The City of 47 Ronin

The tiny town of Ako in south-west Japan is known for the story of 47 Ronin. The city has a beautiful Shinto shrine with the statues of those 47 warriors who had chosen to become outlaws to avenge the death of their lord.

I had watched the film "47 Ronin" starring Keanu Reaves, which was based on this story. A couple of years ago when I was in Okayama for a meeting organised by Sasakawa Health Foundation, I had discovered that it was not very far from Ako. Thus, I took that opportunity to go and visit this city and to become familiar with its famous legend. This post is about my visit.

Samurai and Ronin Traditions in Japan

The Samurai (Bushi) warriors became an important group in Japan in the 12th century when they worked for feudal lords. Those lords along with their samurai were the real rulers of Japan.

The samurai followed a code of conduct called Bushido. According to the Bushido, when a Samurai became master-less, for example by the death of his master, he was expected lay down his arms and to commit suicide by Seppaku (by plunging a knife in the stomach). Any samurai who did not kill himself was known as ronin, a warrior without honour.

The ronin were looked down upon by their fellow samurai and by the society. They were ridiculed and faced public humiliation.

In 1868, with the Meiji reforms, the military control of country was replaced by a centralised bureaucratic governance. This ended the role of samurai.

I feel that the idea of warriors without a lord committing suicide according to an ethical code sounds similar to the ideas in medieval India about widows letting themselves be immolated along with their husbands' bodies under the "Sati" rituals. Such ideas may seem acceptable while one is wrapped inside and isolated in those ritualistic beliefs. Perhaps some can argue that the suicide bombs by radicalised Islamists are similar rituals, though those are fundamentally different since they also involve additional killing of unsuspecting persons. However, an unwrapping of self and a contact with wider world makes such ideas of ritualised suicides seem like aberrations and a kind of mental illness (though the traditionalists won't agree with this view).

Looking at the figures of Ronin through modern eyes, I feel that seeking revenge for their lord's death was a better option for the warriors, than killing themselves through ritual suicide, though in the Ako story, they did kill themselves after taking their revenge.

The Ronin of Ako - Historical Background

"Ako vendetta", was a historical event in which a group of ronin avenged the death of their master Lord Naganori Asano.

In 1701, Lord Asano, the Daimyo of Ako, was forced to commit ritual suicide by Kira Yoshinaka, a scheming official of the imperial court. However, Asano's samurai did not commit seppaku as foreseen by the Bushido and instead became ronin. Their initial attempts to avenge the death of Lord Asano were unsuccessful. Finally, those 47 ronin managed to kill Kira at Sangakuji in Edo (now known as Tokyo).

Even though by taking up the arms after the death of their lord, they had violated the samurai code of conduct, their honourable action in avenging Lord Asano was recognized. Thus after their revenge, those 47 ronin were allowed an honourable death by committing seppuku.

During the Meijo era (1868-1912), the story of 47 ronin became very popular all over Japan through songs and traditional plays such as kabuki. It was a tale of persistence, honour and sacrifice. The Hollywood film "47 Ronin" (2013) was inspired from this story.

The City of Ako

Ako is located in the Hyogo prefecture in south-west Japan, between Osaka and Okayama. Its railway station is called Banshu-Ako. It is a small coastal town facing the inland sea. It has a population of around 50,000.

Ako is located on the banks of Chikusa river and has a good network of canals. On 14 December each year, Ako celebrates the Gishisai festival to remember the 47 ronin, with a parade of the warriors dressed in old costumes and illuminations with lanterns.

Reaching Ako

When I told my Japanese friends that I wanted to visit Ako, they were a little surprised. The city's name was not so familiar to them. I had to explain the story of 47 Ronin to them. Even at the tourist office in Okayama where I went to ask for information, they were surprised that I wanted to go to Ako. They were not sure if there was much to see in Ako. However, as you can see from the images, it is a beautiful city and is worth visiting.

To reach Banshu-Ako, I took the Ako line local train from Okayama. The journey took around an hour. Passing through small towns and villages (including Bizen and Osafune, two famous small towns in this region) along with verdant mountains, it was a beautiful journey.

The local train network also connects Banshu-Ako station to Himeji and Kobe on the east.

Places to visit in Ako

The city centre is small. The places to visit include the ruins of the castle of Ako and some shrines and temples. Among the shrines, the most important is the Shinto shrine linked with the 47 ronin located near the castle.

Among the temples, the most important is Kagaku temple. The Kagaku temple, the Ako castle and the Shinto shrine of the 47 ronin, are all at a walking distance from the railway station. The main street in front of the railway station leads to the castle. A map of the city in the square facing the railway station will show you all these landmarks. The city, including the railway station, is full of banners, posters and tiles with images of the different Ronin warriors.

In Kagaku temple, I met a group of Japanese artists, who were visiting the city and making drawings of its different buildings. They were curious about me but we had to communicate with gestures as they could not understand English.

The Kagakuji (or Sengakuji) was the family temple of the Asano family. It is a beautiful Buddhist temple with a giant bell and with different shrines. I was told that Kagaku temple has the tombs of the 47 Ronin, each marked by the number "7" to denote death by seppuku. However, I had also read that the tombs of the 47 ronin are in the cemetery of the Sengakuji temple in Tokyo, so I am not sure if the tombs in the Kagaku temple of Ako were real or not. I tried asking about them but was unable to make myself understand and thus, did not see them. In the temple, there were no sign boards indicating the tombs.

Ako Castle and Oisho Shrine of the 47 Ronin

When I reached the castle, some of the persons from the group of Japanese artists had also reached there and they smiled at me. There was no ticket to enter the castle, which does not have many things to see. Imposing walls surrounded the castle ruins. This castle was destroyed by the bombings during the second World War, and its walls have been recently rebuilt to recreate the old ambiance.

Inside the walls, most of the ruins were just empty spaces marked on the floor explaining the different building of the old castle. The castle was built by Naganao Asano Ako, the third lord of Ako domain and the grandfather of Naganori Asano. It had taken them 13 years to built this castle. I was told that the rooms of the Lord and his wife were marked on the floor, but since it was only in Japanese, I could not identify them.

On one side inside the castle, there is a short and squat tower (Tenshudai), where you can go up and have a panoramic view of the area.

A winding path passing near the Ako Museum of History and the Gardens of Ako castle took me to the shrine behind the castle. It is marked by a row of statues of the 47 ronin on both the sides of the path. This shrine is also called Oisho shrine to remember Oisho, the leader of those Ronin.

Each statue of the ronin was different - showing men of different age groups, each with his favourite weapon, some of them standing while others were sitting. Against the background of the castle ruins, the two rows of statues lining the path leading to the shrine made a powerful visual impact.

Inside the shrine gate (Torii), on the two sides were two giant wooden statues of pot-bellied old men. The one on the left was Daikoku Sama, symbolising luck and matrimonial happiness. The one on the right was Ebisu Sama, symbolising success in business and trade.

Inside the shrine, there were different memorials for persons to express their admiration for the warriors - for example, through the streamers of paper-cranes usually placed in cemeteries. The courtyard also has a statue of Oishi Kuranosuke, the leader of the Ronin.

One of the shrine buildings was Homotsu-Kan or the treasure hall, entry to which has a ticket. Inside you can see the Oishi "Glass of Rules" for the Ako samurai. The rules included the following - do not fight, do not spill drink from your mouth and do not force a non-drinker to drink.

A path from the Shinto shrine led to castle garden - a beautiful garden just outside the castle ruins. When I visited it in April 2017, it was not yet completely done and some parts were closed. Still it seemed to be landscaped beautifully with a canal, some gently bubbling fountains and a quaint bridge.

The garden ruins also include two ponds, both beautifully designed to evoke feelings of peace and harmony.

Conclusions

I could visit Ako only for a few hours. It was a rainy day. I knew that there would not be enough time to visit the historical museum or to go to the sea coast in Ako. On the other hand, I had thought that I will be able to visit Chikusa river and a couple of other shrines near the railway station. However, the visit to the castle and the Oisho shrine took most of my time and I could not do more, I had to rush back to catch the train to Okayama.

I think that Ako merits a visit. If you are visiting south-west Japan, such as Okayama or Kobe, it would be worthwhile keeping a morning to visit it.

*****

#banshi-ako #japan #samurai #bushido #legends #47ronin 

Amazing Rock-Temples of Mahabalipuram (Part 1)

Mahabalipuram on the south-eastern coast of India is a city with some of the most amazing temples cut into granite rocks. Its name (Mahabali or the strong man + Puram or city) refers to the ancient Hindu legend of Bali and his son Banasur.

This first part of the post explains the history of rock-cutting for construction in India and some rock-temples located in the park around the area surrounding the rock-sculptures known as Arjuna’s Penance. Part 2 of this post looks specifically at Arjuna's Penance itself.

History of Rock-Temples in India

Humans had inhabited natural rock-caves since prehistoric times. With their primitive tools they had started creating niches in those rocks. For example, in Bhimbetaka caves near Bhopal in central India, you can see some of these pre-historic man-made rock niches called "cupules" (image below).

Since finding natural caves in rocky areas was not always easy, the next step was man-made caves in the rocks. In India, the earliest man-made caves are from around 2nd century BC, made by Buddhist monks (many of them include many Hindu deities as well), such as those in Ajanta (Aurangabad) and Kanheri (Mumbai) in central-west India. These caves were used as habitations and temples (Kanheri caves in the image below).

Over the next centuries, the idea of cutting rocks to create temples spread across central and south India. 5th to 8th century CE was the golden period of rock temples in India. In this period, a number of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist rock-temples were built in different parts of India – Rashtrakutas and Yadavs built Elephanta and Ellora (Maharashtra), Jain monks built Udaygiri (Madhya Pradesh), Chalukyas built Badami (Karnataka) and Pallavas built Mahabalipuram (Tamilnadu).

Building rock-temples required a lot of resources - to pay the skilled artisans who knew how to cut and mould the rocks over a period of years. Thus, each area of rock temples mentioned above, had a rich empire around it during 5-8th centuries CE. While there must have been some exchange of knowledge and skills between the artisans working in different parts of India, generations of artisans must have grown up and spent all their lives working the rocks in each of these places. Each of them developed their own specific styles. The rock-temples of Mahabalipuram are in what is called the Pallava style.

Process of Rock-Cutting Used in Mahabalipuram

Cutting the boulder must have been a long and hard work, requiring a knowledge about veins and planes of the rocks so that artisans knew where exactly to cut it. There are many other unfinished cut rocks in this area where you can see the process of cutting a rock and making rock-temples. For example, the image below shows that steps were cut in the rock and 3 niches were marked for making of statues, but the work was left unfinished.

Similar unfinished rocks show how they cut such a smooth surface on the huge granite boulders. They first made holes in a line on the rock surface as you can see in the image below.

The next image shows a cut boulder with markings on the upper edge showing the places where holes were made.

However, the holes do not seem to be very deep. So how did making holes in a line, divided the boulder in two parts with smooth surfaces? Did they have one deeper hole where they pushed in an iron rod to act as a lever? Did they use water in some way to force the separation?

Do you have any ideas how they did it - If so, please share them in the comments below.

Kinds of Rock-temples in Mahabalipuram

In Mahabalipuram there are four kinds of rock-temples:

(1) Open-air Bass-relief temples: Figures were sculpted on the rock surface.

(2) Temples in rock-caves: Caves were cut in the rock and then inside those caves, statues of deity in bass-relief or full sculptures were placed.

(3) Monolith temples: Big rocky boulders were taken and cut from the top-to-bottom, creating temples. In Mahabalipuram these are called “Rathas” (chariots).

(4) Built temples: Blocks of rocks were cut and then places one over another to create the temple.

Mammallapuram - Mahabalipuram: Myths & History

The original name of the town comes from the mythical king Bali, who was a very strong and powerful king. The legend says that Bali’s son was Banasur, who had imprisoned Anirudha, who was Krishna’s nephew and in love with Banasur’s daughter. Banasur was killed by Krishna. The town is also linked with the five Pandava brothers from “Mahabharat” and thus, different temples of the town are dedicated to them.

The rock temples of Mahabalipuram were built by the Pallava kings, who had their capital in Kanchipuram, 70 km away to the west, and who used Mahabalipuram as their port to export spices and silks as far as the Mediterranean and Romans.

The first temples of Mahabalipuram were built under king Mahendra Varman (580-629 CE). His son Narsimha Varman 1st, was a strong wrestler (Malla) and gave another name to this place – Mahamallapuram or Mammallapuram. His son Mahendra Varman 2nd, who ruled only for 3 years (668-670 CE), has his name inscribed in Adivaraha temple, where the town’s name Mahabalipuram is also mentioned.

The Ganesha Ratha temple was built under Parmeshwara Varman (670-690 CE) while Rajasimha (690-728 CE) was responsible for the shore temple.

Arjun’s Penance Monument Park

The main rock temples of Mahabalipuram are located in three areas, of which two areas are next to the sea – the shore temple and a group of five temples known as “Pancha Rathas”. This post does not touch those monuments.

The third area is a little away from the sea, where a granite hill is surrounded by a grassy land and this is known as the Arjun’s Penance area. Apart from the 1,500 years old temples, it also includes a light-house built in late 19th century under the British. It is very rich in monuments. This post is about some of the monuments of this area.

Trimurti Temple & the Round Water Tank

I entered this park from its north entrance, towards the Mahabalipuram bus-stand side. The first temple I saw was the Trimurti temple, which is a rock-cave temple with bass-relief statues of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

The sculptures of this temple are not very finally chiselled. At the same time, while Vishnu’s statue was recognisable, those of Shiva and Brahma did not have the distinctive features that we normally associate with their iconography. For example, the image below shows the Shiva sculpture from Trimurti temple – it is only the lingam in the foreground that identifies it as Shiva.

Outside the rock-temple, there is a circular water-tank cut into granite. It does not have steps for going inside, so it was not built as a usual temple-pond for the pilgrims. While cutting the rocks, a lot of water is needed to cool the surface. So, I wonder if they had created the circular tank to store water for the artisans, both for drinking and for rock-cutting? It is too well made in a perfect circle, to be used just for storage, so its purpose could have been two-fold – storing water while constructions were going on and then to remain there as a symbol of beauty in front of the temple.

Krishna’s Butter Ball

Between the Trimurti temple and the rest of the park, there are some huge granite boulders and the starting of a ridge that goes up towards the hill. As I walked on this ridge, I came across “Krishna’s butter ball”, a huge round boulder with its top surface cut smooth, that seems to be resting precariously on the rocks.

It is the most popular tourist spot in the park, with people vying to get their selfies all around the boulder.

When I saw it, I asked myself if there was a story behind this boulder? Was it cut and then left in that place deliberately because it was visually striking? Or was it a work in progress which was left incomplete because of some external event like some war or lack of funds?

Ganesh’s Rath

This is a monolithic temple chiselled out from a single big boulder like a sculptor sculpts a statue. It is located a little to the south on the grass-land below Krishna's Butter Ball, along a rocky path that leads up to another granite hill.

It looks like the wooden temples on the chariots used for the annual functions in the temples when deities are taken out in processions. Perhaps that is why such temples are called “Rath” (chariot).

Since the sculptors start with these constructions from the top, their top parts are much more elaborate compared to the bottoms.

Rayar Gopuram

The path going uphill from Ganesh’s rath leads to other constructions on the top, with a raised platform and pillars, including an entrance gate, which could have been somewhat like a Gopuram, that became popular in the temple architecture some centuries later.

Other Rock Temples

As I walked around this area, I saw different rock-temples. Some of these had inscriptions, such as the one in Adivaraha temple in the image below, which I was told, includes the word Mahabalipuram. It would have been nice to have some boards outside showing the translations of the inscriptions.

The area has many epigraphs whose meanings are not clear and it is likely that some of those were used by the temple-planners and builders as their annotations.

The sculptures at the top of this hill are older and more finely made. For example, look at the image below showing the Vamana story when Vishnu assumed giant form and in three steps covered the whole universe, from one of the temples. This story is based in Mahabalipuram because in the myth, Vishnu had come as a Vamana to the Asura king Bali and tricked him into donating his empire. I loved this sculpture – it has Vishnu in the vamana form at the bottom and also in the giant form with his left leg raised up to an impossible yogic angle reaching out to the universe around him.

I also suspect that the 3 figures shown sitting at his feet include the king and some other important persons of that period – probably the king is the one sitting close to the right leg of Vishnu. However, it does not show the mythical king Bali.

Conclusions

This first post about Mahabalipuram shows the richness of iconographies and rock-cut sculptures from 1,500 years ago. If you are interested in art, history and archaeology, you can spend hours in each of the temples described above and discover new things.

The area known as Arjun’s Penance Monument Park has a large number of monuments - too many for one post! In this post I have limited myself to the northern and western parts of this area. The eastern and southern parts of this area, including the beautiful rock sculpture known as Arjuna's Penance  will be the subject of my next post.

*****

#rocktemplesofindia #rockcutting #ancienttemples #hinduism #india #mahabalipuram

Hanuman, the Legend of the Ape God

As a child growing up in Old Delhi (India) in early 1960s, for me sometimes the people from the ancient Hindu stories were as real, or perhaps even more real, than the actual people around me. Children's magazine Chandamama, Ramlila performances in the DCM grounds and recitations of Ramayana by visiting brahmins in the street-square near our home, had all contributed to make me familiar with the characters of Ramayana, including that of Hanuman ji.
 
Hanuman is one of the most loved Hindu deities in India. He is considered the symbol of valour, loyal service and self-control. For adolescents and young men, he is considered as the patron of Brahmcharya (celibacy) while reciting his prayer called Hanuman Chalisa is suppose to provide the believers with courage and overcoming of fears.

In this post, I want to present some of my favourite images of lord Hanuman from different parts of India, along with different stories linked to this god. The first image presented above is from Karol Bagh in Delhi, where the giant statue of Hanuman rises next to the metro line, juxtaposing the old mythologies with the modern India.

Hanuman stories in ancient Indian texts

The oldest mention of Hanuman is in Rigveda, where he is called Vrishkapi, the Vrish ape. Besides the Hindu texts, he is also mentioned in Jainist and Buddhist texts. The stories of Hanuman can traces their origins to the ancient prehistorical oral traditions of India. Along with the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in the far east, the legend of Hanuman also spread to countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The figure of Sun Wukong (ape king) in Japanese mythology is very similar to Hanuman's story. The same Sun Wukong myths had also inspired the recent Chinese film "The Monkey King", in which Sun Wukong takes birth from a divine crystal which falls on the mount Huaguo.

The second image of Hanuman is unusual since it presents a giant green coloured statue from the Trimurthi temple in Kanakpura on the Bangalore-Mysore road in Karnataka.

Legends about the birth of Hanuman

There are two main stories linked to the birth of Hanuman. In one, he is the son of the wind god Vayu and thus, is called Vayuputra, and is born with the gift of flying. In the second story his father is an ape called Kesari (Saffron). Even in this story, Vayu, the wind god plays a role in Hanuman's birth and is thus considered his guardian.

Another legend about baby Hanuman is that once he thought that sun was a fruit and wanted to catch it and eat it. Sun allarmed, asked for help from the god Indra, who used his Vajra (thunderbolt) to stop the baby. Because of the Vajra, baby's jaw became more prominent, giving rise to his name Hanuman (prominent jaw).

The next image has Hanuman as a chimaera, a combination of different human and animal beings expressed through his five heads and ten arms.

Hanuman and the stories of Rama of Ayodhya

In the popular imagination, the figure of Hanuman is closely linked to that of Rama. Most statues and images of Hanuman present him as a Ram-bhakt, like in the image below where he is shown holding a tiny statue of Rama in his hands.

In both Valmiki's Ramayana and in Gosain Tulsi Das' "Ram Charit Manas", Hanuman first appears in Kishkindhakand chapters of the story, when the two brothers, Rama and Lakshman, searching for Sita, reach Rishyamook mountain where the Ape king Sugriva lives. When Sugriva sees them, he gets afraid, and asks Hanuman to go and find out about their intentions.

In Valmiki Ramayana, the whole episode is longer and is written in Sanskrit, while In Ram Charit Manas, it is much shorter and is written in Avadhi. In Valmiki Ramayan, Hanuman is presented first as Sugrivasachiva (सुग्रीवासचिवाः), Sugriva's commander. The next verse presents him by his name, Hanuman:

ततस्तं भयसंविग्नं वालिकिल्विषशडिन्गतम्
उवाच हनुमान्वाक्यं सुग्रीवं वाक्योकोविदाः

(To Sugriva who was afraid of Bali, the clever and articulate Hanuman said.)

In Ram Charit Manas, Hanuman is introduced in the story when Sugriva speaks to him:

"अति सभीत कह सुनु हनुमाना, पुरुष जुगल बल रूप निधाना
धरि बटु रूप देख तहँ जाई, कहेसु जानि जियें सयन बुझाई"

(Afraid Sugriva said: Hanuman, they are two strong men, go to them dressed as a Brahamchari (celibate) and try to understand about them)  

Gosain Tulsi Das is also credited with the prayer of Hanuman Chalisa (literally, "forty verses of Hanuman"), which is supposed to infuse people with courage and remove their fear. Below is another figure of Hanuman showing Rama and Sita in his heart.

Hanuman as the patron of healing herbs

During the war between Rama and Ravan in Ramayan, there is an episode where Lakshan is injured gravely and to cure him Sanjeevani booti (life-giving herb) is needed urgently.

Since Hanuman has the gift of flying, Rama asks him to go to Meru mountain and bring the herb. Hanuman, unable to identify the herb, decides to bring the whole mountain. This episode is also very popular in the Hanuman statues as shown in the image above (from Tezpur, Assam) and below (from Gangtok, Sikkim).

Metaphysical meaning of Hanuman

 In Hinduism, meanings can be understood at different levels. Thus, for common people, Hanuman is a deity, whose help they can ask for. At the same time, often the old stories have deeper metaphysical meanings in Hinduism.

For example, according to the Vedbhashya blog which looks at correlations between Quantum physics and ancient texts of Hinduism, the original story of Vrishakapi (Hanuman), is a metaphysical description of an atomic force binding the central nucleus to the sub-atomic particles moving around.

Personally, I love the way different animals and plants play a central role in different stories of Hinduism. Apart from Hanuman, a Garuda eagle called Jatayu also plays an important role in Ramayana. Two gods, Ganesha with an elephant head and, Narsimha, a half lion and half human incarnation of Vishnu, are other examples of animal-human relationships in Hindu mythology. I think that this way of looking at nature is important to promote ecological sustainability of all life on earth.

The image below presents another unusual Hanuman, where he is shown older and with a rudraksh-mala around his neck, like an ascetic giving his benediction to his followers.

Conclusions

The image below presents a tiny temple of Hanuman along the banks of Ganges in Varanasi, which has an unusual sleeping Hanuman statue.

To conclude this photo-essay about Hanuman, the last image is from a Ramlila procession in Chandani Chowk in old Delhi. The image shows the carriage of Hanuman with his Vanar sena (monkey army). The person who plays the role of Hanuman is Mr Ram Chander, a devout follower of Hanuman who has been playing this role for more than a decade.

To write this post I went through my huge image archives. I was surprised that I had so many images of Hanuman and it was not easy to choose the images for this post. I had great fun in selecting these images and in writing this post.

Do tell me which form of Hanuman ji out of the ten images presented above, did you like most?

***

Traditional Transgender Communities in India

Indian parliament is debating a bill on the rights of transgender persons. In 2016 it is being discussed in Loksabha, the lower house of parliament. However, some groups of transgender persons (TGPs) are opposing parts of this bill, arguing that it will harm their rights.

Recently a press conference was organised in Delhi about the TG bill. Representatives of TGPs from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry, Haryana and Delhi were present. This article tries to understand their main concerns. (Below, an image from the press conference).

Before we talk about the concerns of traditional TGP communities in India, it is necessary to understand what kind of communities are these.

TRADITIONAL TRANSGENDER COMMUNITIES IN INDIA

Different sacred texts of Indic religions provide examples and stories of TGPs including the Ardhnarishwar avatar of Shiva, the Mohini avatar of Vishnu during the churning of oceans for the nectar of immortality and the episodes from Mahabharat where Arjun becomes a woman called Brihannala and the story of Irvan during the Kurukshetra war.

While ancient texts illustrate traditional attitudes and practices regarding gender and sexuality, societies do not always behave according to those ancient ideas. The attitudes towards TGPs in today's India include giving them specific social and cultural roles in circumscribed areas such as weddings, child-birth and traditional theatre, while at the same time excluding them from mainstream community lives. Some of them are sex workers, which is often used against them for their further marginalisation and exploitation.

There have been a few examples of transgender persons assuming power and playing important social roles in medieval India such as Malik Kafur, a military general of Alauddin Khilji, and Malik Sarvar and his adopted son Malik Qaranfal (known as Mubarak Shah), who ruled Jaunpur in what is now Uttar Pradesh in the 14th century. However, these can only be considered as exceptions that prove the rule of social marginalisation of TGPs in India. In the post-independence period, many TGPs have broken out of the societal boundaries to study and to take up different professions, but again, they are still a small minority among the TGPs.

"Traditional TGPs Communities"  of male-to-female (MtF) persons came up to deal with their exclusion from mainstream community lives. In different parts of India the traditional TGP communities share many similarities but are also different. These are led by senior TGPs, who may be called Guru. The members of communities also identify each other through family kinship-names such as nani, dadi, mother and sisters. Such TGP communities have specific names such as Haveli or Dera, used by their members.

Though the ancient Indic stories also include female-to-male (FtM) persons such as the Shikhandi story in Mahabharat, FtM persons are less visible in India and are not part of the traditional communities.

Different parts of India have different terms about TGPs including Hijra/Hijda, Kinnar, Kothi, Aravani, Khusra, Pavaiya, Maada and Jogappa. These terms may be used in different ways in different parts of India.

There is limited documentation and understanding about the lives of TGPs in the traditional communities. Often the documentation and understanding come from persons trained in the western/modern analytical methodologies rather than from persons who have grown up in the TGP-communities with a consequent distortion of what they understand and how they explain it.

Not all the TGPs in India live as members of these traditional communities, many of them live outside. Considering the huge amount of discrimination and violence faced by TGPs, I feel that even larger number of TGPs may be hidden in their families. However I have been unable to find any studies or even estimates of the percentage of TGPs living in traditional communities and outside these.

The traditional TGP communities of MtF persons are organised in family clans with state and regional level structures. The proposed bill has prompted the coming together of these communities to form a national level body. Male transgender persons (FtM) are also participating in the building of the all India TGP organisation.

A national meeting of the TGP communities from different states is being planned in Madhya Pradesh in December 2016, where the constitution of the All India organisation will be formalised.

TRANSGENDER PERSONS IN INDIA

The national census conducted in 2011, for the first time, collected separate data on transgender persons. According to this data, there were 4.8 lakhs (a little less than half a million) transgender persons in India including 11% of children. Around 56% of them could read and write, though literacy rates varied between different states. For example, around 68% of TGPs in Maharashtra could read and write while in Rajasthan the percentage went down to 48%.

Considering that many TGPs remain hidden in their families to avoid societal prejudice and discrimination, actual number of TGPs in India is likely to be much higher.

Most of the data regarding TGPs collected in the 2011 census has not yet been analysed. This data can provide us with important information about the lives of TGPs such as - how many of them reach old age, how many of them have university degrees and how many of them live in communities with other TGPs. I think that organisations active in the areas of human rights and in more specific issues of Queer rights need to take this up with the Census department of Government of India so that the details of this data are released. 

BILL ON THE RIGHTS OF TGP  IN THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT

The bill was originally presented in the Upper House of Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha) by the DMK leader Tiruchi Siva on 12th December 2014. After some modifications this private bill was passed by Rajya Sabha on 24th April 2015. The bill approved by Rajya Sabha was presented in the lower house of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) on 26 February 2016. Since then, after consultations with various bodies another version of this bill has been developed.

All India Transgender Persons’ Organisation was happy with the initial version of the bill introduced in 2014. They felt that the amendments introduced in the version passed by Rajya Sabha had diluted some of their rights, but they still accepted and supported that bill. However, they express strong opposition to some of the changes introduced in the present version of bill being discussed in Lok Sabha.

Government officials have assured them that after the end of the on-going winter session of the parliament, a national level meeting will be organised in Delhi where all the different groups of TG persons will be invited for discussions on the proposed bill.

CONCERNS OF TRADITIONAL TGP COMMUNITIES REGARDING THE RIGHTS OF TGP BILL

The main concerns about the proposed bill are as follows:

Representation of the TG communities: TG persons feel that Government has consulted only NGOs about the bill. In their opinion, NGOs get funding for and are focused only on HIV prevention and they do not understand what it means to be a TG person and all the different issues that are part of their lives in traditional TG communities. Therefore, TG persons ask for direct representation in consultations with Government of India.

The Bill is against the traditional TG communities: Often TG persons, including children, are abandoned or forced out of their families. Working adults, when they decide to come out with their TG identity, they lose their jobs. The traditional TGP communities take care of and provide emotional support, peer support, help and advice to them. They feel that the proposed bill negates and criminalises these roles of the traditional communities.

Traditionally TG persons have not had opportunities for education and proper employment, while over centuries they have developed social roles such as Badhai system where they visit families during marriages and other happy occasions such as birth of children.

While better opportunities for education and employment of children and young TG persons are welcome steps in the proposed bill, making traditional activities such as Badhai as illegal is not the right answer. TG communities already have children and young persons who are going to school and who want to take up proper professions. However the older TG persons who are not educated and do not have professional skills, how will they survive if they can not take part in their traditional activities and if their traditional communities are seen as illegal?

The bill proposes punishment and jail for persons who will discriminate against TG persons. However they point out that among those who harass and exploit the TG persons, police persons are the biggest perpetrators. Thus they ask how will this anti-discrimination work?

The bill proposes jail for TGPs found begging on the streets. Such provisions ignore the prejudice, discrimination, oppression and exploitation faced by TG persons from the police. Such laws will increase the police harassment against TG persons because they can be simply picked up from streets.

Promoting work and empowerment of TG persons: The original version of the bill included incentives to private companies for employing TG persons. They feel that this was a useful provision and should be maintained.

Definitions of TG Persons in the Bill: The proposed bill also has some definitions which are problematic. For example, references to half-man and half-woman (Ardhnarishwar) are taken from ancient texts such as Mahabharat, which are metaphorical and not related to real TG persons.

A related issue is the lack of the words such as Hijra and Kinnar in the proposed bill. The bill does not use these traditional words and ignores their meanings and significance to the traditional TG communities in India.

COMMENTS

I think that the concerns of All India TGPs Organisation raise three kinds of issues:

(i) The first is a practical issue regarding lives of adolescent, young adults and older TG persons who have grown up in traditional communities outside the mainstream society and who feel threatened by the measures proposed in the Bill, because it increases the risks for their criminalisation, oppression, exploitation and marginalisation.

The measures proposing the right of TG children to live in their families, to study, to work and to live lives with dignity are important and should be promoted but without penalising those who have grown up and live in the margins of the mainstream communities.

In my opinion, traditional TGP communities are a societal response to their marginalisation. Families when they decide to expel and exclude their child with gender dysphoria, they call upon these traditional communities to take away those children. Children should have a right to live in a loving and caring atmosphere in their own families. However, the social change will not come just because a new law is made. Declaring traditional communities as unwanted and unwelcome will mean removing their existing social support system.  Thus, there has to be an adequate period of transition.

(ii) A second issue is more cultural. Traditional communities that have developed over centuries, provide specific roles of peer support, guidance, emotional support and sustenance for TGPs. Little is known or understood about these roles. Promoting their dismantling and declaring them as unwanted, without understanding the kind of support and services they provide, does not seem to me  to be a good idea.

Thus, I believe that there is an urgent need for research and studies in TGPs issues conducted by transgender persons themselves including persons who live in traditional communities. It is also important to develop adequate research methodologies which do not view everything only from western/modern analytical frameworks but which give equal importance of ideas and understandings of persons in the traditional TGP communities.

(iii) A third issue is about the role of the public institutions. As the TG persons complain about their exploitation by the police, similar complaints are also made about gender-based violence and other issues related to marginalised population groups. Measures are needed to promote institutional changes in the police and judicial system.

One way to promote institutional change in the police could be to nominate a local group of TG persons as expert-advisers for their local police stations, so that they have opportunities for regular interaction with police to inform them and to sensitise them on TG issues. However, this would also require opportunities for training of TG persons to play this role.

CONCLUSIONS

While traditional TGP communities have a long history, TGP movement in India is just beginning. I plead my own limited knowledge about the issues. From what I have understood, TGPs are divided in different groups including traditional communities, other persons outside the communities, some persons in or working with NGOs and the silent and hidden group of people who remain in their families.

These different groups may share many common goals but they also have significant differences. Building a national organisation in which these different groups can join together to share their common goals and make a joint fight for their rights would probably be a long-drawn process. In this sense, formation of All India Organisation of Traditional Communities of TGPs should be seen as an important first step.

Note: Apart from one picture from the press conference (second from the top), all the remaining images used in this post are from the North-East Queer Pride Parades 2015-16 held in Guwahati (Assam, India).

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Vishnu and Darwin

Some time I ago I had written about references to Other human species in the Indic mythology, arguing that the Indic myths and sacred stories represent the oral traditions and could be the keepers of ancient knowledge from prehistoric times.

This post is is a continuation of that thinking, provoked by a sculpture in a temple in Guwahati (Assam, India). The sculpture is a statue of an avatar of Vishnu.

ORAL TRADITIONS AND PREHISTORIC HUMANS

The first ancestors of the modern man, Homo sapiens, appeared on earth around 70,000 years ago while our knowledge about human history goes back to about 5-6,000 years. This in-between period about which we have no written records is called prehistoric period.

Human beings probably started to speak and developed languages, even before the appearance of modern man. Thus for a very long time, humans only had speech and art to express themselves. This led to different oral traditions in the communities and the memories of most important events were saved as stories and songs and passed along the generations.

These stories changed over time, as they passed from one generation to another and as groups of people broke away from their parent groups and moved to new lands, with people adding new details and new explanations to the old words. When human-groups invented writing, they usually codified these stories as part of their sacred books.

Jayakrishnan Nair in his post "Preserving Long Term Memories" has given a nice overview of oral traditions in safeguarding ancient knowledge across countries and cultures:

Memories are preserved when societies have the ability to retell stories across generations and remain unaffected by military, religious and cultural assaults. Indigenous traditions have foundational ways — through stories, art, ritual — to preserve knowledge. Textual studies won’t reveal the secrets; these have to be experienced.

STORIES ABOUT AVATARS OF VISHNU

Hinduism has many stories about Avatars of God coming down to the earth. For example, in chapter 4 of Bhagwat Gita, verse 7 (Yada, yada hi dharmasaya glani bharwati bharat ...) is about God coming down to earth whenever there is a decline in Dharma.

Stories of different avatars of Vishnu are part of the Indic sacred literature. For example, Bhagwat Puran mentions 24 avatars of Vishnu. Other stories have ten such avatars (Dasavatar). In all these stories, the first four avatars of Vishnu show him as an animal – Mataysa (Fish), Kurma (Tortoise), Varaha (Boar) and Narsimha (half man and half animal).

While visiting Shukreshwar temple in Guwahati, I saw a sculpture of the Matasya (Fish) avatar of Vishnu on one of the walls of a temple (shown in the image below).

Different authors have linked these stories about Vishnu's avatars to the Darwin's theory of evolution of species. In 19th century, Darwin had proposed that over a period of millions of years, life had evolved from single cells and through natural selection, gradually created more complex organisms. Life had started in oceans, it moved to the land, passing through fishes, amphibians and then birds and animals, till humans evolved from the apes.

People have remarked on how the first 4 avatars of Vishnu seem to reflect the evolution of life in the ocean (Matsya/Fish), its progression in creatures that lived partly in water and partly on land (Kurma/Tortoise), the arrival of mammals (Varaha/Boar) and the birth of humans from their animal progenitors (Narsimha/Half human, half animal). The image below shows a statue of Narsimha avatar from a street in old Delhi.

According to the Dasavatar stories, the fifth avatar of Vishnu was Vamana (Dwarf). This story reminds me of another human species, Homo floresiensis, also called "hobbits", the short humans who lived in Flores island of Indonesia.

These stories do not talk specifically about development of humans from the apes. However Indic sacred literature has many figures such as that of Vanars/Apes (Sugriv, Bali, Hanuman) and other beings such as Asurs, Danavs, Rakshas, etc. These other figures share certain similarities with humans and could be seen as references to other human species during prehistoric times.

If Indic myths speculated on the origins and evolution of life and some times came up with answers similar to those given by the science today, it means that those persons had significant capacities of observation and logical deduction. They did not have the scientific tools to test and confirm their ideas and thus, came up with stories of Vishnu's avatars to explain their observations.

At the same time, the Dasavatar story includes a prophecy about future - the tenth avatar of Vishnu who is supposed to come at the end of Kaliyug. This future avatar is called Kalki and is shown as a man with a sword on a white horse. This myth implies that there was some understanding that there will be other forms of life and that humans are not the end-point of evolution of life. This idea is also consonant with the present view of evolution of species, though the future life-evolution is not likely to be about white horses or swords, rather it might be linked to artificial intelligence and other technological innovations.

OUR UNDERSTANDING OF MYTHS

As explained above, the roots of the myths go back to the oral traditions of prehistorical times, before writing was invented and before we had the formal religions.

Emergence of religions like Christianity and Islam, with their specific books such as Bible and Koran, influenced attitudes towards the knowledge contained in ancient myths. Some ancient myths were incorporated in these books and came to be accepted as part of their religious dogmas. Other ancient myths, not included in these books, came to be seen as superstitions or false stories.

Therefore, the common use of the word Myth came to imply that these stories provide wrong and unreliable knowledge and thus, should not be taken seriously.

Most Indic myths are part of Vedic literature, especially of the Puranas. "Mithak", the Sanskrit word used for myths, sounds very similar to the Greek word Mythos. The Sanskrit word "Mithya", derived from Mithak, is also commonly understood as a synonym of lies or untruth. Thus, it would seem that even in Indic traditions, myths are seen as unreliable or wrong knowledge. So I was wondering, if our myths and sacred stories are part of our oral traditions, why and when did we start to consider them as lies?

The word "Mithya" appears in only one Upanishad, the Muktikopanishad, which is considered as the last Upanishad, written relatively recently (probably in seventeenth century). Its use in that Upanishad seems to suggest its meaning was somewhat similar to that of Maya (illusion). Thus is it possible that the negative connotation given to ancient stories or the myths in the Indic traditions was a more recent phenomenon? Certainly, traditional Indian scholars did not consider the Purana stories to be a bunch of lies.

Another explanation can be that in Indic traditions, Purana stories were seen as Itihasa (history) and they had used the word "mithak" to refer to some other stories, while today we have started to club together all our sacred stories as myths because that is how Western scholars have described them over the past couple of centuries?

CONCLUSIONS

Reconstructing the ancient history gives a lot of importance to written documents, skeletons, cultural artifacts and images such as the cave paintings, while the oral history traditions are not given similar importance. This is natural since stories of the oral traditions must have undergone many changes as they were passed from one generation to another, and thus are not as reliable as written texts and pictorial testaments of the prehistoric humans.

Over the last couple of decades technical advances in molecular biology and informatics have also started adding to our knowledge about prehistorical period, for example through reconstruction of genome.

On the other hand, cultures with strong oral traditions that have unbroken links with their prehistoric past through their mythologies and sacred stories, are fast disappearing. Except for some tribal communities, such cultures have survived only in India and in certain parts of Asia, especially where there are significant numbers of Hindus and Buddhists.

At the same time, looking at and understanding this ancient knowledge is becoming increasingly difficult as we tend to look at the myths and ancient stories through the lens of rational approaches, ignoring the original cultural contexts and philosophies that guided their meanings.

However, I feel that speculations about the seeds of historical events and ancient knowledge hidden inside the myths are also important. Looking at myths and sacred stories can be another way of knowing our past, though at present it may not be possible to have objective proofs of such knowledge.

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