Homosexuality and our forefathers

Warning. Discretionary Content. This article may contain material that is either inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.

In most ancient cultures it was an accepted form of sexual behavior, the only interesting fact being lesbian women were more closeted than gay men.

The West sees India as the country which gave humanity the first, most scientific and most explicit treatise of love. The temple carvings of Khajuraho depict sexual practices more advanced than most of its contemporaries. Women in ancient India appear to be uninhibited and very much aware of their femininity, these carvings and statuettes may lead us to believe. And men? They were kings, warriors, learned, but slightly less sexually oriented than women, it would seem. But that may not be true. Whatever the case may be, the culture of ancient India, particularly the Vedic philosophy that was the basis of the present Indian culture, was very well laid out and documented. Each function of a citizen was clear, every stage of life was directed, the age for studies, for marriage, for being a householder and then retiring from active life, finally ascetic life…was laid out in the scriptures. In this scenario, there is no doubt that the ancients had their own set of principles and dos and don’t for sexual behavior.

At first glance, there does not seem to be any strong reaction against unnatural sexual practices anywhere in the scriptures. For the sake of the family, which was the basic social unit and promoted procreation, hence the survival of the species, it may not have been encouraged too much - but it has not been denounced either.

Again, we have to consider exactly what we mean by homosexuality. Is it sexual love or physical relations between two people of the same sex? Does it include people who are within the institution of marriage, hence do have a partner of the opposite sex, but try same sex intercourse out of frustration, or simply desire? In modern terminology, do we include bisexuals in the definition? Do we include eunuchs, because they may have no more choice of partners other than those of same sex? It will be interesting to note that the term homosexuality came into use only in late 19th century Europe, when it became an acceptable topic of conversations (even if among pseudo-intellectuals). That does not mean it did not exist before that, in fact, even more so. It was meant to describe intercourse between same sex partners, and termed `morbid’. It was declared unnatural during the colonial period of history simply because it was not aimed at procreation. There was no scope for sex being a pleasurable activity, and that is where the Indian culture differs.

Indian mythology is full of instances where people (read Gods) change gender at will, often for sexual purposes, to satisfy another person, political reasons, or even ego-directed reasons. Lord Krishna did it, and even the sagely Brahma is known to have taken the female form, but then that is not in the purview of homosexuality. The only thing these instances serve to highlight is that sex, change of sex or sexual behaviors was never taboo in ancient India. India, and indeed, most cultures of the East, was very accepting in these matters. While love for a man for a boy was institutionalized in ancient Greece, the Arab culture makes no distinction between sex with a woman and sexual relations with a boy. Arab medieval travelers claim, 'women were for home and hearth, while boys were for pleasure'. These cultures offer no synonym for same-sex intercourse, it was not even a practice that needed separate identification. In ancient India, however, things were much more organized. We today have temple carvings, treatises, books and of course, ancient law books to turn to.

It was about the sixth century AD, that the most famous Hindu temples were constructed in South and central India. This is contemporary to when Christianity started seeping into the Roman Empire. Over the next seven or eight centuries, temple construction reached its zenith. In the East in Puri, in Khajuraho, (central India), Thanjuvar in the South- the temple architecture that still stands today at these spots is breathtaking. So is the beauty of the carvings on their walls. But what really takes ones breath away is the sheer quantity of sexual positions that have been put on those walls. The long limbed big bosomed women, sexual intercourse between men and women, men, women, and humans and animals…they leave nothing to imagination. The carvings were the work of thousands of artisans over decades, sometimes even centuries….if it was a squeamish culture, these carvings wouldn’t have been there. Gods, goddesses, demons, nymphs, sages, warriors, lovers, priests, monsters, dragons, plants and animals…images that are erotic, downright shocking and mostly what modern society would term obscene…but for the creators, they were works of art. The entire range of sexual conduct is up there on those walls, coy glances, wild orgies involving kings, queens, warriors, slaves, even animals, and sometimes, Gods too, all rules that follow us today, are broken - elephants are shown copulating with tigers, monkeys molest women while men mate with asses. And sometimes, amidst the crevices, one can even find images of men mating with men and women fondling each other. Such a liberated society could not , ever , have seen homosexuality as unnatural, Curiously enough, the cave temples of monastic orders such as Buddhism and Jainism built around the same time, also have similar images also embellish prayer halls.

The important thing is that these carvings are not the perverted fancy of one man. It was an entire society, a culture that already had a history of a few thousand years that considered these images aesthetic. In all probabilities, there is a temple that has only homosexual friezes, adorning its walls, waiting to be excavated, in some remote corner of the country. One can never say about ancient Indians…they could do anything. The ideas that one gathers from this is the concept of unnatural sex (that the colonial masters declared was morbid), was one of the more beautiful aspects of life in ancient times.

Next is the scriptures and mythology. Hanuman, the monkey God who helped king Rama destroy the evil Ravana in the epic Ramayan, is reported to have seen rakshasis (n all likelihood, aborigines) women kissing and fondling each other in the forest. He couldn’t have participated because he was an ascetic. Then, the Padma Purana tells the story of a king who died before he could give the child bearing potion to his two wives. So the women made love to each other, drank portions of the potion, and had his children (without bones and brains because that is what children get from their fathers in Indian philosophy). The concept of people who are neither male nor female is very old in Indian mythology. They were called ‘kliba’, supposed to be biologically imperfect humans. It was an umbrella term and took care of all men who did not behave like the typical man, covering everything from dysfunctional male to impotent male to homosexual.

The world’s only treatise on sex, the Kamasutra, also has reference to homosexuals abut it is clear that Vatsyayana, the sage who did this research, was no fan of homosexuality. The Manusmriti, which lists the oldest codes of conduct that were to be followed by a Hindu do include homosexual practices, but only as in their regulation. The interesting thing, once again, is that homosexuality was considered a part of sexual practices, but not always very well accepted. There were punishments, ranging from mediocre gravity, to slightly more. The punishments to be meted out were interesting. For instance, a woman found having a lesbian relationship a mature woman with another girl. Her" head should be shaved immediately or two of her fingers should be cut off, and she should be made to ride on a donkey."

There are no kind words for a male homosexual either, but the severity is much less. "Causing an injury to a priest, smelling wine or things that are not to be smelled, crookedness, and sexual union with a man are traditionally said to cause loss of caste" And: "If a man has shed his semen in non-human females, in a man, in a menstruating woman, in something other than a vagina, or in water, he should carry out the 'Painful Heating' vow." This meant he would have to drink a mixture of "cow's urine, cow dung, milk, yogurt, melted butter, water infused with sacrificial grass, and a fast of one night". Compared to what the woman would have to go through, this is definitely less severe. Perhaps this skewed treatment was due to the fact that most religious orders, had homosexuals in their members, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged. The punishment for a homosexual priest would, therefore, be mush milder than say, an erring woman. Besides, Manusmriti is the same Scripture that has stated that the status of woman in the society is the same (or even lower than) that of a man’s land, his cattle and other possessions.

Modern day India, or the world, for that matter, behaves like an ostrich, with his head buried in the sand of prudish propriety. The Victorian times effectively put an end to all open conversations about sexuality, despite the fact that those were the most debauch times in medieval Europe too. But homosexuality as a topic of human rights and acceptable (or unacceptable) human behavior is once again out in the open. And ancient cultures like the Eastern, Greek, Roman, and even Egyptian abound with references to these practices. This we can term ancient modernity!!!