Koovagam: Examining transgender identities in Hindu mythology
South India offers different narratives and experiences that are usually excluded from mainstream discourse and curriculum. Koovagam definitely offers one such story. The Koovagam festival is centered around the temple of Aravan, located in Koovagam, a small village in Tamilnadu.
The festival attributes its significance to the myth of Aravan mentioned in the Mahabharata which portrays Aravan, the legendary son of Arjuna and Ulupi, as dying a heroic death in the 18-day Kurukshetra war¹.
The myth focuses on the boons granted to Aravan by Krishna in honour of his self-sacrifice. Aravan requests that he be married before his death and Krishna satisfies this request in his female form, Mohini.
This mythical episode of Aravan’s marriage to Mohini and his subsequent death is re-enacted by the townsmen dressed as women(who take wows to marry Aravan in the hope of good luck and prosperity) and transgender devotees (Aravanis), taking on the role of Mohini and revering the deity as their husband.
As a part of a ceremonial marriage, men from surrounding villages and Aravanis decorate themselves as brides and purchase thalis, the traditional mark of a married woman. The priest, representing Aravan, ties the thalis around their necks².
On the last day, the ritual of sacrificing of Aravan is performed in a grand way. A cracker is exploded signifying the sacrifice of Aravan and his death. After the sacrifice of Aravan, all the Aravanis turn towards the location prepared for the ceremonial mourning rituals, the “weeping ground”.
The “widowed” Aravanis, with their hair disheveled, lament the death of their “husband”. The Aravanis mourn Aravan’s death by breaking their bangles, beating their breasts, and discarding their bridal finery³.
The Aravanis have always been outside the purview of mainstream society and have been forced to live on the fringes of the contemporary Indian society despite recognition in Hindu mythology. They experience hardship, social exclusion, and disease threats. It can be said that the transgendered people in contemporary Indian society are almost forgotten⁴.
The Aravan cult traditionally accommodates the transgenders in the socio-cultural system aiding them in expressing their internal pain and sorrows through the ritual practices.
Some scholars believe that the transgender community started flocking to this region very recently and there has been a shift in the nature of the festival (increased emphasis on Aravan’s marriage to Mohini).
Since then, it has become a great convergence-point for the transgender community to renew ties, have fun, and air grievances as a part of the festival. It can be said that the community has made the festival their own and is now an extension of their identity.
This festival provides them with the opportunity of escaping the repression imposed on them by society due to their different biological and cultural orientation, considered a deviant behavior by the greater society.
The myth serves as a ready resource for the Aravanis to legitimize their lives and practices. They explicitly reiterate their ascetic identity and emphasize their affinity with mythological asexual figures.
According to Gayatri Reddy, transgenders invoke non-differentiated images such as the Ardhanarisvara form of Siva, Arjuna as Brhannala, Sikhandi, and Vishnu as Mohini both to legitimize the sacred nature of their gender-ambiguous form and to validate their occupation of singing and dancing at festive and liminal occasions⁵.
In other words, Hindu mythology and iconography play an important part in transgender’s construction of their identities.
The festival stands as a cultural icon of India’s inclusive past and accurately represents its spirit. Moreover, because of Koovagam, the institutional acceptance of alternative gender and sexual identities has the potential to serve as a symbolic testament to the age-old endurance of tolerance and acceptance. Koovagam places India in a unique position to serve as an international beacon of human rights.
[1]Simon John, S., and Marak, Q. “The Aravan Cult: The Living Traditions of Transgenders in Tamil Nadu, India.”
[2]Ibid
[3]Ibid
[4] Agoramoorthy, Govindasamy, and Minna J. Hsu. “Living on the Societal Edge: India’s Transgender Realities.”
[5]Reddy, Gayatri. With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
