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Re: REQUEST : Foreskin / circumcision
I was waiting to see if anyone else would point this out, and since
nobody else has, I thought I'd mention it. In India, you can find a
group of people called the Hijras (also called Chakkas, I believe).
There are men who would probably be called transsexuals in the West,
but historically, they've been called eunuchs in India. From what I've
read, some were born eunuchs, while others adopted the lifestyle by
mutilating themselves. I've heard that some of the modern-day ones
don't bother with actually altering themselves, so in Western
parlance, they'd be transvestites.
What's interesting about the Hijras is how they've intergrated
themselves into Hindu culture. They often beg for money, and in the
event they get snubbed, they flash their mutilated genitalia as a
curse. However, begging doesn't seem to be their prime source of
income. Instead, they've found that the wedding scene is more
profitable. With the amount spent on Hindu weddings, they've got a
perfect opportunity for extortion, in the form of "either pay us some
small sum to perform dances and wish you well, etc., or you'll find
your daughter's very costly wedding disrupted by a group of angry
transsexuals."
Likewise, when a baby is born, the tradition used to be that the local
hijra would find out and show up to "bless" the child. The hijra would
dance with the baby and in return, the somewhat scared parents would
give gifts. If the parents did not allow this, they would receive a
stream of curses from the angry hijra, and most new mothers being as
superstitious as they are in India, the off chance of anything
happening to their baby was enough to convince them to let the
"blessing" happen.
So, while there isn't a tradition of circumcision per se in Hinduism,
there definitely is a related tradition in Hindu culture. I'm not sure
how far back hijraism goes, but however.
-Vivek
