In 1969, the month of June in America, supporters of LGBT rights staged an uprising against police harassment and persecution of the LGBT community. This set the ball rolling for many such movements that advocate equal rights for the LBGT community pertaining to marriage, employment, and other walks of life. To mark the significance of that movement, in today’s time, the month of June is celebrated as LGBT pride month.
In India homosexuality was banned under British rule and remained unchanged even after independence. It took 71 years after independence for India to decriminalize laws pertaining to the third gender. While diving into the history of our country and religion to understand how the position of Indian society on the acceptance of the third gender has evolved, a very old story came to my mind which I think is worth sharing.
During the time of the treta yuga, there were a few women rishikas who were revered and were called Bramhavadini (someone with knowledge of Brahman), notable amongst them were Gargi, Maitri, and Sulabha. Unlike Gargi and Maitri, who belonged to the Brahmin caste, Sulabha belonged to the warrior caste. Although all of these women were great in their own right, I am inclined to view rishika Sulabha as the most feisty woman of her time. She dared to follow a path that very few men and no other women of her caste did, which is follow a path different from what was expected of the warrior clan. She roamed the world on her own without any male guardian and challenged men on the knowledge of the Vedas. She remained celibate her whole life in search of salvation. On one such journey of exploration, she heard about king Janaka who was highly regarded as an enlightened person. King Janaka was a student of sage Ashtavakra who had mastered the knowledge of Vedas at the young age of 12. Rishika Sulabha was curious to test the veracity of hearsay about king Janaka. With her yogic power, she turned herself into a beautiful damsel and arrived at the court of King Janaka requesting an attendance. King Janaka welcomed her with due respect without knowing her true identity, as one would welcome a guest. However, when he realized that the purpose of her visit was to test his knowledge and seek a debate as an equal, it irritated him. Nevertheless, as a warrior by caste, it was highly inappropriate of a king to refuse a challenge, and hence king Janaka had no option but to participate in the debate.
At the beginning of the debate, king Janaka challenged Sulabha on her purity, claiming it is highly unlikely that a beautiful lady like her is even capable of renouncing worldly pleasure and demanding to know whose wife or daughter she is. This question establishes the idea prevalent in those times that society did not recognize the individual identity of a woman but always linked her identity either to her father or husband. Sulabha chastises the king for asking such an irrelevant question and to further implore the mind of the king she enters his mind through her yogic powers. Here we can assume rishika Sulabha must have possessed skills for either mind-reading or telepathy. This further infuriated the king who went on a rant declaring that by entering his mind without permission Sulabha has committed a crime since the union of minds without marriage is a sin. He equated this act with a physical union and declared himself superior who has triumphed over lust or temptation. With great patience, Sulabha reminded the king that Atman or self is not gendered. Hence the union of minds cannot be equated with the physical union. Beneath the physical aspect, all human beings are part of the same Brahman and are capable of attaining salvation. She also explained gender is attained in the mother’s womb but it is still not constant and can change with physical development. She stressed the fact that orientation of mind can also change the gender and hence gender is not static. Therefore gender is inconsequential when it comes to ability, knowledge, and salvation. Although the debate focused more on the ability of men vs women to achieve emancipation, it is also a piece of important evidence that gender fluidity was well studied. How else Sulabha would have been able to explain the king in such great detail? It also indicates how ancient India was evolving towards acceptance of the third gender. One may argue this was just a one-off incident and this was the view of a lone woman. After all, the views of king Janaka represented the majority view held by the society at large. That is definitely true, but the very fact that this story is mentioned in the Mahabharata, much after the treta yuga, and was never lost or omitted, is testimony enough to prove at least there were some learned men who thought of it as a worthy debate to be retold and preserved. A very popular character in Mahabharata is Sikhandi who is a transgender but is never questioned on his sexuality. Even today transgenders are invited to ceremonies of weddings and childbirth to give their blessing which is considered very auspicious. Many of our temples also depict the third gender on the carvings of the wall. This is sufficient proof ancient India was far more open-minded.
Prosecution of the third gender was a phenomenon brought about by foreign invasion. Although we achieved independence a long time ago, our minds still carry the shackles of slavery somewhere. We need to return back to the teachings of the Vedas which time and again reminds us of the phrase ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ – beneath our physical bodies lies the soul which has no gender and which is part of the same supreme being.
