Queer Types in Ancient Indian Medicine Texts. The Case of Vārtā and Tr̥ṇaputrika Individuals

Abstract

Brahmanical culture, which elaborated the idea of dharma (or sociocosmic order) and at the same time claimed to be founded on it, intended to base on this conception the construction of taxonomies through which to classify all reality. As far as human beings are concerned, they respond to dharmic norms to the extent that they can form pairs (mithunas) capable of generating. In this article, I will explore the case of certain queer individuals, who, as non-heteronormative, escape the possibility of fertile pairings, and are therefore judged as a sterile presence. In order to do so, I will make use of some interpretative devices formulated by Deleuze and Guattari and by Foucault, to highlight how Brahmanical ideology in ancient India intended to classify, represent, control, and discipline people’s bodies from conception. I will preliminarily focus on the analysis of some passages of texts by ancient Indian grammarians related to the notion of gender, to clarify how grammatical classifications come up against cases in which the grammatical gender does not correspond to the sexual gender exhibited by some individuals. Therefore, I will devote an extensive investigation to excerpts from classical works of Indian medicine, specifically delving into the analysis of two types of individuals, the vārtās and the tr ṇaputrikas, to shed light on how the identity of these individuals was ideologically framed as the result of pathological anomalies that deviate from the perimeter of the notion of dharma.