etc.

Finally, on a lighter note, guests are welcome only when they stay for a limited period of time…..and so it is with gods and goddesses also! As a child, once I asked my mother – what is the big deal of offering prasad, i.e. offerings, to gods when they don’t eat? The answer I got was – if gods started eating all that people offered them, then people would stop offering to gods too! I guess the same is with the arrival and sending off of gods too!

The Third Sex - In other Mythologies

Reference to gods or goddesses like that of Bahucharaji is not very common to find in the other mythologies. But there are two different aspects to be observed in this case. One aspect is that of Bahucharaji as the universal mother goddess and the other is the aspect of Bahucharaji as the goddess of the third sex/trasvestites.

Similarity with Mother Goddess in other mythologies abounds and is not new to students of mythologies. One can compare Bahucharaji with any prime Goddesses of other mythologies.

What is of interest is parallels with Bahucharaji as the goddess of the transvestites. What does not exist is an exact replica or in the likeness of the goddess herself. However, there does exist references of gods or goddesses who are themselves of transgendered nature. References to ‘sex-less’, hermaphrodite, or castrated gods does exist in different mythologies, and some myths can get as gory as gory can be!

We will not get into details of all of them, but will refer to some of them by name and a brief description of them.

Issue of Male and Female – Hermaphrodite

In the earlier cultures some sort of a reproductive deformity or abnormality was seen as a state of blessedness. In the hunter-gatherer societies of the Neolithic era, such deformities were respected and were allowed to choose the sex that they wanted to play roles in and were considered to be a good omen. They were considered to be advocates of the gods and thus believed that such people were good.

In Babylonian culture such abnormalities were seen as gods way of reducing the population on earth, the basic reason of the flood, i.e the Flood of the Atrahasis, and thus were respected and never despised or looked down upon.

The Egyptians used the gods to symbolize the various combinations of gender and sex. According to their creation story, the first god, that was both male and female was Atum, which means asexual reproduction is divided in two, Shu and Tefnut, who in turn gave rise to Geb and Nut, Earth & Sky.

The Phoenicians worshiped the goddess Atargatis, who was hermaphrodite, whose priestesses, the kelabim, men were born, but had assumed a feminine role. The goddess, also known as Astarte, was transformed by Christianity in the devil Astaroth.

In classical mythology transsexual influence is evident in the description of the goddess Venus Castina as the goddess who attends and meets the aspirations of women's souls are in male bodies.

Some native American tribes had (and still do) the concept of the “two-spirited” person. These were considered both male and female. The female side was from the earth and the male side was of the spiritual world. Either way, both the male and female sides of a person are honoured and seen as both necessary for a person to be whole. In many cultures the “two-spirited person” is often valued as a shaman, a person who can walk in both the earthly world and the spiritual world. They are the “gatekeepers” to help people cross over to the spiritual world and back again to earthly, practical living.

Besides the above, there exist some very direct references of such Gods who we will describe in brief:

Hermaphroditos

In Greek Mythology, Hermaphroditos was the god of hermaphrodites and of effeminate men. He was numbered amongst the winged love-gods known as Erotes. Hermaphroditos was a son of Hermes and Aphrodite, the gods of male and female sexuality.

Some say he was once a handsome youth who attracted the love of a Naiad nymph named Salmakis. She prayed to be united with him forever and a god, in answer to her prayer, merged their two forms into one. At the same time her spring acquired the property of making men who bathed in its waters soft and effeminate.

In Greek vase painting Hermaphroditos was depicted as a winged youth with male and female attributes: usually female thighs, breasts, and style of hair, and male genitalia.

This brings us the next step in this subject, the homosexuals. Is there a reference of homosexual relationship in mythology? Keep reading to find answers to this question.

The Third Sex - 3

A number of myths abound in the region of Becharaji, which is associated with the eunuchs; prominent among them are that of the myths of Arjuna and Sikhandi of Mahabharata. Let us go through them briefly.

                                          

The Myth of Arjuna

After the 12 years of exile, as per the rule, the Pandavas and their wife, Draupadi had to spend an additional year in exile but incognito without detection. At this time, a long pending curse on Arjuna came of help. Arjuna in an earlier episode in Mahabharata was cursed for refusing the amorous advances of by Urvashi. She had cursed him to become a ‘kliba’, one of the third sex. For the thirteenth year, this was the best disguise for Arjuna.

It is said that before the Pandavas proceeded towards the kingdom of Virata, Arjuna is supposed to have visited Bahurcharaji. It is here that he hides his weapons and becomes what is known as a ‘Brihannala’, a professional dancer and musician trained by “gandharvas” or celestial beings. He transforms himself into a ‘kliba’ at Bahucharaji, before proceeding for the Kingdom of Virata. Before he left for Virata’s kingdom, Arujuna is supposed to have hidden his weapons in a thorny tree called the Sami tree in nearby Dedana village. As a part of the ritual, on every Dasherra day this tree is worshipped, and the ritual is known as ‘Sami-pujan’. It is said that this tree remains green all-round the year and does not either increase or decrease in its size.

Virata was a kingdom ruled by the Matsya king by the name Virata. Its capital was Virata Nagari, modern Bairat in the Jaipur district of Rajasthan.

The Myth of Sikhandi

An artist's impression of Sikhandi

The story of Sikhandi is well known and we will not delve in the myth which binds together some of the main characters of Mahabharata, viz. Bhishmapitamah, Princess Amba, King Salya, etc. What is of significance here is that Shikhandi was the son of King Drupad and was Princess Amba in his previous birth.

As per the local lore, Sikhandi was not a man in the sense of having masculinity. So Sikhandi is supposed to be moving around in despair to attain masculinity to take part in the famous war of Kurukshetra, as he had to fulfil his wow of killing Bhishma. When after all the efforts failed, he was dejected and came to Bahucharaji. The lore goes on to say that in this region stayed a Yaksha by the name of Mangal. When the Yaksha saw Sikhandi, who was miserable and crying and pitiful, he asked her what was wrong. Sikhandi told him his story and how it was a desire to be a man and avenge the insult heaped onto him from his previous birth.

Hearing all this, the Yaksha took pity on Sikhandi and decided to trade genders with Sikhandi, till he achieves his imminent objective. The lore goes on with more twists and turns and adding to the already complicated issue, which we will omit here.

It is said that from that day onwards, this place gets its importance of a place where lost masculinity can be gained.

Though there is no empirical evidence to prove the veracity of either of the above mentioned episodes, but the popular local belief and the presence of the eunuchs in the region is enough to strengthen the belief system. Also the proximity of Virata and Panchala from Gujarat lends some credence to the association in some form or the other.

The fact that Lord Krishna had such an influence in the region and a follower of his in Arjun makes the myth highly believable for the local populace. It also gains currency in the fact that Mahabharata is an epic of India and the locale had a share of prominence in the great epic!