Indra and his fluctuating fortunes

Indra, the king of the gods and the male protagonist of the myth under discussion, has a multilayered existence beyond that story. He makes his first textual appearance in the Rigveda, in which, ‘as the preeminent god’, he plays ‘a variety of roles. But first of all [he] is a warrior’.Footnote ² Although his name lacks an agreed-upon Indo-European etymology, Indra is famed for his association with mythical material that clearly goes back to the Proto-Indo-European period. The Rigvedic Indra's most celebrated feat is his defeat of Vṛtra, a monstrous snake, in a myth that has formulaic connections with other Indo-European serpent-slaying myths.Footnote ³ This episode showcases Indra's status as supreme warrior. He destroys Vṛtra through physical force, smashing him with his vajra (mace). In Rigveda 1.32, Indra's military prowess is emphasised by his contrast with the weaker Vṛtra:

1. (1) ayoddhéva durmáda ā́ hí juhvé mahāvīráṃ tuvibādhám ṛjīṣám

The Rigvedic Indra is a battle leader—not just a warrior. According to Oberlies, the religion of the Vedic tribes was shaped by a ‘lifestyle […] characterized by a cycle of alternating predatory raids and peaceful periods of settling’. This alternation was accompanied by an alternation between monarchic and polyarchic power structures. In times of war, ‘all was oriented around a single warrior-king, an absolute ruler’.Footnote ⁵ The divine equivalent of this figure is Indra, who ‘appears, or becomes important, only when it comes to battle. When his time comes, however, he alone is responsible, he is the one absolute sovereign. That is why it is Indra, and only Indra, who is the one and only king/lord over the tribes’.Footnote ⁶

There is more to the characterisation of Indra than his warlike ability and military leadership. He plays other roles even in the Rigveda, such as that of the priest-king, seen in action when he liberates cattle that are trapped in the cave Vala through a truth-containing song rather than physical force.Footnote ⁷ In the post-Rigvedic period, ‘Indra's godhead progressively declines with the onset and elaboration of Brahmanism’.Footnote ⁸ Indra became the object of harsh moral criticism for kin-slaying, contract violation, and sexual misconduct. His reputation as a womaniser, based on his intercourse with Ahalyā, persists in modern times.Footnote ⁹

Indra and Ahalyā

As detailed by Söhnen-Thieme,Footnote ¹⁰ the story of Indra and Ahalyā is related or alluded to in many Sanskrit texts. Versions differ on many details of both Indra's act and the penalties inflicted on him and Ahalyā, but several key elements appear in the earliest full narrative, told at Rāmāyaṇa 1.47–48. After Ahalyā, the wife of the Brahman sage Gautama, sleeps with Indra, Gautama curses both. Indra loses his testicles ‘and thereby, naturally, his male powers’,Footnote ¹¹ but they are replaced by a ram's through the other gods’ intervention. Ahalyā is cursed to fast and remain invisible until the coming of Rāma, who will restore her to her former state. Alternative punishments appear in two other epic versions. At Mahābhārata 12.329.14, Indra acquires hariśmaśrutām ‘gold-beardedness’, while, in a second Rāmāyaṇa version (7.30.15–41), he is shamefully defeated in battle and Ahalyā loses her original status as the only beautiful living being in existence.

In the Purāṇic versions attested at Brahmapurāṇa 87, Brahmavaivartapurāṇa 4.47, and Padmapurāṇa 1.54, Indra's body is marked by 1,000 vulvas, but Ahalyā's punishment varies. Depending on the version, she becomes a dried-up river (in the Brahmapurāṇa), is turned into a stone (in the Brahmavaivartapurāṇa), or loses her flesh and nails, continuing to exist as a dry bag of bones and skin (in the Padmapurāṇa). In the Padmapurāṇa, in addition to the appearance of the vulvas, Indra also loses his penis and his dishonour is to be visible to gods, sages, men, siddhas, and serpents; Söhnen-Thieme connects this to the defeat in the second Rāmāyaṇa version, as both involve loss of rank.Footnote ¹²

Goldman observes that ‘[i]t is an almost invariable feature of curses in the Sanskrit literature that the punishment should somehow fit if not actually replicate the crime’.Footnote ¹³ Indra often pays for his sexual crime by losing sexual organs and/or by having his body marked with the female sexual organ, the desire of which led to his sin. His military defeat in the Rāmāyaṇa 7 version and public dishonour in Padmapurāṇa 1.54, while less overtly sexual, prejudice his masculinity by detracting from his status as warlike/royal.Footnote ¹⁴ O'Flaherty observes that ‘Indian thought tends to lump together various different forms of non-masculinity: change of sex, androgyny, castration, impotence, and the eunuch’.Footnote ¹⁵ I contend that defeat and loss of kingship can be seen as functionally equivalent to castration, making them fitting punishments for Indra's crime.Footnote ¹⁶ Meanwhile, Ahalyā's sufferings involve detraction from her visible or physical presence. As her attractiveness led to Indra's sin, here again there is a fit between punishment and ‘crime’ (although, as discussed below, it is not obvious in all versions that Ahalyā actually committed a crime).

Analysis of Padmapurāṇa 1.54

In this section, I will present an analysis based on close reading of the version of our myth as recounted in Padmapurāṇa 1.54. Many key elements of the story are found in this variant and some of my observations will also be relevant to other versions, but my primary goal is to explore and elucidate the construction of a particular textual account and the specific ways in which it reflects inter-varṇa tension and ancient Indian perspectives on gender and sexuality.

The chapter opens with a reminder of the story of Adrohaka's extraordinary sexual restraint:

1. (2) adrohakasya cākhyāto mahimā lokaduḥsahaḥ

   ekatalpagatāṃ vāmāṃ kṣāṃtvā sarvajito ’bhavat

   […]

   svabhāvād viṣamaṃ kāmaṃ jetuṃ kaḥ puruṣaḥ kṣamaḥ

   adrohakam ṛte vipra sa eva bhavajit pumān

Although Adrohaka plays no part in the narrative that follows, the invocation of his glory at its very beginning, several chapters after his own story was related in 1.50, is clearly thematically significant. The reader is led to expect another story that relates to the temptations of lust. The mahiman ‘greatness’ that Adrohaka displayed by resisting those temptations—chastely sharing a bed with another man's wife under his protection—is praised in the most extravagant terms. It is noteworthy that his feat is described in terms that equate it with military conquest. The root √ji ‘conquer’ appears in three different words in this short fragment (sarvajitaḥ ‘all-conquering’, jetum ‘to conquer’, and bhavajit ‘world-conquering’). The valorisation of male sexual restraint is, of course, familiar from elsewhere in the world of Sanskrit texts. In Jamison's words, the ancient Indian ‘ideal male figure is the victim of sex, never seeking it or even welcoming it when it is offered’.Footnote ¹⁸

Excerpt (2) poses a rhetorical question: kāmaṃ jetuṃ kaḥ puruṣaḥ kṣamaḥ / adrohakam ṛte ‘What man other than Adrohaka is able to conquer sexual desire?’ The implied answer, of course, is ‘no one’: Adrohaka's achievement is unique. This is immediately underlined by contrast with Indra's failure:

1. (3) ahalyāharaṇād eva sureśasya bhagāṃkatā

   punar devyāḥ prasādāc ca sahasrākṣeti viśrutaḥ

Excerpt (3) expands upon the thematic clue supplied by (2). The story of Adrohaka's triumph will now be balanced by the story of an inglorious defeat by the same enemy (the attractions of a woman). Indra, now mentioned for the first time in the chapter, appears under a strikingly androgynous guise, his body deformed by vulvas. The next clause adds a second feminine association by informing the reader that it was through the intervention of a female deity that Indra became known by the epithet sahasrākṣa ‘thousand-eyed’. This epithet for Indra is familiar from the epic period and goes back to the Rigveda, though it is there applied more often to other divine figures such as Varuṇa. Its original reference is probably to ‘the thousand spies through whom a mighty king may come to know everything that is going on in his realm’.Footnote ¹⁹

The story proper opens with the marriage of Gautama and Ahalyā. Indra becomes smitten with the bride, whom he describes as suveṣā varavarṇinī ‘well-dressed, best-complexioned’ (1.54.9). This focus on Ahalyā's appearance and adornment emphasises her femininity.

Indra seizes the opportunity to act on his illicit desire when Gautama goes to bathe (1.54.12). His wife, left alone, busies herself with domestic religiosity (1.54.13–14). Indra appears, having assumed the sage's appearance (1.54.14–15). His initial exchange of words with Ahalyā juxtaposes his lust and her chastity:

1. (4) pativratā patiṃ dṛṣṭvā śraddhayā parayā satī

   devasthāne ca vastūnāṃ saṃcayaṃ kartum udyatā

   tatas tām abravīd ārto muniveṣadharo hariḥ

   pradyumnavaśago vāme dehi me cuṃbanādikam

   etasminn aṃtare sā ca trapāyuktābravīd vacaḥ

   devakāryādikaṃ tyaktvā vaktuṃ nārhasi me prabho

The contrast is underlined by the terms that are used to describe the two characters. While Ahalyā is pativratā ‘faithful to her husband’, satī ‘virtuous’, and trapāyuktā ‘full of shame’, Indra is ārtaḥ ‘disturbed’ and, significantly, pradyumnavaśagaḥ ‘subject to the god of love’.

Indra is not quelled by Ahalyā's piety and argues his case insistently:

1. (5) tatas tāṃ cārusarvāṅgīṃ dṛṣṭvā manmathapīḍitaḥ

   alaṃ priye na vaktakyaṃ hṛcchayo me prajāyate

   kartavyaṃ cāpy akartavyaṃ patyur vacanasaṃmatam

   karoti satataṃ yā ca sā ca nārī pativratā

   laṅghayed yā ca tasyājñāṃ surate ca viśeṣataḥ

   puṇyaṃ tasyā bhaven naṣṭaṃ durgatiṃ cādhigacchati

Even while Indra casts himself as an authority figure, employing established gender ideology to erode Ahalyā's reluctance to sleep with her ‘husband’, linguistic indications undercut his pretensions to dominance. The description of Indra as manmathapīḍitaḥ ‘oppressed by the god of love’ re-emphasises his helplessness to resist his passion. Similarly, he himself sums up his predicament with the sentence hṛcchayo me prajāyate ‘My love springs up’. The grammatical subject is hṛcchayaḥ—a name of the god of love that literally translates as ‘lying in the heart’. Indra's integrity has been violated: love now resides within him, in the driving seat, while Indra himself is represented by the insignificant clitic pronoun me ‘my’.Footnote ²⁰

Ultimately, Indra's assault on Ahalyā's virtue is successful. In contrast to the lengthy verbal transactions that precede and follow it, the sexual act itself is briskly disposed of:

1. (6) tāṃ pariṣvajya kṛtas tena manorathaḥ

This brief flash of effectiveness on Indra's part is swiftly followed by further indignities for him. His crime does not go undetected:

1. (7) etasmin naṃtare vipra muner hṛdy āsa kalmaṣam

   tato dhyānaṃ samārabhyājānād vṛttaṃ śacīpateḥ

The ideal of the sexually restrained male that is invoked at the beginning of the chapter in the person of Adrohaka now reappears in that of Gautama. Söhnen-Thieme, when discussing the Rāmāyaṇa 1 version, comments on the striking fact that a human wronged husband has the power to punish the king of the gods. By the epic period, she notes, the gods ‘are more and more dependent on those humans who know about the secret correspondences between the world of gods and demons on the one hand, and the world of gods and human beings on the other, about the correspondences of microcosm and macrocosm, and who can put this knowledge into effect when performing the traditional sacrifices’: the Brahmans.Footnote ²² Gautama's potency is increased by the fact that he is an ascetic as well as a Brahman. Through his restraint, he has built up formidable supernatural power, which is already evinced by his remote apprehension of Indra's misdeed. There is a clear contrast between the ascetic control of the real Gautama and the lack of control of the fake Gautama, Indra, seen in Excerpts (4) and (5).

When Gautama returns home, Indra's response is evasive:

1. (8) śakro muniṃ tu saṃlakṣya cautudehaṃ viveśa ha

   gacchataḥ pṛṣadaṃśasya paddhatau pracacāla ha

   munis tatrāvadat taṃ vai kas tvaṃ mārjārarūpadhṛt

   bhayāt tasya muner agre śakraḥ prāṃjalir āśritaḥ

   maghavaṃtaṃ puro dṛṣṭvā cukopa munipuṃgavaḥ

Gautama's virile strength is emphasised by the description of him as a munipuṃgavaḥ ‘bull among sages’. By contrast, Indra cuts a pathetic figure (very different from that of the irresistible crusher of Vṛtra). His fear of Gautama leads him to turn into a cat—a small and sneaky creature—in the hope of escaping the sage's notice. After Gautama sees through the disguise, Indra resumes his usual anthropomorphic form, but his continued fear and humble conduct in that shape are hardly more impressive. The participle āśritaḥ ‘resorted to’, together with Indra's joined hands, indicates that he abases himself before Gautama as a suppliant. It is notable that both male characters are here associated with animals. Clearly, Indra's slinking cat does not stand a chance before Gautama's powerful bull.

Gautama proceeds to curse Indra:

1. (9) yat tvayā cedṛśaṃ karma bhagārthaṃ chalasāhasam

   kṛtaṃ tasmāt tavāṃgeṣu sahasrabhagam uttamam

   bhavatv iha tu pāpiṣṭha liṃgaṃ te nipatiṣyati

   gaccha me purato mūḍha surasthānaṃ divaukasaḥ

   paśyaṃti muniśārdūlā narāḥ siddhās sahoragāḥ

Goldman's discussion of epic narratives that he sees as representing the oedipal conflictFootnote ²³ includes the Rāmāyaṇa 1 version of the story of Indra and Ahalyā; indeed, he goes so far as to describe this story as ‘the least disguised myth of oedipal incest and its punishment in the Sanskrit epics’,Footnote ²⁴ although some disguise is of course present, as the three protagonists are all biologically unrelated to each other. Goldman contends that ‘brahman-kṣatriya conflict in the epic almost always stands for the tension between father and son’.Footnote ²⁵ Apart from our myth, he covers a number of others in which oedipal conflict is played out between Brahman ‘fathers’ and kṣatriya ‘sons’, such as the story of King Viśvāmitra's conflict with the Brahman Vasiṣṭha, sparked by Viśvāmitra's attempt to steal Vasiṣṭha's wish-granting cow, ‘India's eternal mother-symbol’.Footnote ²⁶ In the story of Ahalyā, in which Indra offends Gautama through misconduct that is directed towards a woman, not a cow, the sexual basis for the conflict is overt rather than disguised. Goldman's analysis is equally applicable to post-epic versions such as the one in Padmapurāṇa 1.54.Footnote ²⁷

From a modern perspective, the guilt for the sexual crime is Indra's alone, as Ahalyā did not know Indra's identity and is a paragon of chastity and wifely devotion, as seen in Excerpt (4). Even our author shows some awareness of the possibility of this line of argument. He makes Ahalyā, reproached by Gautama, respond: ajñānād yat kṛtaṃ karma kṣaṃtum arhasi vai prabho ‘Lord, please forgive the deed that was done due to ignorance’ (1.54.33). Gautama, however, apparently denies the validity of this excuse, as he replies:

1. (10) pareṇābhigatāsi tvam amedhyā pāpacāriṇī

   asthicarmasamāviṣṭā nirmāṃsā nakhavarjitā

   ciraṃ sthāsyasi caikāpi tvāṃ paśyaṃtu janāḥ striyaḥ

The curses that are inflicted upon Indra and Ahalyā are parallel to each other: both suffer catastrophic physical changes. Indra's physical being is both incongruously added to and subtracted from, while Ahalyā's is merely subtracted from. The seductive powers of her female beauty, including the fine dress and lovely complexion that are celebrated by Indra at 1.54.9 and the lovely limbs he ogled in Excerpt (5), have proven to be too strong. As a consequence, Gautama strips her of that beauty, leaving her desexed. A specific verbal link between the two curses is the presence of third-person plural forms, respectively indicative and imperative, built to the present stem paśya ‘see’. Just as Indra suffers the ignominy of being seen by gods, sages, men, siddhas, and serpents, Ahalyā shall be seen by people and women. The specification of the female sex of at least some of the onlookers strengthens the parallel with Indra's punishment, as men are among his observers. The contrast with individuals who have been allowed to retain their original physique, male or female, may intensify the humiliation of the emasculated Indra and the desexed Ahalyā.

Ahalyā begs for an end to her curse, and Gautama takes pity on her and decrees that she will be restored after Rāma sees her. When he hears her story, rāmo vakṣyati dharmavit / asyā doṣo na caivāsti doṣo yaṃ pākaśāne ‘Rāma, expert in justice, will say: ‘This woman bears no guilt. This guilt is in Pākāśana [Indra]’’ (1.54.40). Rāma's recognition of Ahalyā's innocence will cause her to revert to her original form, after which she will return to life with Gautama.

Thus, the text is curiously ambivalent on the issue of Ahalyā's innocence or guilt. Having rejected her plea of innocence and cursed her, Gautama himself predicts that she will be judged as innocent by the divine and dharmavit ‘expert in justice’ Rāma. The ambiguity increases when we take into account the existence of other variants of the myth in which Ahalyā is not taken in by Indra's disguise. In the earliest full account, the one told at Rāmāyaṇa 1.47–48, Ahalyā recognises Indra's true identity but agrees to sleep with him anyway, devarājakutūhalāt ‘due to curiosity about the king of the gods’ (Rāmāyaṇa 1.47.19). Indra also fails to fool Ahalyā in several Purāṇic versions.Footnote ²⁸

Söhnen-Thieme argues that Ahalyā's collusion is an innovation, on the basis of the phenomena that accompany the end of her curse in the Rāmāyaṇa 1 version. When Rāma purifies Ahalyā, blossom falls from heaven, heavenly drums are heard, and gods, gandharvas and apsararases express satisfaction. Söhnen-Thieme comments that ‘these phenomena […] appear only at outstanding events. […] [I]t may seem strange that so much honour should be paid to the rehabilitation of an adulteress’ and suggests that ‘in a—hypothetical—original form of the story, Ahalyā was actually innocent, that is, she believed that it was her husband to whom she yielded’.Footnote ²⁹ While this theory solves one problem, it raises another: if the original occasion for the celestial phenomena was the liberation of an innocent woman from a curse, then why was she cursed?

Doniger, who compares our myth with the similar Greek story of Zeus's intercourse with Alkmene (whose husband he impersonates), comments that:

Thus, even in versions (like that of Padmapurāṇa 1.54) in which there is no overt textual indication that Ahalyā was anything other than innocent, the possibility that she was only pretending is always lurking just out of sight, making her punishment acceptable. Perhaps this was the case even in Söhnen-Thieme's original version in which Ahalyā was apparently innocent: in a deeply misogynist society like that of ancient India, suspicion that her ignorance might be fake could easily occur to male tellers and audiences. This would then lead to the actualisation of that possibility in the Rāmāyaṇa 1 version, which would subsequently influence the texts and subtexts of later versions. As Doniger also points out, even if the teller and audience accept Ahalyā's account of events, she can still be judged as blameworthy for not knowing her own husband: the dice are stacked against the woman.

Goldman draws attention to another innocently punished woman: Pāṇḍu's younger wife, Mādrī. Pāṇḍu, the human father of the Pāṇḍavas in the Mahābhārata, was unable to father his sons in the normal way due to a curse that was inflicted on him by a Brahman whom he shot while the Brahman was mating with his wife in the form of a deer. The Brahman cursed Pāṇḍu to die if he had sex in the future and also cursed his partner to join him in death. Overcome by lust, Pāṇḍu later raped Mādrī, leading to his death; she then became a satī. Goldman, for whom Pāṇḍu is another kṣatriya ‘son’ punished by a Brahman ‘father’, notes that Mādrī, ‘unless we realize the unconscious reference to the oedipal crime and her identification with the mother, must otherwise be regarded as innocent’.Footnote ³¹ Given the oedipal tensions at play in the story of Indra and Ahalyā, according to Goldman, the same reasoning can help to account for Ahalyā's punishment. The factors identified by Doniger and Goldman are complementary rather than contradictory.

Ahalyā's release from her curse is swiftly followed by improvement in Indra's situation, too:

1. (11) tato tyaṃtaṃ śuṣkarūpā tathaiva pathi saṃsthitā

   rāmasya vacanād eva gautamaṃ punar āgatā

   […].

   iṃdro pi trapayā yuktaḥ sthitaś cāṃtar jale ciram

   sthitvā cāṃtar jale devīm astaud iṃdrākṣisaṃjñitām

   saprasannā tato devī stotreṇa paritoṣitā

   gatvovāca tataḥ sā ca varosmatto vigṛhyatām

   tato devīm uvācedaṃ śakraḥ parapuraṃjayaḥ

   tvatprasādāc ca me devi vairūpyaṃ muniśāpajam

   saṃtyajya devarājyaṃ ca labdhvāhaṃ tu purā yathā

Parallels between the fates of Indra and Ahalyā continue to multiply. The adverb ciram ‘for a long time’ constitutes a verbal connection between their punishments, as Gautama used the word while cursing Ahalyā in Excerpt (10). Similarly, Indra is described as trapayā yuktaḥ ‘full of shame’, which recalls the synonymous and very similar description of Ahalyā as trapāyuktā in Excerpt (4).

The terms used to describe Indra in Excerpt (11) reflect his rehabilitation. He starts out by feeling shame as he timidly hides himself, reluctant to emerge from the water (due to a condition that is far more embarrassing than an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini). However, his praise of the goddess is the turning point that will lead to his recovery, as (as foreshadowed in Excerpt (3)) it is she who will restore him. The upswing in his fortunes is reflected linguistically by the epithet parapuraṃjayaḥ ‘conquering enemies’ cities’, which evokes his warlike character of old.

Although unable to fully reverse Indra's transformation, the goddess has an alternative solution:

1. (12) pāpaṃ taṃ muniśāpajam

   haṃtuṃ brahmādayo devāś śaktā nāhaṃ sureśvara

   kiṃ tu buddhiṃ sṛjāmy adya yena lokair na lakṣyate

   yonimadhyagataṃ dṛṣṭisahasraṃ te bhaviṣyati

   sahasrākṣa iti khyātas surarājyaṃ kariṣyasi

   meṣāṃḍaṃ tava śiśnaṃ ca bhaviṣyati ca madvarāt

The story and chapter conclude with Indra's restoration. The goddess's blessing remedies the triple damage that has been done to his masculinity: the vulvas are altered, he regains his royal role, and he gets a new set of male genitalia. It is significant that her first promise is that lokair na lakṣyate ‘it will not be [lit. is not] observed by people’. Gautama did not explicitly curse Indra with the loss of his role as king of the gods, but he did curse him to be seen by the gods and other beings in Excerpt (9). As recognised by Söhnen-Thieme, this public dishonour ‘presumably means that he cannot retain his rank’.Footnote ³²

As Doniger notes, ‘this corpus of myths seems to confirm Freud's hypothesis about the connection between castration and blindness’.Footnote ³³ Freud contends that die Angst um die Augen, die Angst zu erblinden, haüfig genug ein Ersatz für die Kastrationsangst ist (anxiety about the eyes, anxiety about going blind, is often enough a substitute for castration-anxiety)Footnote ³⁴ and comments that [d]ie Schöpfung einer […] Verdopplung zur Abwehr gegen die Vernichtung hat ihr Gegenstück in einer Darstellung der Traumsprache, welche die Kastration durch Verdopplung oder Vervielfältigung des Genitalsymbols auszudrücken liebt [the creation of […] doubling for protection against annihilation has its counterpart in a representation of the dream-language, which loves to express castration through doubling or multiplication of the genital symbol].Footnote ³⁵ Indra's acquisition of a chiliad of eyes in this myth symbolically reverses his castration: in Doniger's words, ‘[t]he eyes are not vaginas but un-vaginas or ex-vaginas or even anti-vaginas: in this sense, at least, they are penises’.Footnote ³⁶

It is noteworthy that the parallelism between the fates of Indra and Ahalyā continues to the end of the story, marked by the fact that they are healed by divinities of opposite genders: Ahalyā's femininity is restored by a male god while Indra's saviour is the goddess. While Ahalyā's fate until Rāma's arrival is one of excessive dryness, Indra serves his time in the opposite element—that of water. This is an appropriate environment for a victim of feminisation, as water has feminine associations elsewhere in Sanskrit literature, going back to the Rigveda. In Rigveda 1.23, 2.35, and 10.9, the waters are characterised as maternal goddesses. Table 1 summarises the major parallels between the experiences of Indra and Ahalyā.

Table 1. The partially mirrored trajectories of Indra and Ahalyā

Indra starts out as the king of the gods—that is, a stereotypically masculine figure. As seen above, Indra's kingship is a military position in origin. Manly martial virtues are further represented at the beginning of the story by Adrohaka—a figure who is invoked only as a foil for Indra. As noted above, Adrohaka's continence is represented in Excerpt (2) as a military feat. He is the kind of conqueror that Indra should be and fails to be. After Indra's sexual lapse, Gautama's curse emasculates him by stripping him of one of his natural sex characteristics—his penis—and effeminises him by giving him one belonging to the opposite sex. He is unable to function as king after his new state has been witnessed by gods and other beings. At the same time, the once lovely Ahalyā is defeminised by a curse that strips her of her womanly charms. Their punishments involve refuge in water—an element with feminine connotations—for Indra and excessive dryness—reflecting her loss of femininity—for Ahalyā. Each transformation is undone by an opposite-sex deity. (Söhnen-Thieme comments that the goddess's release of Indra ‘may seem remarkable in a Vaiṣṇava context, but is probably explained by the fact that she is the deity of the yoni’.Footnote ³⁷ This explanation is close to mine, as I believe that the narrative structure requires a female counterpart for Rāma.) At the end of the story, both Ahalyā and Indra are back in their original states. The story thus has a chiastic (ABCBA) structure in which A is the original/final state, C is an emasculated/defeminised state, and B is a state of transition between A and C; chiasmus is frequently found in ancient Indo-European texts.Footnote ³⁸

Despite the parallels, the trajectories that are followed by Indra and Ahalyā are not fully symmetrical. Indra is punished for a crime that he actually committed, whereas Ahalyā is (at least on the surface of the text) punished unjustly. Although both are stripped of sex characteristics, the two are affected differently by their curses. Indra is not merely emasculated, but also feminised. Ahalyā becomes sexless rather than masculine. Their restorations are asymmetrical, too. Gautama promises Ahalyā that, thanks to Rāma, she will gain a divyarūpam ‘divine form’ (1.54.41), and presumably she does. There is no reason to suppose that she ends up physically any the worse for the entire drama. Indra, by contrast, is permanently altered. As seen in Excerpt (12), the goddess is incapable of fully undoing the damage, and only brahmādayaḥ ‘the gods beginning with Brahmā’ would be able to accomplish this. Doniger writes that:

In a wide-ranging cross-cultural study of bedtrick narratives (stories in which a person has sex with another under an assumed identity), Doniger notes the pervasiveness of gender asymmetry: ‘Sex is never an equal opportunity employment.’Footnote ⁴⁰ This asymmetry reveals itself, for example, in ‘the far milder recriminations for men tricked into committing adultery with their own wives [masquerading under false identities], in comparison with women tricked by their own husbands’.Footnote ⁴¹ In cases in which the woman is the victim (?) of the trick, including those of Ahalyā and Alkmene, claims are made that her ignorance was false; ‘[t]his claim is seldom made against a man.’Footnote ⁴² In Padmapurāṇa 1.54, all the asymmetries that are noted in the previous paragraph are related to gender and, unsurprisingly, all reflect the misogyny of the source culture. As discussed above, Ahalyā is the victim of a sexist mentality that judges her as being guilty of either culpable stupidity (if Indra indeed fooled her) or adulterous duplicity (if he did not); her punishment is justified in either case. In addition to considerations of poetic justice, Indra's feminisation degrades him in a way that giving Ahalyā masculine traits would not have degraded her. Finally, Rāma, as a powerful male god, can easily fully undo Ahalyā's curse. The goddess, being female and therefore inferior, is limited to disguising the effects of Indra's.

Despite its short length, the Padmapurāṇa 1 account of Indra's intercourse with Ahalyā engages with a number of topics of deep interest to ancient Indian authors and audiences. As the opening celebration of Adrohaka (in Excerpt (2)) leads the reader to expect, it is a story about sexual temptation. Specifically, it is a cautionary tale about the dangers of succumbing to lust. The weak-willed Indra is humiliated by the continent Gautama, whose asceticism is the source of the devastating power that he unleashes against both Indra and Ahalyā. Thus, this is also a story of Brahman–kṣatriya conflict. Ascetic restraint, associated with Brahmans, is set against the unrestrained sexuality of the divine kṣatriya, Indra. Ironically, Excerpt (2) specifically represents Adrohaka's triumph as military. Despite Indra's history as an overwhelming war god, he does not have what it takes to conquer on the battlefield that really matters: against his own libido. Gautama does. As another Brahmanical nail in the coffin of Indra's reputation, the story affirms the superiority of the highest varṇa. Another hierarchy—that of gender—is also at play. Indra's fall comes about through his desire for a woman, and his painful degradation involves the acquisition of vulvas. The story reflects male suspicion of woman—Ahalyā clearly did something wrong and so must be punished—and dread of feminisation.

Other feminisations of Indra

It is interesting to note that Indra's masculinity is compromised in more than one story. Jamison, who discusses his transformation into a female hyena,Footnote ⁴³ comments that ‘stories of Indra's transformation are legion, and in a number of them he becomes a female, though usually to work mischief’.Footnote ⁴⁴ In a tangled narrative complex attested at Rigveda 1.51.13 and elsewhere and discussed by O'Flaherty,Footnote ⁴⁵ Indra becomes the wife of Vṛṣaṇaśva. We learn at Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā 2.5.5 that this deviation from the natural order (apparently motivated by Indra's desire to seduce a female relative of Vṛṣaṇaśva) resulted in his seizure by Nirṛti (incarnate disorder), after which he saved himself through the sacrifice of a castrated animal.

Some Greek parallels

Greek myth features several well-known feminised males. These include two heroes, Achilles and Herakles (known to the Romans as Hercules), who are, like Indra, known for their outstanding manly prowess. Achilles was the greatest of the Greek heroes who fought in the Trojan War, while Herakles is famed for his extraordinary strength, demonstrated through feats such as his 12 famous labours. A third feminised male, the blind Theban prophet Teiresias, is not known for military prowess, but merits a mention here due to the association of sexual misdemeanour, sex change, and blinding in his story.