Fun fact: Hijra the word with two meanings

[Josie Beth]

In Arabic, Hijra means a pilgrimage, a journey.

 

Also, it’s the term used to describe transgender women in India. Perhaps it’s a loan word. Perhaps it’s not. But it’s fitting that the same idea is echoed today in the word transgender. The idea of crossing a boundary, making a journey. Being trans is a pilgrimage, it’s moving from one place to another. It used to be something seen as sacred by the ancient cultures of the world. In many ways it still is. Just my musings for today.

[Maid In Bedlam]

.Trans is by no means a modern thing. Not by a long chalk. Especially Hinduism.

 

To Name a few.

 

Shikhandi: This warrior in the Kurukshetra war in most tellings of the Mahabharata was female at birth but changed gender later in life. Born Shikhandini, the girl in one version of the story was raised as a male by King Drupada, the girl's father. The king even had her married to the princess of Dasharna. Upon complaints from the new bride, Shikhandini fled into the forest and met a Yaksha and exchanged genders. Now taking the name Shikhandi, he remained a man until his death at the battle of Mahabharat.

 

Shiva and Parvati: The supreme god of Shaivism, Shiva has often been held as the ultimate embodiment of masculinity, but as far back as the Kushan era, there have also been depictions of Shiva in  an androgynous composite of Shiva and his wife, Parvoti. The form originated when Parvoti, desiring to share Shiva’s experiences, asked for their forms to literally be joined. “What is being said is that if the inner masculine and feminine meet, you are in a perpetual state of ecstasy,” explains Hindu scholar Sadhguru. Most often, the Ardhanarishvara is depicted with the female form of Parvoti on the left and the masculine attributes of Shiva on the right

 

Bahuchara Mata: Bahuchara Mata was traveling with her sisters and threatened by the marauder Bapiya. After she and her sisters self-immolated their own breasts, Bapiya was cursed with impotence until he began to dress an act as a Woman Today, the Hindu goddess is worshipped as the originator and patron of the hijras, trans and intersex Bangladeshis considered in the faith to be of a “third gender.”

 

 

Its actually awesome when you look these gods up. See what they got up to.

 

 

I just copied and pasted the meanings and there spellings online. Just google them. You will see for yourself.

 

Great Fun fact Josie