My course development and teaching this academic semester took me back to a familiar territory: speaking about the history of gender expression in South Asia. For my course this time, I opted to discuss one’s gender expression and the creation of “masculine” and “feminine” categories through social negotiation.

As a part of these discussions, I returned to a module where the class analyses the literature on non-conformist gender expressions throughout history. Our discussions took us into exploring the “rebellious” women who performed the roles that were traditionally associated with men.

The records on the female bodyguards of the Mauryan Empire in South Asia (c. 320 BCE – 185 BCE) are well-known in this regard. Arthashastra also recommends specialized training for young women who would go on to join the king’s personal security faction. Chandragupta Maurya, the first ruler of the Maurya empire, is said to have a constant vigil of the female bodyguards. Megasthenes, a Hellenistic visitor at the court of Chandragupta Maurya, describes the female bodyguards as (c.f. Penrose 2016):

_{The care of the king’s body is committed to women who have been purchased from their fathers; outside the gates are male bodyguards and the remaining army. A woman who kills the drunken king holds a position of honor and consorts with his successor. Their children succeed him. The king does not sleep during the day, and at night he is forced to change beds periodically on account of the plots [against him]…}

_{A third [type of outing] is a Bacchic hunt, with a circle of women surrounding [the king], and outside of them a circle of [male] spear-bearers. The road is roped off and any man who passes inside to the women is killed. The drumbeaters and bell carriers advance [first]. The king hunts in enclosed areas shooting arrows from a platform (two or three armed women stand beside him), and he also hunts in open hunting grounds from an elephant; the women [also] hunt, some from chariots, some on horses, and some on elephants and, as when they join a military expedition, they practice with all types of arms. (FGrHist 715 F 32)}

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Another traditional way in which ancient women fulfilled the role of being vanguard was through special roles within and outside the royal army. Some women were a part fo the harem and worked behind the scabes, while some were specially trained in espionage. The text, Kamasutra – regrettably known only for the discourse on sexual relations in ancient India – outlines a category of specially trained warriors called as “vishakanya” (poison-damsel?).

The legend has it that young girls were administered small quantities of poison, such that they grew tolerance for poison. Some of the young women found their way across the subcontinent as a part of various harem, or married into kingdoms with the expressed purpose of strategizing future offensives, etc. A few tribal (indigenous) or Adivasi groups in India are traditionally associated with serpent worship, handling and catching snakes, poison-collecting, etc. The history of snake-worship boasts of some of the traditions associated with vishakanya in ancient India. Read the piece on serpent worship here.

The association of women with snakes or serpents is also not lost on the authors of the ancient South Asian texts. The association of jewelry and metals (especially silver) is documented well through the serpent lore in South and South-east Asia. Historical records suggest young women from slave-trade as sometimes rescued and trained as spies and poison-damsels. A sizeable body of narratives on “naga-loka” (world of the serpents) anchors itself on the fluidity of form between the serpents and women. The fluidity also gets carried over into the iconography of women and serpents as hybrid representations. I attempted to capture the fluidity of form and the representation of vishakanya in my art (now available for sale as art print, pictured above).

Let us discuss more unorthodox representations of women and gender associations in ancient India in the next post 🙂

Reference cited: Penrose, Walter Duvall, ‘Civilized “Amazons”: Women bodyguards and hunters in ancient India and Persia’, Postcolonial Amazons: Female Masculinity and Courage in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit Literature (Oxford, 2016; online edn, Oxford Academic, 22 Dec. 2016), 

https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199533374.003.0007, accessed 23 Sept. 2024.

Please feel free to use the content from this blog with appropriate credits and citations. I am happy to provide additional resources for this research. 🙂