[INDOLOGY] Gender change in pre-modern Sanskrit literature

[McComas Taylor]

Hi there Marco. Very nice to see your name pop up. I wrote a paper entitled ‘Transgender adventures in the garden on the goddess’ a few years ago. It should be available online somewhere.

All the best

McComas

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________________________________
From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of Marco Franceschini via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2026 9:07:48 AM
To: indology at list.indology.info <indology at list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Gender change in pre-modern Sanskrit literature

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
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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
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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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