Men, Masculinism and Masculinities: Ancient Indian Antecedents

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse how the concept of masculinity is embedded in the cultural discourse of Ancient India. It is also our contention that since in the ancient Indic context, the sex-gender system was a reality, we cannot discount the existence of a ‘masculinist’ structure which had a role to play in shaping the perception/functioning of a masculine persona. The article is an attempt to unravel the mystique of Indic manhood across a broad temporal frame by focusing on different themes such as varn˙a status, male body, fatherhood and sexuality and its framing within the discourse on masculinity. Since masculinity was constructed in opposition to both femininity and the defective/deficient male, these two aspects have also been focused upon.