[INDOLOGY] Gender change in pre-modern Sanskrit literature

[Marco Franceschini]

Dear friends and colleagues,

I would like to sincerely thank everyone who responded to my question, both on- and off-list. I am deeply grateful to you all: in less than 24 hours, I received 25 suggestions – I am amazed by our group’s capacity for cooperation and mutual enrichment.
Reading your replies, I realised that this topic can take on a scope I hadn’t considered, as it borders on and, at times, overlaps with related topics, such as androgyny, the male body as the normative body, the concept of āśrayaparivṛtti/parāvṛtti, normative literature (Kāmasūtra and Kāmaśāstras), Buddhist literature in Pāli, genderbending/emasculating rituals in Vedic texts – to mention just a few. Perhaps a dear friend is right who, off-list, writes to me that the topic deserves a panel at a conference or, perhaps, an entire conference...
Over the next few days I will organise your suggestions and recommendations and send you a summary email with a bibliography.

Thank you again.
Warm regards to all,

Marco
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Marco Franceschini
———————————---
Associate Professor
University of Bologna
Department of History and Cultures
Personal web page <https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marco.franceschini3/en>
Academia web page <http://unibo.academia.edu/MarcoFranceschini>
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> Il giorno 13 mar 2026, alle ore 21:46, Marco Franceschini <marco.franceschini3 at gmail.com> ha scritto:
> 
> Dear friends and colleagues,
> 
> one of my students is writing her undergraduate thesis on the theme of gender change in pre-modern Sanskrit literature.
> So far, we have identified the following cases:
> - Ila/Sudyumna-Ilā (Rāmāyaṇa, Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Viṣṇupurāṇa, Vāyupurāṇa)
> - Bhaṅgāsvana (Mahābhārata)
> - Śikhaṇḍin (Mahābhārata)
> - Mūladeva (Vetālapañcaviṃśati)
> - Rūpāvatī (Divyāvadāna)
> - Arjuna (Mahābhārata)
> 
> As for studies on the subject, we have been able to identify only these three:
> - M. Bloomfield, On the Art of Entering Another's Body: A Hindu Fiction Motif
> - N. Brown, Change of Sex as a Hindu Story Motif
> - R. Goldman, Transsexualism, Gender, and Anxiety in Traditional India
> 
> I would be grateful for any additional suggestions you might wish to provide.
> 
> Thank you in advance for your suggestions.
> Best wishes,
> 
> Marco
> ---
> Marco Franceschini
> ———————————---
> Associate Professor
> University of Bologna
> Department of History and Cultures
> Personal web page <https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marco.franceschini3/en>
> Academia web page <http://unibo.academia.edu/MarcoFranceschini>
> —
> 
> 
> 
> 

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