Same-Sex Love in India

Same-Sex Love in India

Product ID: 8830

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Author: Ruth Vanita
Editor: Ruth Vanita / Saleem Kidwai
Publisher: Macmillan
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 370
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0333 93723 6

Description

This path-breaking volume presents the English-reading public with an imposing array of texts relating to an important but little-studied aspect of Indian life and literature, and offers readers a vast and sumptuous feast.

‘Same-Sex Love in India’ presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2,000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional tradition’s these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times. An eminent group of scholars have translated writings for the first time and have retranslated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious book, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories, and biographies, to modern novels, short stories, letters memoirs, plays, and poems. From the Rig Veda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.

REVIEWS:
Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai have offered readers a vast and sumptuous feast. This rich collection, accompanied by the authors’ informative commentary, is a powerful corrective to the often expressed opinion that the Indian tradition is either unaware of or openly hostile to same-sex love. This volume will be welcomed by scholarly and general audiences alike.
—Robert Goldman, Sarah Kailath Professor of India Studies,
University of California at Berkeley

This remarkable volume brings together an encyclopedia collection of writings on the subjects of love between women and love between men in India from ancient times to the present. Vanita and Kidwai’s introductory essays to each section are works of outstanding scholarship. This book will long be considered the definitive anthology of documents on same-sex love in India.
—Lillian Faderman, author of Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have
Done for America-A History

This path-breaking volume presents the English-reading public with an imposing array of texts relating to an important but little-studied aspect of Indian life and literature.
—Sumit Guha, Professor of History, Brown University

This enchanting collection is tribute to an ancient civilization which has always cherished love that defies conventional ideas of sanity and normality.
—Ashis Yadav, author, The Intimate Enemy, director, Center for the
Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface

PART I : INTRODUCTION: ANCIENT INDIAN MATERIALS
Vyasa’s Mahabharata: "Sikhandin’s Sex Change"
Manikantha Jataka
Vishnu Sarma’s ‘Panchtantra’
Vatsyayana’s ‘Kamasutra’

PART II : INTRODUCTION: MEDIEVAL MATERIALS IN THE SANSKRITIC TRADITION
‘Bhagvata Purana’: The Embrace of Shiva and Vishnu
‘Skanda Purana’: Sumedha and Somavan
‘Shiva Purana’: The Birth of Kartikeya
‘Shiva Purana’: The Birth of Ganesha
Somadeva Bhatta’s ‘Kathasaritsagara’: Kalinagasena and Somaprabha
‘Padma Purana’: Arjuni
Ayyappa and Vavar: Celibate Friends
‘Krittivasa Ramayana’: The Birth of Bhagiratha
Jagannath Das

PART III: INTRODUCTION: MEDIEVAL MATERIALS IN THE PERSO-URDU TRADITION
Amir Khusra Ziauddin Barani: The Khaljis in Love
‘The Mirror of Secrets’: "Akhi" Jamshed Rajgiri
‘Baburnama’ (Turkish)
"Mutribi" Samarqandi: The Fair and the Dark Boys
‘Haqiqat al-Fuqara’: Poetic Biography of "Madho Lal" Hussayn, with Hussayn’s poems
Sarmad
Muhammad Akram "Ghanimat" Kanjohi: Love’s Sorcery
Najmuddin Shah Mubarak "Arbu": "Advice to a Beloved"
Siraj Aurangabadi: "The Garden of Delusion"
Mir Abdul Hai "Taban": The Lover Who Looked like a Beloved
Dargah Quli Khan: "Portrait of a City"
Mir Taqi "Mir": Autobiography and Poems

PART IV :INTRODUCTION: MODERN INDIA MATERIALS
Nazir Akbarabadi
Rekhti Poetry: Love between Women
Shri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee: ‘Indira’
The ‘Kamasutra’ in the Twentieth Century
Gopabandhu Das: Poems Written in Prison
The New Homophobia: Ugra’s ‘Chocolate’
M K Gandhi: Reply to a Query
Amrita Sher-Gil: Letters
Hakim Muhammad Yusuf Hasan: ‘Do Shiza’
"Firaq" Gorakhpuri: Poet vs."Critic"
Sharada: "Farewell"
Suryakant Tripathi "Nirala": ‘Kulli Bhaat’
Josh Malihabadi: ‘There will never be another like you’
Ismat Chughtai: ‘Tehri Lakeer’
Rajendra Yadav: ‘Waiting’
Bhupen Khakhar: ‘A Story’
Kishori Charan Das: ‘Sarama’s Romance’
Crime of Passion
Shobhana Siddique: ‘Full to the Brim’
V T Nandakumar: ‘Two Girls’
Vijay Dan Detha: ‘A Double Life’
Vikram Seth: Poems
Nirmala Deshpande: ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’
Vijay Tendulkar: ‘Mitra’s Story’
Sunil Gangopadhyay: ‘Those Days’
H S Shivaprakash: ‘Shakespears Dreamship’
Inez Vere Dullas: ‘Poems’
Hoshang Merchant: Poems for Vivan
Ambai: ‘One Person and Another’

Glossary
Translators and Contributors
Index