Representations of the Body and Gender in Varāhamihira’s Jyotiṣaśāstra

Abstract

Based primarily on the analysis of Varāhamihira’s writings on Jyotiṣaśāstra, particularly of his Bṛhajjātaka and Bṛhatsaṁhitā, the paper tries to explore how the human body was brought within the realm of auspicious and inauspicious and created certain gender markers and distinctions, which presented socially contingent views of ideal types in early India. It also examines, with the help of arguments and episodes from the Sanskrit epics and Purāṇas, the narrative that came to be woven about gender differences within the context of the evolution of what historians have termed ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’.