well, i'm curious... are there instances of alternate sexuality in Indian myths??? i admit my knowledge of indian myths and legends are not extensive... i haven't read much, but still i havent come across any such story where a same sex relationship is dealt with..

granted we have mentions of orgies and polygamy... but any mention of homosexuality or bisexuality???

i'm sure [atleast!] some stories on these topics may have existed, but then gradually they were suppressed as Hinduism became much more rigid, and then after the advent of the British Raj, all thes topics became taboo.. what do you think?

Two examples that I can think of off the top of my head are as follows:

1) The birth of Ayyappan/Shasta... He's the son of Shiva and Vishnu (as Mohini). He was born, I believe, to kill Mahishi, the wife of Mahishasura (who was killed by Durga).

2) Arjun's son Iravan (his son by his Naga wife Ulupi) came to fight at Kurukshetra, and apparently there was a prophecy that he would die on a certain day during the battle. However (get this, this is funny), he didn't want to die a virgin. Of course, no father would give his daughter to a man who was fated to die in a few days. So... Krishna transforms himself into a woman and sleeps with Iravan, thus making everyone happy. I'm not quite sure whether that one technically counts, since Krishna is said to have transformed himself, but it's the closest that I can think of.

the very basis of "life" in the universe is said to be "hermophrodite" according to Hindu thought. The One creates of itself- male and female and sets the ball rolling. So how does one classify a hermophrodite?!

I know that one of Shiva's forms is called Ardhanarishwara, where both Parvati and Shiva have merged into one body, making one half male and one half female.

A hermaphrodite is someone who is half male and half female, neither one nor the other. It comes from Greek mythology, where the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, Hermaphroditus, was the subject of a rather intense infatuation by a water nymph, who prayed that she would be forever united with her love.

yeah... i thought of the story of Ayyapan too.. i dint know about Iravan's last wish, though...

but what i wanted to know was- has there been mention of a true same sex relationship before??? a relationship that is not "disguised", as the instances mentioned by namerah???

a REAL full blown same-sex relationship???????? i dont think so... but i'm curious to know if any of you have some knowledge of any indian myth or legend which deals with this..

Hmm... I don't think so, to be honest. The closest that comes to that are lots of extremely close male friendships (think Arjun and Krishna) but it has never been said that those friendships were even slightly sexual in nature, since that would somehow change the spiritual quality of those friendships (I suppose it can be compared to the whole Frodo-Sam controversy. It is nothing more than the purest example of friendship).

I'm with Namerah on this, I haven't come across any genuine instances of genuine same-sex relationships in the puranas--apart from the Mohini Vishnu/Shiva liaision, which is definitely a rare exception.

This is probably the reason why the hardliners in our country insist vociferously that such things are "not part of our culture". If they mean historically speaking, then they're right.

Well, to be honest, the Mohini/Shiva liaison doesn't quite count, because Vishnu took the form of a woman. So it would be a distinctly heterosexual relationship.

There are temples (Puri, Khajuraho, Thanjavur, etc.) that showcase artwork featuring everything from heterosexual sex, to orgies, to outright bestiality, so all those fundamentalists probably can't get away with saying that "it's not part of our culture." That would be like saying that those temples aren't part of our culture.

I was surfing a few websites, and apparently in the Padma Purana, there is a story of a king who died without offspring, so his two wives took this special potion and made love to each other, giving birth to children without bones or brains (because that is supposedly what children inherit from their fathers).

funny!!!!

Indeed it is. I don't know how much to believe the Internet when it comes to things like that, but that story has popped up on almost every Alternate Sexuality in Hindu Mythology site that I've visited, so I'm guessing that it's true.

hey namerah,

can you mention some of those sites??? i would like to check them out....

Just go to www.google.com and type in "Alternate Sexuality in Hindu Mythology" and you'll get a slew of sites.

will do that!!!!!!!!!

i thought you may have had certain sites in mind.. thats why i asked you!

Thanks. There were far too many to list them all here, but the more "important" ones will be relatively high up on the list.

namerah,

the story you arereferring to is none other than our Bhagiratha (his name literally means -- born of a vagina, since there was no male involved). There are at least *THREE* different versions of this story, but the gist of the stories is the same:

(1) Dilip (Rama's ancestor) dies at an early age, leaving no heir
(2) Vashishtha is first requested to perform Niyog with the queens (parallel with Vyasa and the mothers of Pandu and Dhritarashtra), but he declines and instead, gives precise instructions to the queens to make love to each other and conceive a child -- One acting as Man and another as Woman.
(3) The eldest queen conceives the child which is born without bones -- according to Vedic texts, the male seed contributes to the bones and the mother provides the flesh of the baby. since there is no male seed, Bhageeratha is born as a lump of flesh
(4) Bhagiratha's childhood -- This is where most stories differ. In one version, he is abandoned by his mothers, in another, he is raised by Vashishtha in his ashram etc
(5) Rishi Ashtavakra happens to notice this boy standing (?) along the roadside. He thinks the boy is bent to mock the rishi (Ashtavakra was bent in eight joints, hence the name) -- He curses the boy thus "If you are mocking me, then you shal be destroyed immediately, if not, then you shall be the most handsome of the men" (the second part I cannot understand in the context !!). Being deformed by birth, Bhageeratha fulfils the second part of the curse and immediately grows bones etc to turn into the most handsome man.
(6) He is rightly crowned the king of the Suryavansha


Now, the interesting part is this: In one version, the gods themselves sanction this lesbian encounter because if the Suryavansha line is stopped, they argue, then Vishnu will not be able to take avatar as Rama !!! Hence it is of utmost importance that the queens mate and have a child.

What is striking in all the examples is that in none of the instances is this incident looked upon as blasphemous or non-Aryan at all. The procedure is described in enough detail to guess that in those days, such encounters (between a queen and her dasis, for example) were not frowned upon and were common enough to have found a place in the Puranas.

might want to check this: http://www.manushi-india.org/Cur%20isu/Born.pdf

--pushpak