Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts

406 Pages·1982·81.563 MB·English

by  Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty
Women,
Androgynes,
and Other Mythical
Beasts
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
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DAVID SHULMAN
and
DAVID KNIPE
Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty is Professor of History
of Religions and Indian Studies in the Divinity
School. the Department of South Asian Languages
and Civilizations, the Committee on Social Thought,
and the College at the University of Chicago.
Among her previous publications are Asceticism
and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva; Hindu Myths:
A Sourcebook Translated from the Sanskrit; and The
Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 6063 7
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1980 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1980
Printed in the United States of America
84 83 82 81 80 987654321
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger.
Women, androgynes, and other mythical beasts.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Mythology, Hindu. 2. Sex. 3. Animals.
Mythical. 4. Androgyny (Psychology) I. Title.
BL2001.2.036 294.5'2'1 79-16128
ISBN 0-226-61849-8
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Women, androgynes
and oth '
BL2001.2
.036
1980 mtents
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I
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
List of Abbreviations xvii
Introduction
The Myth of Method in Mythology
A The Myth 3
B The Toolbox of Pluralism 5
C What People Think and What People Think
They Think: Explicit and Implicit Levels 7
D The Pitfalls of Reductionism 9
E In Defense of Procrustean Selection 12
II Sexual Fluids
2 Sexual Fluids in Vedic and Post-Vedic India 17
A The Vedas 17
Blood 19 Semen 20 Female Seed 21 Blood and Milk or
Butter 21 Milk and Semen 22 Milk and Soma 24 Seed as
Food 26 Androgyny and Unilateral Creation through Milk 28
Woman as "Field" 29 Aggression and Competition in Sexual
Creation 30
B The Post-Vedic Period 33
Blood and Seed 33 Female Seed 35 Seed Substitutes: Sweat
and Tears 39 Blood and Milk 40 Milk and Semen 43
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Seed as Food 48 Ambiguous Fluids: Milk, Poison, and Fire 53
The Danger of Fluids 5 5 Stopping the Flow 5 7 Channeling
the Flow 59
III Gods and Goddesses in Opposition
The Shazam Syndrome: The Banalization of the
Hindu Gods 65
A The Dangers of Upward Mobility 65
B The Shazam Syndrome: Divinity Concealed and
Revealed 68
C Banalization and Derision of the Gods 72
4 The Shifting Balance of Power in Indian
Hierogamies 77
A Male Dominance in the Rg Veda 79
~ Transition in the Epics 79
C Female Dominance in the Purar:ias 80
Beheading and Castration 81 Change of Sex 87 The
Transformation of the Consort: Parvati 90 The Mediation of
Parvatl 93 The Tantric Triumph of the Goddess 97 The
Consort as Child 99 The Retreat from the Mother 105 The
Consort as Corpse 115 The Balance of Sexual Power between
Divine Consorts 116 Viraha: Longing in Separation 122 The
Union of Mortals and Immortals 124 The Rewards of Living
Dangerously 12 8
The Dance of Siva with Kali and Parvati 130
A The Dance of Siva in Poetry and Myth 130
B Death as a Dancer 13 3
C Dance as the Conquest of Death 138
D The Dance in the Forest 139
.E- The Control of Siva and Kali through the Dance 140
F The Dance Contest 141
G Parvati as Spectator of the Dance 143
IV Cows and Mares
6 The Inda-European Mare 149
A Introduction: The Mythical Prototype 149
B The Ritual 152
The Irish Rite: The Mare in the Cauldron 152 The Celtic Cult
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of Epona and the Foals 153 The Indian Ritual of the Queen
and the Dead Stallion 154 (Feeding the Stallion and Eating
the Mare 154 The Vestigial Mare 156 Wakeful Chastity and
Sleeping Sexuality 15 8 The Female Bird and the Sun Stallion
161 The Death of the Stallion/King and the Survival of the
Goddess 162) Other Inda-European Rituals 165
C The Myth of the Mare 166
The Irish Myth: Macha and the Birth of Cuchulainn 16 7 (The
Mare and the Birds 167 The Drinking of the Seed 169 Too
Many Mothers 170 The Irish Bull 172) The Indian Myth:
Vivasvant and Sara,:iyu 174 (The Mutilating Mare 178
Immortal Woman and Mortal Man 180 Incest and Abnormal
Procreation 184) The Welsh Myth: Rhiannon and the
Disappearing Foals 185 The Greek Myths: Demeter and
Hippolytus 190 (Horse-headed Demeter and Poseidon 190
Poseidon and the Rape of the Mare 191 The Father of the
Mare-Hippodameia 193 The Man-eating Mares of Glaucus
and Diomedes 196 The Mare and Her Son-Hippolytus 19 7
Mortal Man and Immortal Woman 198 The Denial of the
Erotic Goddess: Pentheus and the Maenads 199) Miscellaneous
Mare Myths 202
D Interpretations: From Mare to Stallion 204
The Freudian Myth 204 (Castrating the Sun/Father 205 The
Phallic Mother 207) The Cretan Connection: The Queen and
the Bull 209 Simultaneous Models and Historical Development
211
7 The Mare beneath the Sea 213
A The Doomsday Mare 213
B The Post-Vedic Symbolism of the Mare 216
C The Myths of Search: Dadhyafic and Sagara 218
D Vi~r:iu as the Horse's Head-Hayagriva 222
E The Origin of the Submarine Mare-fire-Aurva 226
F Siva and the Mare 233
Sacred Cows and Profane Mares 239
A The Vedic Stallion 239
B The Vedic Cow and Bull 241
C The Turnabout and the Indus Civilization 244
D The Hindu Stallion and Mare 246
E The Hindu Cow 249
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F The Hindu Bull 252
G Sun Stallions and Moon Mares 2 5 5
H Stallions, Mares, and Bulls 2 5 7
I The Return of the Mare Goddess and the Demise
of the Mare 259
J Currents of Power: The Two-Way Tantric Flow 262
K Eat or Ye Shall Be Eaten 264
L Rebirth from the Devouring Goddess 266
M The Vicious Circle of the Mother and the Son 2 73
N The Denial of the Goddess 2 7 5
0 The Acceptance of the Goddess 2 79
V Androgynes
9 The Comparison of Androgynes 283
A An Introduction to the Androgyne 283
B The Search for the Androgyne 285
North American Androgynes 285 African and Australian
Androgynes 2 8 7 Star Trek Androgynes 2 8 9
C Types of Androgynes 290
Androgynes in the Human World 290 (Physical Androgynes
290 Psychological Androgynes 292) Mythical Androgynes
293 (Chaos 293 Anthropomorphic Androgynes 294)
Pseudo-Androgynes in Folklore 296 (The Eunuch 297
Masquerade and Transvestism 297 Sex Change, Exchange of
Sexes, and Male Pregnancy 299 Competitive Androgynes 302)
D The Evolution of the Androgyne in India 310
Textual Development 310 (Prajapati and Siva as Splitting
Androgynes 310 Siva as a Fusing Androgyne 314 The
Problem of the Androgyne: Getting Together 318 Vi~,:iu as a
Fusing Androgyne 320 The Mockery of the Androgyne 323)
Visual Images 3 2 6
E Meanings of the Androgyne 3 31
Notes 335
Abbreviations of Periodicals and Series 344
Bibliography 345
Index and Glossary 363
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Preface
In 1977-78 I presented a series of papers at various academic gatherings
and taught a course at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,
California, on androgynes and theriomorphic women in myths. By the
time I had presented the last paper, a clisquieting sense of deja vu made
me realize that I had turned all of the meetings, ostensibly devoted to
widely clisparate subjects, into forums for the development of a single
theme: the use of sexual metaphors and animal symbols to express
religious concepts of the relationships between men and women, gods
and goddesses, and humans and deities. It was but the work of a single
summer to revise the papers in order to make explicit this implicit
thread. The result is an integrated development of closely interrelated
themes, though it is a literary love child rather than the product of
planned scholarly parenthood.
The informality of most of the meetings for which the original papers
were prepared-the feeling that one was among friends and the
knowledge that the ideas were to be presented orally-inspired a
lightness of approach. One result of these relaxed conditions is a higher
incidence of what I regard as humor and others may regard as flippancy.
I hope this will not be misconstrued as evidence that I am laughing at
the myths; I certainly am not. I have always regarded the Pura1_1ic
stories about the Hindu gods as the very best stories in the world, rich
in human wisdom and metaphysical truth. But this particular selection
of topics revolves around sex as depicted in mythology, and I am surely
not alone in finding sex more often than not very funny or in finding
mythology-particularly Indian mythology-often intentionally hilarious.
It seems to me therefore entirely appropriate to write about these
subjects in high spirits, without denigrating them or making serious
themes appear funny by viewing them from a conceptual framework
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Preface
sharply removed from their own; these myths are funny. Moreover, as
the Hindus are well aware, there is much truth in humor; the world was
created out of god's laughter and is merely an illusion wrought by his
joyous playfulness (lilii in Sanskrit, tiruvi/aiyiital in Tamil). Chekhov
could laugh at his characters because he loved them so, and I write
about Hindu myths in the hope of sharing with a wider audience my
love for their characters and their authors.
The elation with which I wrote most of this book made me feel, at the
time, that the material was consistently fascinating. On rereading it now,
I am downcast to find that certain sections of it bore me. Some of this
may be attributed to the inevitable postpartum depression or to my own
oversaturation with the material; but I think that some passages really
are dull. I am, nevertheless, loath to omit them altogether, since they
contribute essential elements to a general argument that is, I think, in
need of all the help it can get. But those readers who are convinced of
its rightness by the time they have neared the end of chapter 4 might be
warned that they are in for a bit of heavy going in some of the
theoretical typologies of consorts at the end of that chapter, in the
analysis of the Vedic ritual and the summaries of Irish. Welsh, and
Greek variants of the myth in chapter 6, and in the historical analysis of
the shifting positions of cow and bull, stallion and mare, in chapter 8.
Readers in search of an ultimate conclusion will be disappointed in the
abrupt ending of the final chapter, but the essential conclusions are
scattered throughout the book, particularly at the ends of chapters 2,
4, 7, and 8.
I would like to apologize to feminist readers for my use of old
fashioned sexist pronouns. We all have our priorities, and in my personal
hierarchy politics is easily outranked by aesthetics, despite my growing
sympathy with much of the feminist movement. I should also perhaps
apologize, on behalf of my texts, for the fact that, although this is a study
of myths about images of women, it is based on texts composed by men.
This is a simple, unavoidable condition imposed on any student of Hindu
mythology; if women composed their own mythologies (about themselves
or about men), we do not have them. A partial corrective (or a further
obfuscation) may be seen in my own biases: this is a woman's view of
a group of men's views about women.
For me, the very best part of a book is the chance to thank the
numerous friends, colleagues, and students (not mutually exclusive
categories) who have contributed to it. They have responded to the
stories, contributed treasures from their own fields, given me
bibliographies, and attempted (usually in vain) to protect me from my
own natural excesses. Many of their names occur again and again in the
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xi Preface
footnotes; some have had such a pervasive influence on me that no
mere footnote could begin to convey my debt to them. In particular, I
want to thank the two to whom the book is dedicated-two friends who
have taught me much that is reflected on every page in it, as in the book
ofmy life.
Santa Monica and Chicago
March, 1979
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