Ever wondered why Shiva is sometimes represented as being androgynous??

The commonly known name by which Shiva is referred to as is "Mahadev", meaning "The Great God". The origin of this name is taught in the Mahabharata. It goes like this... the asuras had a boon bestowed upon by Brahma, that they should possess three castles which could be "destructible only by the deity who was able to overthrow them by a single arrow." Thus they became complacent and started being hateful of the other gods, who, in their distress went to Brahma who again conducts them to Mahadeva (ie Shiva).
           Now, Shiva tells them that he alone cannot destroy these castles, but that with the aid of half his strength, they themselves would be able to accomplish this feat. They answered that as they could not sustain half his strength, they proposed that he should undertake the work aided by half their strength. Mahadeva consented to this, and thus became stronger than all the gods, and was thenceforward referred to as "Mahadeva". And thus Shiva became superior to Brahma and Vishnu in the Puranas (from which this particular story is influenced).
           Now once when Lakshmi and Durga were sitting together in the presence of Shiva, Lakshmi contended that her husband Vishnu was greater than Shiva, because Shiva had once worshipped him. As they were conversing, Vishnu himself appeared, and, in order to convince his wife that he and Shiva were equal, morphed himself into a beautiful woman to lure Shiva. (according to the skanda purana). Shiva became excited and sought to embrace her. As Vishnu ran away, Shiva followed him and though Vishnu resumed his proper form, Shiva clasped him so tightly that their bodies became one and a name "Har-Hari", is given to the deities thus united. (This story has been taken from the book "Hindu Mythology" by W.J.Wilkins)











Now do not we see the ancient origins of Transexualism in our ancient Hindu texts? A wondrous thing to ponder that no other major religion of the world boasts of such openness towards sex, leave alone bohemian topics such as transexualism. Consider this for a moment, a person who can morph himself into the female of his own kind and attract males can severely hamper the random chances of sex of the true females of the species. This in its extreme frequency could even alter the reproductive rates of the species because all sex is not intended to produce offspring and if males could derive pleasure with transexuals, then the natality and also total population of the species would definitely be affected.

In toads (of the family Bufonidae), Bidder's organ are present which are located near the kidneys. Now the interesting part is that when scientists have experimentally castrated male toads (ie, removing the testicles), the Bidder's organ becomes active and starts forming the uterus, oviducts and finally the ovaries. Thus the male toad when castrated transforms into a fully functional female..now isn't that interesting?






In the Lady Amherst's Pheasant, I have witnessed the transformation of mature adult females into males. The first difference starts with the change in the coloration from a drab brown into the characteristic metallic green and red colors characteristic of the male. Here are a few videos I picked up from the internet which display the transformation process.

An Ecological Perspective On The Hindu Durga Puja

If we try and derive an analogy from the mythological slaying of Mahisasura by the goddess Durga from a standpoint of ecology, then we isolate two animals, the lion and the buffalo. The lion being Durga's faithful and the buffalo which the demon Mahisasura morphed himself into. The story of the victory of good over evil (if it is what all of us believe in!) as perceived from Durga killing the miscreant can be reduced to the lion predating on the buffalo, logically I sense. The lion is the resident of the more drier parts of the India where it hunts in prides to survive and the Indian wild buffalo stays in more wetter, tropical, water abundant regions of India.The distributions of the predator and prey do not match at present, although it may have matched in the past. The lion commonly hunts prey such as chital, sambar, nilgai but why has only the buffalo been
selected as the proper opponent of the lion as it neither was found in the regions where the lion was found and even if it did, it would probably not have been the commonest of the lion's prey . But in the mythological story, the lion has been shown to have taken on a much larger animal, the buffalo, which is larger, stronger but also heavier than the aforementioned prey. The reason could be to show us that both the combatants were equal in power and spirit. but why the buffalo? It could have been the elephant or the rhino too..couldn't it have been? Maybe because the Indian lion has also been observed to prey on domestic livestock too such as cows and buffaloes. Maybe because the wild buffalo was tamed by man, domesticated, fed selectively, bred selectively resulting in producing a tame but strong animal used primarily for human purposes such as tilling the soil, carrying burden, feed infants of man with fat and protein rich milk and for serving many other man oriented selfish goals. But the lion's pedigree followed the principle of Natural Selection (kill or be killed). So if we at all presume that the buffalo depicted in the mythological battle was a domestic one, then the entire scenario of a fair fight is gone! I mean, how could a tame buffalo be of any match with a wild snarling predator? The explanation which I managed to deduce is as follows..the fight is not between good and evil, it is between the wild and the tame, between the aggressive and the docile. The combat is between the one who still roams the wild and the one whose inherent strength has been corrupted by man's overzealous scientific endeavors.  The fight is between the one who is fearful and the one who is unafraid. Because as soon as we let fear inside our hearts, we tend to bow down before authority (whatever or whoever it is) and submit ourselves in front of their ill begotten whims in desire for the few rotten crumbs of processed nourishment which they might be willing to throw at us. While the unafraid one has nothing to fear, he eats what he gets naturally and stays hungry when it is unavailable. He does not have to beg to anyone for anything because at the core of this concept, he, the fearless one, is not afraid to die. While the one who is afraid will die many spiritual deaths before his actual, physical death.