9345765052

As a means of contextualizing the hijras’ present-day social position as well as their use of verbal insults, I want first to offer a brief historical overview of the social and linguistic position of the “castrated eunuch” in India. Throughout their vari-ous incarnations in history, Indias eunuchs have been portrayed as providers of verbal as well as sexual rehef: as overseers of the kings harem in the fourth century b.c.e.; as “shampooers” in the Hindu courts during the second and fifth centuries; as protectors of the royal ladies of the harem in medieval Hindu courts; as administrator under the Khiljis of Delhi during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; as servants in the Mughal courts from the sbcteenth to the nineteenth centuries; as slaves in the houses of Muslim nobility in Awadh (formerly called Oude) during the 1900s; and, finally, as the independent performers variously known sińce the early nineteenth century as khojas, khusras, pavaiyas, and hijras.^