Source: http://www.yawningbread.org/guest_2005/guw-102.htm

August 2005
by Sheo S Rai

It is often said by ignorant and/or homophobic people that same-sex
relationship and love is a Western import. The term "Western"
itself is an anomaly as it assumes that the West is a monolithic
entity; but that's another issue.
In this essay, I will reveal that same-sex relationship and love is
not an alien import but rather has existed in Indian society
throughout the ages [1]. That ironically, it was homophobia that
was an import from the `West' rather than homosexuality. Same-sex
love has existed in Indian society and culture and this can be seen
if one were to do a literature survey.

This essay will have three parts, each touching on the literature of
era, each giving a sampling of the works of the particular era. You
will notice that a lot of religious texts will be quoted as well as
religious icons will be mentioned. The reason for this is that when
one talks about Indian culture and literature, one cannot get away
from the spiritual aspect. Indian society is deeply intertwined
with it, be it with Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism or Sikhism.


I. Ancient (Before 8th C) and Medieval (8th to 18th C) Sanskritic,
Buddhist & Jain Traditions

Friendship & Marriage

Friendship between same-sex (predominantly between men) was often
expressed in intimate terms. An example of this closeness is the
relationship between Krishn and Arjun.

Krishn says to Arjun:

Thou art mine and I am thine, while all that is mine is thine also!
He that hateth thee hateth me as well, and he that followeth thee
followeth me! … O Partha, thou art from me and I from thee. (Vana
Parva [2])

On the last night before returning to Dwarka:

Krishn of great energy proceeded to the apartments of Dhananjay
[3]. Worshipped duly and furnished with every object of comfort and
enjoyment, Krishn of great intelligence passed the night in happy
sleep with Dhananjay as his companion. (Aswamed Parva [4])

So sacred was friendship that it used the same symbolism as the
seven circambulations made around the sacred fire during a Hindu
wedding. Saptapadam hi mitram or seven steps taken together
constitutes friendship. Ram and Sugriv walked round the fire seven
times to seal their friendship [5].

A prominent character in the Mahabharat, Bhisma, was actually quite
against it. He said that a man goes to a woman "for the sake only
of offspring" as a one who overcomes all difficulties. He also
mentioned that sex and marriage came when the human race degenerated.

In the five books of the Panchatantra[6], what is to be noted is
that all the characters (animals of different species) are male and
form close friendships. In one story, friendship triumphs marriage.

Births Other Than Natural

The obvious heterosexual pairing is absent in various instances.
Sometimes it takes the form of being born from the elements and
sometimes from same-sex unions or designs. Sita (Ramayan) and
Draupadi (Mahabharat) were born from the earth and fire
respectively. Jarasandh was born as two halves from two women and
later joined by a demoness (Mahabharat). Kartiki was born by Agni
swallowing Shiv's sperm and hence is also know is Skanda from the
verb skandri [7] (Shiv Puran [8]). Ayappan was born out of the union
between Shiv and Vishnu in the form of Mohini (Bhagawat Puran). The
latter depicts the fluidity of gender. Ganesh was born outside of
the womb (Shiv Puran).

Shiv ordered two women to have sex in order to have children after
their husband died. Hence Bhagirath (meaning of the two vulvas) was
born (Krittivas's Ramayan).

Dual mothering is also another form free from same-sex pairing.
Agni is also known as dwimatri or of two mothers. The gender of
firesticks in Sanskrit is female. Friction, not penetration
produces fire.

Here is the gear for friction, here tinder made ready for the spark.
Bring thou the Matron, we will rub Agni in ancient fashion forth.
Mortals have brought to life the God immortal
The sisters 10, unwedded and united, together grasp the Babe, the
new born Infant.
(Rig Veda [9])

Sex Change

And then, among the many sex change stories, there are two that
stand out – Sikhandi and Brihinala from the Mahabharat. Sikhandi
was a woman in the previous birth reborn to avenge a wrong done to
her. Popular TV depicts Sikhandi as an effeminate man. Bhisma
recognised the woman in him and refused to wield a weapon against
him. Bhisma said:

O joy of the Kurus, I will not use my arrows against a woman, one
who was once a woman, one whose name is like a woman's or one who
resembles a woman. For this reason, I will not kill Sikhandi.
(Mahabharat)

Brihinala was the name of Arjun when he, along with his brothers,
spent their last year in exile in incognito. He was a hermaphrodite –
he had a man's physique with a woman's disposition.

Apart from the above two, another transformation stands out – Vishnu
in the form of Mohini. In addition, there was also a term
kimpurush, a "what man" – a being that would be a man in one month
and a woman in another.

Gender as a Construct

The Vimalakirtinirdesa, in Mahayana Buddhism, relates about a monk,
who after being turned into a woman by a goddess and then back to a
man, is asked whether he felt anything different, anything innate
about being a woman. He reveals that nothing about gender is
innate. The goddess explained:

Just as you are not really a woman but appear to be female in form,
all women also appear to be female in form but are not really women.
Therefore, the Buddha said that all are not really men or women …
All things neither exist nor do not exist. The Buddha said there is
neither existence nor non-existence.

If there is nothing innate about gender, then is heterosexuality the
one and only way?

Patajali's grammar [10] and Jain texts talk about the concept the
third sex with various ambiguous subcategories such as kliba,
pandaka and napunsak. These have been part of the Indian worldview
for nearly 3,000 years.

Other examples of explicit same-sex love and desire

Jain philosopher, Sakatayana, in the Strinirvanaprakaran said that a
person was capable of being aroused by the same-sex, opposite sex or
even a non-human animal. Going further, Jain thinkers said that
there were three types of desires – from men, women and the third
sex. Hence desire was fluid and transient.

In the Manikantha Jataka [11], the King of Serpents falls in love
with a young ascetic. After a while, when the King is gone, the
young ascetic grew pale from missing him.

The Kamasutra [12] specifically caters for all inclinations. The
book is instructional and not prescriptive. It says that one should
act according to local customs and one's own inclinations and
desires. It specifies three types of genders – pums prakriti, stri
pakriti and tritiya prakriti – men, women and the third sex. The
third sex was further broken down to various categories which
included manly and effeminate gays and manly and effeminate
lesbians. It is interesting to note that the book says that manly
gays who hid their desires fulfilled them by working as masseurs and
hairdressers. It even describes how masseurs work their clients to
a achieve orgasm for both of them.


II. Medieval Materials – Perso-Urdu Traditions

During this period, homoerotic men were mentioned in a non-
pejorative way. There were poets who wrote about their love for
adolescent boys, sultans in love with their male slaves and Sufi
mystics who pined for their lord like female lovers. Gay men were
well integrated into the culture of cities like Delhi.

An example of a long term relationship was that between poet Mukaram
Baksh and Mukkaram. After the former's death, the latter observed a
period of mourning observed by widows.

Sufi mystics believe in personal experience not dogma. To them,
same gender love could transcend sex and therefore not distract them
from the ultimate aim of gnonsis. They would adopt a female persona
in their poems and songs when writing about God.

Urdu poets neither celebrated or denigrated homosexual love to the
exclusion of other types of passion. Marriage was seen as a
legitimate sphere of sexual activity but not of experiencing erotic
energies. As long as a man fulfilled his duties of a householder,
he was free to seek sexual pleasure and emotional involvement
elsewhere. Hence erotic commitment was not a threat to marriage.
One poet, Abru [13], when to such an extent to reject
heterosexuality saying:

He who prefers a slut to a boy, is no lover, only a creature of
lust.
Here are some examples same-sex attraction, love and liaisons:

Amir Khusrao, mystic poet-musician, mourned his mentor's, Chishti
saint Shaikh Nizamuddin Aulia's, death:

The beauty sleeps on the bridal bed, her tresses all over her face;
Come Khusro, let's go home, for darkness settles all around.

Looking at the empty bed, I weep day and night
Every moment I yearn for my beloved, cannot find a moment's peace.

He has gone, my beloved has crossed the river,
He has gone across, and I am left behind. …


Sultan Qutbuddin Khalji, like his father Alauddin Khalji, were in
love with their slaves. Qutbuddin's slave was Khusrao Khan. Wrote
a writer of their times:

He often wanted to put a sword through the Sultan and kill him while
he was doing the immoral act of publicly kissing him. This vile
murderer of his father was always thinking of ways to kill the
Sultan. Publicly he offered his body to the Sultan like an immoral
and shameless woman. But within himself he was seething with anger
and choking on a desire for revenge at the way the Sultan forced
himself upon him and took advantage of him.

When hauled before a king to explain a charge against him for
dancing with crossdressers, said the mystic Akhi Jamshed Rajgiri:

I do not want a crown, I do not want a throne. I only want to rub my
forehead in the dust and dance with abandon over the earth. If the
Sultan would show me favour, then I might be allowed to dance even
upon the winds … Because those who denounce me are not real men in
the spiritual sense, they cannot accept love with all its
consequences in their hearts. Oh my love, there a thousand snares in
every form; oh my love, one who is not a real man can never
experience true love!

Mughal emperor Babur wrote in his memoirs the Baburnama:

I maddened and afflicted myself for a boy in the camp-bazaar, his
very name, Baburi, fitting in. Up till then, I had had no
inclination for any-one, indeed of love and desire, either by hear-
say or experience, I had not heard, I had not talked. … One day
during that time of desire and passion when I was going with
companions along a land and suddenly met him face to face. I got
into such a state of confusion that I almost went right off. To
look straight at him or to put words together was impossible. With
a hundred torments and shames, I went on.

When Mughal emperor Jehangir asked poet-scholar Mutribi Samarqandi
whether a fair young man was more beautiful than a dark one, the
latter replied when he saw a dark-skinned youth:

A Hindu boy stole my wretched heart
He stole its tranquillity and its calmness
My reason, my judgement, my endurance, my patience
All of these he stole with his laugh.

He then saw a fair-skinned youth and said:

O moon-faced beauty in this beautiful night
So astonishingly desirable in the light if the candle
You have stolen Mutribi's heart altogether
With a wink, guilelessness, playfulness and amiability.
Do not tell me to look at the splendour of the perfumed plants
My heart is your captive, what do I need from there?



III. Modern Indian Materials (19th to 20th C)

There were basically two developments that occurred during this
period. The first was the rise of the homophobic voice in
literature and the second, the sexual love between women becomes
more prominent while that between men is drastically reduced.

There are five words for homoerotically inclined women – dugana,
zanakhe, sa'tar, chapathai and chapatbaz.

Rekhti, poetry written by male poets in the female voice and using
female idioms, became prominent in the late 18th and 19th C but in
the 20th C, its was labelled as obscene.

An example of women loving women can be seen below. This is not
imitating heterosexual love. Although a dildo is mentioned, there
is an emphasis on kissing, petting, passionate embraces and clitoral
stimulation. Shaikh Qalandar Baksh puts it in the following words:

I'd sacrifice all men for your sake, my life,
I'd sacrifice a hundred lives for your embraces
How beautiful is it when two vulvas meet –
This is the tale they tell each other all the time:

The way you rub me, ah! …

When you join your lips to my lips,
If feels as if new life pours into my being,
When breast meets breast, the pleasure is such
That from sheer joy the words rise to my lips:

The way you rub me, ah! …

How can I be happy with a man – as soon as he sits by me
He starts showing me a small think like a mongoose --
I'd much rather have a big dildo
And I know you know all that I know …

It must be noted that in pre-colonial India, not a single person was
ever executed for homosexual behaviour. In contrast, gays were
vilified, tortured and/or executed. In 1860, the anti-sodomy law
came into being and incorporated in the Indian Penal Code (Section
377). While this proved to be progressive for Britain because the
killing stopped, it was retrogressive for India. British educators
and missionaries denounced Indian culture. The educated Indian
elite became their agents – while not condemning the culture, they
did not reject puritanical Victorian values which were put on a
pedestal. In fact they claimed that Indian culture was originally
similar to the Victorian one, which was both anti-pleasure and anti-
sex.

The homophobia was so internalised by educated Indians that Pandit
Madhavacharya in 1911 introduced the Kamasutra by saying that people
should read the book for the right forms of love making and avoid
the wrong ones.

However despite all the attempts by prudes, life went on and same-
sex love survived in literature. One example is by Vikram Seth:

Some men like Jack
and some like Jill;
I'm glad I like
them both; but still

I wonder if
this freewheeling
really is an
enlightened thing –

or is its greater
scope a sign
of deviance from
some party line?

In the strict ranks
of Gay and Straight
What is my status?
Stray? or Great?



Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, a respected Muslim theologian, placed
heterosexual and homosexual desire on the same plane.

No one is worthy of being called a human unless he has crossed the
Rubicon of love. He who has not experienced the intensity of desire
or the deluge of tears is less than human. When the ascetic in the
mosque bows his head in Namaz, despite all his piety and devotion,
he cannot help enjoying thoughts of smiling Houris and Ghilmaans of
Paradise. Even the super-ascetics who seek the truth in the recesses
of the mosques are not free from these alluring images.


Sanskrit scholar and priest of the Vaishnav temple in Sri Rangam
said that same-sex lovers must have been heterosexual lovers in
previous births. While the sex may change, the souls remain the
same and this impels the souls to seek out one another. He added:

Homosexuality is also a design of Nature. Earth is overpopulated by
the human species and the Earth Mother – Bhoomi Devi – is no longer
able to carry the burden. So this is one of Mother Nature's way
(sic) of combating population explosion. Nature will not allow any
species to dominate completely … The sly human is exterminating
vitally important insect, plant, and even mammalian life in order to
make life for himself more luxurious.


Conclusion

Many examples on same-sex love and relationships exist in Indian
history. I have done injustice by only quoting a few. What was
love so sublime has been tarnished by modernity. Like in many other
instances, what is glaring is ignored. Despite the various examples
of same-sex love in Indian literature, people choose to ignore it as
it causes them discomfort or worse, cognitive dissonance.

Gays and lesbians are not special. They have been made so by
homophobia.



Foreword by Yawning Bread
This was the talk given by Sheo S Rai on 16 August 2005, as part of
IndigNation, Singapore's first gay and lesbian pride month.


Footnotes

1. This essay is based heavily on the book " Same-sex Love in India,
edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai". This amazing book is a
seminal work on same-sex relationship in Indian literature. It gives
extensive examples throughout the ages.

2. From the Mahabharat, a Hindi epic written by Sage Vyas, reputed
to be the longest work of poetry in the world. This talks about a
feud between two sets of cousins – the Pandavs and the Kauravs.
Krishn, chief of the Yadav clan and the 8th incarnation of Vishnu
aids the Pandavs. (ca. 8th BC – 5th AD)

3. Another name of Arjun.

4. From the Mahabharat.

5. From another Hindu epic, Ramayan, written by Sage Valmiki. (ca.
5th C BC – 5th C AD). This Sanksrit original was later translated to
various Indian languages such as in Hindi by Tulsidas, Tamil by
Kamban, Bengali by Krittivas and others. This is the story of Ram,
the 7th incarnation of Vishnu, who was exiled and later defeated
Ravan, the king of Lanka who abducted Sita, Ram's wife.

6. Panchatantra, written by Vishnu Sharma, is a collection of five
volumes of stories written by a teacher to help instruct the
different aspects of kinghood for princes. The five volumes together
serve as a manual for a prospective king, to help him in deciding
how to rule, how to choose his fellow friends, fellow ministers, how
to conduct himself in daily life etc. This was probably put
together around 300 AD.

7. That which is spilled or oozed, namely semen.

8. The Purans are a class of literary texts, all written in Sanskrit
verse, whose composition dates from the 4th century BC to about
1,000 AD. The word "Puran" means "old". There are eighteen major
Purans and a few minor ones. Each is a long book consisting of
various stories of the Gods and Goddesses, hymns, an outline of
ancient history, cosmology, rules of life, rituals, instructions on
spiritual knowledge. The other set of texts important to Hinduism
are the Upanishads. There are 108 Upanishads in all. Upanishad means
the inner or mystic teaching. The term Upanishad is derived from upa
(near), ni (down) and s(h)ad (to sit), i.e., sitting down near.
Groups of pupils sit near the teacher to learn from him the secret
doctrine. The most ancient Upanishads are, in fact, part of the
Vedas. They constitute the fundamentals, the essence of the Hindu
philosophy.

9. The Vedas are sacred knowledge transmitted orally and later
compiled in four collection – Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva. (1500 –
1000 BC)

10. 2nd C BC

11. The Jatakas are stories in Pali of the stories of Buddha's
previous lives. Already well known hundreds of years before, they
were finally compiled in 5th C AD.

13. Written by Vatsyayana Mallanaga – ca. 1st C to 6th C AD.

14. Pen name of Najmuddin Shah Mubarak. He came from a family of
Sufi saints and scholars. A modern critic described him as the chief
of boy-worshippers.