Vyasa’s Mahabharata: “Sikhandin’s Sex Change” (Sanskrit)

Abstract

The story of Sikhandin is perhaps the best known case of sex change in any ancient Indian text. Sikhandin later became a term to refer to eunuchs and men of doubtful sexuality. The story is remarkable for the cluster of motifs associated with the sex change—rebirth, the cross-dressed girl-child married to another girl, her desire to be a man, and the uncertainty regarding the permanence of the change. Some of these motifs occur in stories of sex change in other mythologies.