Week 13 Storytelling: Bahuchara from the Seven Sectrets of Hindu Calendar Art

 

(Bahuchara)

Once upon a time, in a village hidden away deep within a forest where men and animals lived so close together that each could hear the other settling off to sleep at the end of every day, lived a beautiful young woman named Bahuchara. Her parents had perished in a devastating forest fire when she was 10, and Bahuchara lived with her brother on the family’s small chicken farm. For many years, Bahuchara had been praying and praying for a handsome husband, but the village was small and isolated so for some time her prayers went unanswered.

Night after night, the desolate girl would weep and offer up her tears as supplications to the gods that they might mitigate her loneliness and bring her a husband and children to bring life and light to her day. During the day, she spent every moment working and contemplating the gods and their power. Every morning and evening she spent devoting herself to prayer, but the girl did not have much to offer in the way of gifts for the deities.

She would place small measures of food out for crudely carved wooden idols on poorly built altars, but that was the best that she could do. Eventually, however, Parvati took pity on the girl and decided to grant her the husband she so desired. Taking on the form of an aged grandmother, Parvati came down to earth and visited Bahuchara’s shrine.

“Take courage, young one, the Devas smile even upon humble offerings. They have so smiled upon you, and you will be wed within the month.”

Shocked, Bahuchara asked the woman on whose authority she made such fantastic claims, but Parvati only laughed at her surprise and told her that it was the gods’ will she professed.

Parvati then travelled down the only road leading away from Bahuchara’s village and stopped the first man she came across riding down the road about to branch off onto another path. Parvati stopped him and asked if he was married. When the man, surprised though he was by this stranger’s prying, answered that he was not, Parvati directed him back down the path and explained that in the village at the end their lived a young, very beautiful, unmarried woman on whom the Goddess Parvati herself had smiled.

The man then rode down the path with some eagerness now, searching for the village the old woman had described. When he finally found it, the man rode from home to home, searching for and quickly finding Bahuchara in her hut, preparing her brother’s supper.

The man took one look at the young woman and fell for her completely. She seemed so beautiful, and her nature so cheerful and vivacious that he couldn’t resist her charm for a moment. He resolved that if she showed herself to be well-mannered as well as gorgeous, he would propose immediately.

Realizing that it was growing late, the young man introduced himself to Bahuchara’s brother and requested some food and a place to stay for the night. Although they had little to share, it would have been rude to turn away this traveler so the siblings gave him a space on their floor and a place at their table for the night.

The very next morning, the young man proposed to Bahuchara, and her brother quickly agreed to the match, realizing that this was an immense opportunity given how few people came this way. The three agreed to travel into the city immediately to take care of the ceremony. Arrangements were made for the care of the chickens, and they left that very day.

After they arrived, the couple was married in a small, modest ceremony, and the young man took his bride home. To the dismay of Bahuchara, the woman discovered that her new husband was a man in all but body. Though she loved him dearly, knowing that he was brought to her by the gods, Bahuchara knew that she would never have children.

As she came to this knowledge, Bahuchara was filled with desperation and prayed more fervently than she ever had before that she be given the power to overcome this obstacle with her new husband. Parvati, realizing what she had done, felt sympathy for the young woman and granted her the power to do what she needed to do.

That prayer granted Bahuchara divine power. That night, when she went to see her husband, she was able to grant him a man’s body. From that day on, Bahuchara was imbued with the divine power Parvati had granted her, and she became the patroness of the isolated and those rejected from society. She became the embodiment of inclusivity.

Author’s Note: Bahuchara is an actual Hindu goddess. She embodies inclusivity and is specifically considered the goddess of hijras, individuals who feel that they were born the wrong gender. She comforts these individuals, and many people pray to her that they will be reincarnated as another gender. Hindu lore suggests that she may have been deified when she was accidentally married to a woman whom she was able to transform into a man. I decided to write this origin story because I like the idea of a goddess of inclusivity being born as she attempts to grant the wish of her beloved partner to be a man.

Bibliography: Seven Secrets from Hindu Calendar Art