THE
ARCANE
ARCHIVE

a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.


TOP | RELIGION | HINDUISM | SHAKTIISM

eunuchs who worship Kali

To: alt.magick.tantra
From: sandymac@sandymac.demon.co.uk (Alexander Maclennan)
Subject: Re: eunuchs who worship Kali
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 20:18:24 GMT

"Nakula"  wrote:

> Cole Anderson wrote in message
> <7rf8cc$2khc$1@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>...

>> I have heard that in India, a sect of male eunuchs dress as women and
>> are trained to worship Kali.....does anyone have any info on this?
 
The sect youhave in mind is the Hijras.   Their goddess is not Kali but
Bahuchara Mata. a version of the mother goddess.    They are completely
castrated, both penis and scrotum and dress and behave as women.  They love
in houses presided over by a senior hijra who is the guru.   Their main
activity is dancing and singing at weddings or after a new birth in
a household aand are disliked but feared because they are reputed to bring
bad luck like infertility if not rewarded.   Many of them function as male
prostitutes.   

Neither Man nor Woman,  Serena Nanda,  Wadsworth 1990 is a scholarly account
of the sect.

There is also the Sakhibhava sect which is devoted to Krishna but worship
Radha and imitate her Gopi attandants.   These men dress as women, observe
periods of menstrual uncleanness and some have sexual relations with men as
an act of devotion.


--  

Alexander MacLennan  sandymac@sandymac.demon.co.uk

Path: ultra.sonic.net!uunet!pao.uu.net!lax.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!newshub.northeast.verio.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.icl.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!remarQ-uK!rQdQ!supernews.com!remarQ.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail
From: catherine yronwode 
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tantra
Subject: Re: eunuchs who worship Kali
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 11:43:39 -0700
Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. 
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <37DE975C.83E@luckymojo.com>
References: <7rf8cc$2khc$1@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com> <7rgb6u$2dmq$1@nnrp9.crl.com> 
X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.magick.tantra:10341

Alexander Maclennan wrote:
> 
> "Nakula"  wrote:
> > 
> > Cole Anderson wrote in message
> > <7rf8cc$2khc$1@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>...
> 
> >> I have heard that in India, a sect of male eunuchs dress as women 
> >> and are trained to worship Kali.....does anyone have any info on 
> >> this?
> 
> The sect you have in mind is the Hijras.   Their goddess is not Kali 
> but Bahuchara Mata. a version of the mother goddess.    They are 
> completely castrated, both penis and scrotum and dress and behave as 
> women.  They love in houses presided over by a senior hijra who is 
> the guru.   Their main activity is dancing and singing at weddings or 
> after a new birth in a household aand are disliked but feared because 
> they are reputed to bring bad luck like infertility if not rewarded.   
> Many of them function as male prostitutes.
> 
> Neither Man nor Woman,  Serena Nanda,  Wadsworth 1990 is a scholarly 
> account of the sect.

> Alexander MacLennan  sandymac@sandymac.demon.co.uk

A shorter account of the Hijra, including an interview with one member
of the sect, is given in "The Great Book of Tantra," with citations from
the Serena Nanda book. "The Great Book of Tantra," a modern picture
book, also contains reproductions of a number of 18th and 19th century
ritual paintings centered on Kali and/or other female deities, in which
male devotees are either castrating themselves and offering their
genitals (penis and scrotum) to the Goddess or She is attended by men
who have already been thus castrated. These ritual images are not
unusual in Indian tantric art, but it *is* unusual to find them in
contemporary Western collections of tantric art, because in the West, a
major emphasis is placed on reproducing tantric paintings that depict
young heterosexual couples engaged in intercourse. 

cat
Lucky W Amulet Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html
Karezza and Sacred Sex ------ http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html
The Sacred Landscape ------- http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html
news:alt.lucky.w --- discussions on folk magic, luck, amulets, charms

The Arcane Archive is copyright by the authors cited.
Send comments to the Arcane Archivist: tyaginator@arcane-archive.org.

Did you like what you read here? Find it useful?
Then please click on the Paypal Secure Server logo and make a small
donation to the site maintainer for the creation and upkeep of this site.

The ARCANE ARCHIVE is a large domain,
organized into a number of sub-directories,
each dealing with a different branch of
religion, mysticism, occultism, or esoteric knowledge.
Here are the major ARCANE ARCHIVE directories you can visit:
interdisciplinary: geometry, natural proportion, ratio, archaeoastronomy
mysticism: enlightenment, self-realization, trance, meditation, consciousness
occultism: divination, hermeticism, amulets, sigils, magick, witchcraft, spells
religion: buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, taoism, wicca, voodoo
societies and fraternal orders: freemasonry, golden dawn, rosicrucians, etc.

SEARCH THE ARCANE ARCHIVE

There are thousands of web pages at the ARCANE ARCHIVE. You can use ATOMZ.COM
to search for a single word (like witchcraft, hoodoo, pagan, or magic) or an
exact phrase (like Kwan Yin, golden ratio, or book of shadows):

Search For:
Match:  Any word All words Exact phrase

OTHER ESOTERIC AND OCCULT SITES OF INTEREST

Southern Spirits: 19th and 20th century accounts of hoodoo, including slave narratives & interviews
Hoodoo in Theory and Practice by cat yronwode: an introduction to African-American rootwork
Lucky W Amulet Archive by cat yronwode: an online museum of worldwide talismans and charms
Sacred Sex: essays and articles on tantra yoga, neo-tantra, karezza, sex magic, and sex worship
Sacred Landscape: essays and articles on archaeoastronomy, sacred architecture, and sacred geometry
Lucky Mojo Forum: practitioners answer queries on conjure; sponsored by the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.
Herb Magic: illustrated descriptions of magic herbs with free spells, recipes, and an ordering option
Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers: ethical diviners and hoodoo spell-casters
Freemasonry for Women by cat yronwode: a history of mixed-gender Freemasonic lodges
Missionary Independent Spiritual Church: spirit-led, inter-faith, the Smallest Church in the World
Satan Service Org: an archive presenting the theory, practice, and history of Satanism and Satanists
Gospel of Satan: the story of Jesus and the angels, from the perspective of the God of this World
Lucky Mojo Usenet FAQ Archive: FAQs and REFs for occult and magical usenet newsgroups
Candles and Curios: essays and articles on traditional African American conjure and folk magic
Aleister Crowley Text Archive: a multitude of texts by an early 20th century ceremonial occultist
Spiritual Spells: lessons in folk magic and spell casting from an eclectic Wiccan perspective
The Mystic Tea Room: divination by reading tea-leaves, with a museum of antique fortune telling cups
Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
Yronwode Home: personal pages of catherine yronwode and nagasiva yronwode, magical archivists
Lucky Mojo Magic Spells Archives: love spells, money spells, luck spells, protection spells, etc.
      Free Love Spell Archive: love spells, attraction spells, sex magick, romance spells, and lust spells
      Free Money Spell Archive: money spells, prosperity spells, and wealth spells for job and business
      Free Protection Spell Archive: protection spells against witchcraft, jinxes, hexes, and the evil eye
      Free Gambling Luck Spell Archive: lucky gambling spells for the lottery, casinos, and races