How do you begin your day? As a Hindu I am supposed to take a shower and then go to the pooja room, to light the lamp and worship the vast array of beautifully adorned and colorfully depicted Gods smiling from their glassed frames. I am sure that at least some of us have noticed that many of the Supreme male Gods, have feminine features in those pictures. Rosy cheeks, red lips and coy dove eyes. These representations of Gods are of course from the Indian calendar art tradition, and in most cases Gods are painted according to descriptions from ancient texts, where the Lord has a gentle, beautiful, delicate ‘sukomal-pitambar’ like body, with a face proportionately bigger, with every aspect of the divine aesthetics shining through, namely, kindness, power, beauty and benevolent emotions, which in turn are depicted in his ‘kamalanayanas’ and in the enchanting ‘bhavas’. Are they telling us something more than we ought to know? In Hinduism, God’s will is said to be unlimited and free from the instrumentality of the human body. God is identified as unlimited, untethered by any gender restrictions. Throughout the Hindu ancient texts like the ‘Mahabharatha’, ‘Ramayana’ and other ‘Puranas’ and ‘Vedas’, there are many representations of demigods, warriors, saints and even the supreme Lord transcending gender norms and manifesting multiple combinations of sex and gender. It will be safe to say that these sacred texts have not excluded or ignored any aspect of the human nature. Such representations could of course be analyzed from different theoretical perspectives, like theological, spiritual, metaphysical as well as psychological. This presentation however, explores it from a gender studies platform. We have supreme deities changing gender at will, like Lord Mahavishnu becoming the beautiful enchantress Mohini. Lord Shiva gets so enamoured by Mohini’s beauty that he forgets about his wife Parvathi, and crazily goes after Mohini. In one of the puranans, Parvathi, the wife is portrayed as shocked and jealous on seeing her husband’s lustful fascination towards Mohini. I think she was least disturbed by the idea of Shiva chasing Vishnu, in the woman’s form, and what concerned her must have been the fact that her husband is lusting over another woman. There is also the story of Lord Krishna taking the form of Mohini for Aravan. Aravan agrees to sacrifice himself before the Gods, to ensure victory to the Pandavas in the Kurukshetra war. One of his last wishes was to marry and enjoy conjugal pleasure. Since none of the women were willing to accept such a marriage and widowhood, Lord Krishna takes the form of Mohini, marries Aravan, and after his sacrifice mourns his death, before changing back to male. The Aravan is considered a patron God of transgenders, mainly in South India, and is celebrated elaborately at the Koovagam festival. Krishna also takes the Mohini form ... for the complete essay please put in a word along wi

1. TRANSGENDER IDENTITIES IN
HINDU MYTHOLOGY

2. The Deities
Mayamohini Ardhanarishwara Vaikuntha Kamalaja

3. The Warriors
• Shikandhi
• Brihannala
• Ila

4. The Patrons
• Aravan
• Bahuchara Mata
• Samba
• Yellamma

5. Religious Significance Today

6. Challenges

7. New age of Change & Acceptance

8. RINU KRISHNA K.
MPHIL. 2014-15.
INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH
THANK YOU!

9. Bibliography