Born of two vaginas : Love and reproduction between co-wives in some medieval indian texts

GLQ

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 547-577

  Vanita, Ruth ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34548488603     PISSN: 10642684     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10642684-11-4-547     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, introduction to Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History, ed. Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai (New York: Palgrave, 2001), xiii-xiv, xx-xxi.
2. For a similar argument see Allen J. Frantzen, Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), esp. 16-25.
3. Alan Bray, The Friend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
4. Even John Boswell, in his strong reading of same-sex unions blessed in churches, does not claim that these marriagelike relationships between men were explicitly and publicly acknowledged as sexual relationships (Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe [New York: Villard, 1994]).
5. In the same vein, commentators on biblical verses that appear to proscribe certain same-sex sexual acts frequently point out that the Bible nowhere mentions a loving sexual relationship between persons of the same sex.
6. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, An English Translation of the "Sushruta Samhita," 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1963), 2:132.
7. For an analysis of taxonomies in this and other texts see Michael J. Sweet and Leonard Zwilling, "The First Medicalization: The Taxonomy and Etiology of Queers in Classical Indian Medicine," Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1993): 590-607.
8. See, e.g., Padma Purana, trans. N. A. Deshpande (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990), 6.21.2-8 (2396-97),
9. and Kurma Purana, trans. Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), 1.21.8-9a (186).
10. In late antiquity and the early medieval period in India, a new pantheon of gods and goddesses rose to prominence and effectively replaced the major Vedic deities. The Vishnu family and the Shiva family came to be worshipped in different regional forms on a large scale. In a separate but related development, goddesses returned to prominence and proliferated. Mother goddesses were important in the pre-Vedic Indus Valley civilization but less so in the Vedas. The reemergence of goddesses in late antiquity is attested in the Puranas. Worshippers of the female principle or Shakti, embodied in various goddesses, are known as Shaktas. Shakta texts tend to represent the goddess as the ultimate creative principle, from whom all other deities, including Shiva and Vishnu, spring. Conversely, worshippers of Vishnu worship him as the ultimate principle, from whom the goddess springs, and worshippers of Shiva worship him in the same way. This may be read as what Max Müller termed Hindu henotheism or the tendency, for purposes of worship, to see ultimate reality embodied in one's chosen deity without denying the existence of other deities. The multiple lives and activities of these deities are recounted in the Puranas. They are the deities whom most Hindus worship today.
11. See my essay "Sita Smiles: Wife as Goddess in the Adbhut Ramayana,'" in Gandhi's Tiger and Sita's Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality, and Culture (New Delhi: Yoda, forthcoming).
12. For the dating controversies regarding the Puranas see Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen, introduction to Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas, ed. and trans. Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978);
13. and Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, introduction to Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook, trans. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975).
14. The Swarga Khanda of the Padma Purana, ed. Asoke Chatterjee Sastri (Varanasi: All-India Kashiraj Trust, 1972), 43-46. In his introduction the editor gives an account of the various recensions of the text and discusses the unique Bhagiratha story as it appears in the Bengali-script versions.
15. In the standard version of the Padma Purana, translated by Deshpande, the narrators are various sages, beginning with Suta Romaharshana and including Narada, and the interlocutors include other sages and also King Yudhishthira.
16. The Complete Kama Sutra, trans. Alain Daniélou (Rochester, VT: Park Street, 1994), 194.
17. For a detailed analysis of same-sex sexual relations in this text see my essay "Vatsyayana's Kamasutra" in Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, 46-53.
18. In many Hindu narratives a sage intervenes to give a childless king and/or queen children. In most cases, like that of the birth of the princess Damayanti, the sage's blessing produces the desired result; in some cases, like that of Vyasa and the widowed queen of Vichitravirya in the Mahabharata, the sage himself fathers the widow's child.
19. Swarga Khanda, 16.12 (141).
20. It has been suggested that in much earlier Sanskrit texts the word bhava is the equivalent of sexual orientation. See Michael Sweet and Leonard Zwilling, "'Like a City Ablaze': The Third Sex and the Creation of Sexuality in Jain Religious Literature," Journal of the History of Sexuality 6 (1996): 359-84.
21. Swarga Khanda, 16.15 (141).
22. For an analysis of the disabled Ashtavakra's empowering role in the disabled Bhagiratha's life, and for parallels between Ashtavakra's and Bhagiratha's childhoods, see my essay "Disability as Opportunity: Sage Ashtavakra Mentors Bhagiratha," in Vanita, Gandhi's Tiger and Sita's Smile.
23. For the problem of dating the Krittivasa Ramayana see Sukumar Sen, History of Bengali Literature, 3rd ed. (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1979), 67-69.
24. Nandkumar Avasthi, ed., Krittivasa Ramayana, with Hindi translation (Lucknow: Bhuvan Vani, 1966), 60-65.
25. See also Sachitra Krttivasi Saptakanda Ramayana, ed. Chandrodaya Vidyavinod Bhattacharyya (Calcutta: Manoranjan Bandopadhyaya at Hitavadi Pustakalaya, 1914). The story occurs in the first section, the Adi Kanda, which traces the ancestry of Rama.
26. This version is translated by Kurnkum Roy in Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, 100-102.
27. Ibid., 101.
28. The modern word yar (friend or lover) derives in part from jara, the Sanskrit term for a woman's male lover.
29. The most famous instance of the sulking room occurs in the Ramayana. When King Dasharatha declares his intention to crown Rama, the son of his oldest wife, king, his youngest wife retreats into the sulking room in a fit of temper. Dasharatha tries to coax her out of it, whereupon she insists that he banish Rama to the forest for fourteen years and crown her son Bharata king instead.
30. Avasthi, Krittivasa Ramayana, 64.
31. Ramayana-Adikanda, ed. Nalinikanta Bhattasali, trans. Anannya Dasgupta (Dacca: Oriental Texts Publication Committee, University of Dacca, 1936). See Bhattasali's introduction for an account of the different manuscripts.
32. Ramayana-Adikanda, 90-92. This is the first translation of the entire episode into English.
33. The Laws of Manu, trans. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, with Brian K. Smith (Delhi: Penguin, 1991), 8.369 (191).
34. Seattle Art Museum, accession no. 74.17. A photograph of this sculpture appears as the frontispiece to Love's Rite.
35. In some versions, Kama is reborn as Krishna's son Pradyumna.
36. In The Laws of Manu, 11.174 (267), the penalty prescribed for a man who ejaculates into something other than a vagina is a small fine, also prescribed for stealing things of little value (11.165; 267). Between a third and a half of the Manusmriti appears also in the Mahabharata.
37. The Laws of Manu, 11.174 (267).
38. Pratap Chandra Chunder, Kautilya on Love and Morals (Delhi: Gian, 1987), 128.
39. See "Shiva Purana: The Birth of Kartikeya," in Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, 77-80.
40. Indian Penal Code, sec. 377. In 1996 the AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (AIDS Antidiscrimination Movement) filed a petition in the Delhi High Court, challenging this provision as unconstitutional. The petition was dismissed on a technicality a few years later. In 2004 Naz and Lawyers' Collective filed another petition in the same court, asking that the provision be narrowed to apply only to the rape of minor boys. This petition was also dismissed on a technicality. The petitioners requested that the Supreme Court direct the High Court to hear the case. The Supreme Court has asked the government of India to show cause why the High Court should not be asked to reconsider its dismissal of the case.
41. Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 17.
42. Michael Rocke notes that the late medieval church in the West deemed sodomy "the most evil and dangerous of carnal sins" (Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence [New York: Oxford University Press, 1996], 3).
43. Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, 101.
44. Françoise Héritier, Two Sisters and Their Mother: The Anthropology of Incest, trans. Jeanine Herman (New York: Zone, 1999), 315.
45. Martha Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004);
46. Héritier, Two Sisters and Their Mother, 315.
47. In 1955 the government of independent India passed the Hindu Marriage Act, which made it illegal for Hindu men to marry more than one woman. Up to that time, a Hindu man could legally marry as many women as he wished, although by the late nineteenth century monogamy had become the norm and polygamy tended to be socially disapproved, especially among the middle class. A first wife's insanity, incurable illness, or infertility were among the socially acceptable reasons for a man to marry another woman. Even today, Indian Muslim men can legally have up to four wives. Since most Indians do not register their marriages with the state, some Hindu men continue to have more than one wife. In 1975 the Committee on the Status of Women in India found that 5.7 percent of Muslim and 5.8 percent of Hindu men had more than one wife. Although the Hindu men's multiple marriages are not legally valid, they still function as marriages if recognized by the community.
48. Supriya, as told to and translated from the Marathi by U. S. G., in Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India, ed. Ashwini Sukthankar (New Delhi: Penguin India, 1999), 121-24. The names in the story are pseudonyms.
49. A contemporary example of such a marriage is that of the classical dancer Raja Reddy. Raja married his wife and dance partner Radha's younger sister, and all three now live together. Although the marriage is not legal, it is socially recognized and has been written about in many Indian newspapers.
50. Complete Kama Sutra, 6.2 (376).
51. Complete Plays of Bhasa, ed. K. P. A. Menon (Delhi: Nag, 1996), 199.
52. The Katha Sarit Sagara, trans. C. H. Tawney (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968), 1.16.
53. The Sanskrit text, which uses different text divisions from the English translation, is from The Kathasaritsagara of Somadevabhatta, ed. Pandit Durgaprasad and Kasinath Pandurang Parab, 4th ed. (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara, 1930), 1.16.18.
54. In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Celia, who vows undying love for her cousin Rosalind and accompanies her into exile, ends up marrying Rosalind's husband's brother, which makes them sisters-in-law. Several works of twentieth-century Indian fiction also represent the development of female friendships into love relationships within the marital home of one or both women. See Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, 191-352.
55. Meera, "Finding Community," in A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience, ed. Rakesh Ratti (Boston: Alyson, 1993), 236, 238.
56. "Lesbian Couple Split by Police," Indian Express, June 7, 1997.
57. The etymology is similar in Sanskrit: sapatni is a co-wife, and the relationship between co-wives' children is sapatnam; this word has acquired the secondary meaning of "rival."
58. In the story of Supriya (see n. 42), Supriya's sons addressed her co-wife in Marathi as Kaki, or "Aunt" (lit. father's brother's wife). In most Indian communities, cousins raised in a joint family also think of and refer to one another as siblings.
59. Consider, e.g., the shepherd in The Winter's Tale, Nelly in Wuthering Heights, Betsy Trotwood in David Copperfield, Silas in Silas Marner, or the two uncles in the film Secondhand Lions (dir. Tim McCanlies; 2003).
60. For further analysis of this paradigm see Ruth Vanita, Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
61. For an analysis of Vedic patterns of representing this theme see Vanita and Kidwai, Same-Sex Love in India, 14-17;
62. and Giti Thadani, Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India (New York: Cassell, 1996).
63. See, e.g., Sukumari Bhattacharji, Women and Society in Ancient India (Calcutta: Basumati, 1994), 86;
64. for an opposing view see David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986);
65. and Samjukta Gombrich Gupta, "The Goddess, Women, and the Rituals in Hinduism," in Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India, ed. Mandakranta Bose (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 87-123.
66. For essays debating the question see Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M. Erndl, eds., Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses (New York: New York University Press, 2000).
67. Jordan, Invention of Sodomy, 175.
68. Many commentators rightly point out that the biblical condemnations of same-sex intercourse are historically specific, have been misinterpreted and blown out of proportion, and have nothing to do with homosexuality, especially with loving same-sex relationships, today. However, same-sex sexual intercourse is never mentioned or represented positively in the Bible. This absence allows those so inclined to focus obsessively on apparently negative biblical references.