Bestiality in Hinduism

This is a duplicate of a Michaelangelo painting, titled "Leda and the Swan."



And this is from the carvings at Kajuraho.

The idea may be so alien to you that you might not even have noticed the horse being the centre of attraction here.

While Zoophilia is a pretty strong idea in all cultures and religions, it might be shocking for many of us to know that bestiality exists as an accepted practice (Zoophilia being an affinity, Bestiality being the action). The Greek and Norse mythologies are awash with stories of human to animal copulation. Many Gods and Demi-Gods are even born out of these unions. The minotaur of Greek is possibly the most famous example.

Coming to India,

Brace yourself



Nothing half as shocking as yesterday's bestiality picture, or so you might imagine. This is a picture of a daughter, her father - and her groom. Read the BBC story on this girl-dog wedding here.

This is a part of some tantric ritual I guess. Hinduism too, is awash with Bestiality... here is as comprehensive an investigation as I could make it. Here are the things about Hindu Gods that your parents do not tell you about (if you are a Hindu). Not meant to hurt anyone's feelings, just to bring the facts to light.

Brahma was the Hindu creator God. He paralleled Zeus in many respects, including the multicolored sex life. He had an incestous relationship with his daughter (my Mother's explanation being he was the all creator, and had no one else to do it with) but that was perhaps his least sinful act. Some say, because the Gods do not earn Karma, that they are above such acts, and in fact, sin.

Brahma lusted for a she bear he apparently saw in a forest and Jambu Vandan, the bear headed God was born out of this union. Sukini was born out of Oral copulation with a crow, Mandothari from a frog, and his daughter-wife from, of all things, a lotus.

(Of course, to be perfectly fair, we mist also take into consideration the distortion and interference by time, a lotus could simply has survived as an allegory for a vagina - or simply as a word with two meanings with no relation whatsoever, a frog is, in fact, a modern slang for the cunt, but I am pretty sure that the bear is not )


Update: Information from a friend in CBSE; as part of the 12th syllabus they had a poem where Krishna too marries a bear. Apparently he fights with this bear, and bear realises who he is fighting with and offers his daughter's hand in marriage. The bear's name was jambhavata and his daughter jambhavati...

Brahma also copulated with bones - now an affinity towards dead bodies is called Necrophilia, but I don't know if bones are considered necrophilia. Going a step further, Necrozoophilia (unfortunately, these are not words I am inventisizing) is an affinity towards dead animals, and this exists in Hindu mythology, in the very Ramayan.

During King Dasratha's Asvamedha ceremony, King Rama's mother had sex with a horse - which was dead.

Rasyasringa, the Hindu sage was born out of his mother's union with a deer. In fact, many of the sages in Hindu mythology were born out of unions with various animals. The logic behind this is apparently, their births were devine, because normally when any other animal is seeded with human semen, or infact, almost any trans-species insemination, results in the death of the egg. Therefore, since these eggs were sucessfully fertilized in the case of these sages, their births were all considered devine. What is disturbing is that the vedics had enough knowledge - and perhaps expirience to know that inseminating animals of different and various species does not result in a pregnancy. This means that the practice must have been pretty common - if only for experimental purposes.

There are infinite examples of bestiality in the Hindu mythologies, and it is impossible to enlist all of them because of the sheer size of the Vedas, the Puranas, the mythologies, and the Gita.

The point I am trying to make is - without making any moral judgement - simply that bestiality is very much a part of the Indian culture - this might shock a few people, but that is the simple truth.