MASCULINE SACRALITY

MASCULINE SACRALITY is the designation of some domain of the supernatural universe as masculine. It is a feature of numerous religious systems in human societies around the world. A comparison of such systems reveals three levels of expression for the masculine valuation of the sacred.

At one level, certain natural symbols recur in religious systems in the form of hierophanies or sacred manifestations of masculine higher being. These natural symbols include sky, peaks and mountains, thunder, rain, and certain horned beasts, as well as such creatures of flight as eagles. At a second level of expression, religious systems often attribute certain cosmic functions to masculine metaphysical entities and/or specifically male supernatural beings. Thus gods as opposed to goddesses tend to be credited with such cosmic functions as creation of the mundane universe, establishment of the moral code, invention of the elements of mortal subsistence, and the like. Finally, in many religious systems there is a belief in the masculine orientation of certain sacred values. These commonly include order, stability, permanence, and essentiality. This level of religious expression may be basic to the social ethic and organization of a community, and may furnish it with a model and sanction for the pursuit of distinctive life patterns on the part of men and women.

A masculine being or entity of a particular system may have reality at more than one of these levels of expression and possibly at all three simultaneously. A brief illustration may be furnished by Indra, one of the highest gods in the Vedic religion of ancient India. An atmospheric divinity, he is credited with the unleashing of rain and storms, expressive of the masculine fecundating force. In general, Indra personifies cosmic vitality: he fertilizes the earth and makes rivers, sap, and blood alike to circulate; his retinue is the winds. He is also sagacious and deceptive, given to fooling his adversaries by changing his form. Finally, the power of Indra is sovereign: he is the chief of the heavenly council of gods, and in iconography he usually wears a crown.

As a figure of the Vedic religious universe, Indra exemplifies a particular set of conceptions about the masculine nature of the sacred. These are realized at the three levels of expression discussed above. At the level of natural symbols Indra is represented by lightning, his cosmic projectiles, and by the rainbow, whereby he dispatches those projectiles. At the level of cosmic functions, Indra is associated with fecundation and life-giving force. Finally, at the level of religious values, Indra has the meaning of sovereignty: he is the prototype of the ruler. He exemplifies the values pertaining to the proper relationship of ruler and ruled, for he is lauded and invoked more than any other deity in the oldest of Indian sacred texts, the Ṛgveda. As a secondary value, Indra represents a force of mystery and delusion, since he is a cosmic magician, able to generate new aspects and shapes at will.

From Indra's example it should be apparent that the levels at which masculine sacrality is expressed in religious systems frequently interrelate. It is difficult to discuss natural symbols, cosmic functions, and religious values of the masculine in isolation from one another. Nevertheless, these levels of expression should be borne in mind in the following discussion of the basic attributes of masculine sacred being.

Primordiality

In religious systems, a form of higher be-ing anterior to and/or prerequisite to other varieties of being tends to be masculine. Thus if differentiated forms of being are said to arise from some primordial undifferentiated entity, the latter is frequently masculine. The Arapaho of North America, for instance, believe in a supreme god out of whom the entire manifest world originated. Their name for him is Spider, presumably because the spider weaves his web out of himself.

Alternatively, the being that first dwells in or emerges from the undifferentiated cosmic mass tends to be masculine. In world mythologies, masculine first beings are abundant. The supreme god of the Flathead of North America is Amotken ("the old one"). Similarly, the supreme god of the Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego is Watauniewa ("the old, eternal, unchangeable one"). Among the Hawaiians, the supreme male divinity is the god who dwells primordially, at the dawn of sacred time, in Pō, the world of obscurity or darkness. Again, for the inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands, the earliest being in the primordial void is a male divinity, Na Areau the Elder. In Australian religions, during the primordial time called the Dreaming, over the earth roamed the first beings called Great Men, who are fathers to the creatures of the present world.

In mythology, feminine being tends to be secondary to masculine being. Thus, in the Navajo creation myth, First Man is paired with First Woman; both of them emerged from the union of primordial mists, but the emergence of First Woman follows that of First Man. In general, where there occur masculine and feminine forms of primordial being, the former tends to provide precedent for the latter: Eve emerges out of the body of Adam, not Adam out of Eve.

Height

Religious systems widely associate with masculine sacrality the attribute of height, as well as the corollaries of ascendancy and transcendence. Mircea Eliade points out in Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958) that belief in the celestiality of the divine being is nearly universal in religious systems. To this it may be no less validly appended that the highest entities and beings of religion and mythology overwhelmingly tend to be masculine. Moreover, the sky is the most fundamental of all natural symbols of masculine sacrality.

In cosmology, sky beings are preponderantly male as opposed to female. Io, meaning "raised up" or "on high," is the supreme god of the Maori, while the Yoruba of Africa call upon a god named Ọlọrun, "owner of the sky." In mythology, masculine first beings not infrequently represent sky divinities: Amotken, the previously mentioned first being of the Flathead, is also a celestial god, living in the crown of the cosmic tree.

In some mythologies, high gods originate elsewhere than in heaven, but journey there before the onset of profane time. This theme is particularly well attested in Australia. Bunjil, the god of the Wotjobaluk, for instance, lived on earth as a Great Man but later went to the sky. Among the Aranda, some earthborn first beings fell slumbering to the ground and reemerged into it, while others climbed sacred passages to the sky. The former are identified with totemic ancestors, the latter with high divinity—the sun, moon, and stars.

Because the nearly universal attribute of masculine sacrality is height—often expressed symbolically in terms of celestiality—the idea of access to godhood tends to be expressed through the imagery of ascent or, occasionally, of descent. In the Tantric tradition of southern Asia (India, Nepal, Tibet), the sublime is taken to be masculine; integration with it demands a technique of focusing and directing upward the feminine energies of the physiological microcosmos. In popular Hinduism, on the other hand, humans are said to approach the sublime at the god's instance, by his willful descent to the mundane world on a series of occasions called avatāra. Thus a popular myth cycle portrays the high god Viṣṇu mercifully descending upon earth to be born in a series of mortal forms: as a fish, as a boar, as King Rāma, as the rambunctious cowherd Kṛṣṇa, and so on. By contrast, while a mother goddess occurs in popular Hinduism and at times manifests herself on earth, she is not specifically credited with the capacity of avatāra, or divine descent.

As an attribute of masculine sacrality, height is fundamentally but not exclusively symbolized by sky and atmosphere. Height may also find expression in the symbolism of entities associated with loftiness. Sacred mountains are often the dwelling places of gods: the mythical Mount Meru of India and the Greek Olympus are well-known examples, as are certain peaks in Japan and other parts of the world. In some religious systems, height as an attribute of masculine sacrality finds expression in the natural symbolism of sky-dwelling creatures. Fabulous birds, especially eagles, tend to be associated with godhood. The Bella Coola of the northwestern coast of America, for instance, believe in an axis mundi, or sacred pole connecting heaven and earth, that was erected by the highest god; it is topped by a seated eagle. Elsewhere in the religions of North America, and in parts of Siberia as well, an important position is held by a mythical creature of eaglelike appearance, the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird's association with the awesome and fecundating masculine force of the sky is underscored by the fact that he is said to cause wind and thunder by flapping his wings, and lightning by opening and closing his eyes.

Effulgence

Along with loftiness and sublimity, effulgence is a common attribute of masculine sacrality suggested by the natural symbolism of the sky. Various religious systems characterize the supreme god as white or shining. The Khanty and the Mansi of the Asian Arctic, for instance, describe their supreme god Num-Tūrem as luminous, golden, and white. One of the most powerful gods of Hinduism—dwelling, incidentally, on mountains—is Śiva, the "shining one." Devotional literature sometimes refers to him as "the lord white as jasmine." In Hawaiian mythology, at the dawn of sacred time the first light in the universe was that of the original being and high god. Navajo mythology has it that First Man and First Woman arose in unparalleled radiance from the primordial mists of the sky, the former in the place of sunrise and the latter in the place of sunset. While each burned a fire to light the firmament, the light of First Man's fire was stronger.

In cultic practices, sacred objects associated with masculine divinities tend to be chosen for whiteness or luminosity. This is true, for instance, of the crystal stones used in some Australian rituals. (The supreme god Baiame of certain southeastern Australian tribes sits on a crystal throne.) Similarly, the First Man of Navajo legend burned crystal for his fire and was accompanied at his birth by white corn.

Fire, of course, is a common accompaniment to religious ritual. In Vedic India, not only was fire itself a god, but it served as the purifier and sacred conveyance of sacrificial oblations to the high gods in heaven.

Pervasiveness

The attribute of being immanent in the universe is widely associated with masculine sacred being. It is not without significance that the name of the Hindu god associated with avatāra or divine descent, Viṣṇu, means "pervader." However, in relation to the concept of supreme godhood, the attribute of pervasiveness should be carefully qualified because sky gods, those quintessential exemplifications of masculine sacrality, are typically characterized as distant, remote, and inactive.

Accordingly, in many religious systems no special cult centers on the high being of the heavens. He may be left out of ritual and worship altogether, or be called upon only in times of extraordinary crisis. Many mythologies speak of the sky god as having once been actively engaged in cosmic business, but as having withdrawn from direct intervention in the universe for all time.

As deus otiosus, or retired divinity, the sky god nevertheless often remains in touch with mundane affairs and manifests his presence indirectly. A particularly widely held belief is that thunder is a manifestation of such a god. For instance, people of the Andaman Islands believe that thunder is the voice of their supreme god Puluga, and the Kansa Indians similarly maintain that thunder is the voice of their high god Wakantanka, whom they have never seen. Conceived of as a masculine epiphany, the growling sound of thunder may be imitated in ritual to invoke the presence of the sublime. In Australian ritual one of the most sacred objects is the bull-roarer, a piece of wood with a string tied through a hole in one end. When swung around, this object makes a growling sound suggestive of a bull's bellowing or of thunder; it is particularly used in boys' initiation rites. Similarly, in religious rituals, particularly male initiation ceremonies, of the North American Southwest, an instrument called a bull-roarer or whiner is used to invoke and evoke the presence of the high god.

As a variant on the treatment of thunder as a masculine epiphany, the growling force of volcanoes is occasionally regarded as a sign of the immanence of sacred masculine being. In South America, for instance, the Puruhá tribesmen of La Montaña occasionally sacrificed humans to a volcanic mountain inhabited by a god who made his presence felt from time to time.

Another way in which the high god, as deus otiosus, maintains an immanent presence in the affairs of the universe is by delegating authority to lesser supernaturals. The high god is often credited with initiating creation, but not always with completing it. In many mythologies the completion of the work is delegated to other figures of the high god's designation. For instance, the supreme god Gicelamu'kaong of the Delaware delegates creation to the sun, the moon, the thunder gods, the four winds, the earth mother, and the master of animals. It is common in mythology for the deus otiosus to withdraw, leaving his own son behind to carry on his cosmic activities. One of the many instances of this is found in the creation myth of the Gilbert Islands, where the divine protagonist Na Areau the Younger inherits the task of creation from his progenitor, Na Areau the Elder, the primordial being.

As son and successor to the high god, a secondary celestial may acquire considerable preeminence over the original high divinity. This preeminence is graphically symbolized in some belief systems by treating the high god's offspring and successor as a solar deity. Thus among the Tiv of Africa, the sun is the male child of the supreme being Awondo. Similarly, among the Wiradjuri and the Kamilaroi of southeastern Australia, the sun is the creator god's son.

In many mythologies, a type of supernatural who mediates between a withdrawn cosmic father figure and the mundane sphere is called the culture hero. A culture hero is usually portrayed as being with the high god in primordial times, and his sacred activities are sometimes performed at the high god's instance. As a stand-in for higher divinity, the culture hero may play a role in mythology that is more important than that of the high god. Culture heroes are sometimes represented anthropomorphically, but just as frequently the culture hero has a theriomorphic representation: as a coyote among some southwestern North American peoples, and as a great hare on the eastern North American coast; as a wolf or a raven in eastern Siberia; as a bat among the Paresí of Bolivia; and as a tapir in the Amazon Basin. Whatever his representation, the culture hero invariably serves to keep terrestrial society in touch with godhood, and almost without exception is portrayed as a male.

The activities of the culture hero are varied. In some mythologies he assists in the work of creation. This holds of the earth diver, a culture hero widely revered in North America who, at the instance of the high god, brings up the first land from the primal waters. Another typical task of the culture hero is to provide the elements of culture and/or the basic tools of subsistence to the ancestors of modern men. Among the Northwest Coast people and in eastern Siberia, for instance, the culture hero Raven brings light and various elements of culture to the mundane world in primordial time.

Acting as he does as a kind of rival to the ethically sublime high god, the culture hero is often portrayed as a schemer or trickster. He may assist men at the expense of higher being, as, for example, by stealing water, sun, or subsistence materials from the other world or by releasing game enclosed in a cave or other place inaccessible to humans. This aspect of the culture hero's character is exemplified by the fire-giver Prometheus of Greek mythology.

Culture heroes are also frequently portrayed as sacred ancestors of human descent groups. In the case of theriomorphic culture heroes, such beliefs may find expression through totemistic cults like those common in Australia and North America. More generally, religious systems commonly embody a belief that sacred substance, as an immanent component and inheritance of human individuals, is masculine—that is, it is derived from a high god, is transmitted by supernatural males acting in sacred time as ancestors of men, and is passed along in profane time through the male descent line. Thus, according to Hindu social theory and law, men alone pass the sacred substance of their lineage to their descendants, whereas the sacred substance inherited by a woman is not immutable, being transformed to correspond to that of her husband at the time of marriage. According to Hindu doctrine, then, women transmit to their offspring no sacred substance of their own but only that of their husbands.

Finally, regarding pervasiveness, it should be mentioned that the natural symbolism of the sky overlaying and embracing the supine earth powerfully suggests the immanence of the masculine sacred principle. A sexual dichotomy is commonly featured in religious systems, the sky being associated with the masculine and the earth with the feminine. Earth goddesses are not infrequently paired with sky gods. Moreover, earth and sky together constitute the prototype of the cosmic pair. A common theme in world mythologies is that of the primordial separation of the mutually embracing sky and earth. The creatures responsible for forcing sky and earth apart are variously represented as culture heroes, ancestors of the present earth dwellers, and/or the divine offspring of sky and earth themselves.

Contact between the separated celestial and terrestrial realms is frequently achieved in sacred time (and, by that precedent, is renewable in present, profane time) by means of certain sacred paraphernalia or entities of a fairly obvious sexual symbolism. Apertures in rocks or clouds are commonly portrayed as sacred means of passage, as are fabulous pillars, trees, ladders, mountains, and the like. In other words, Sky the father and Earth the mother are mediated by sacred holes and poles. These devices, moreover, contrast somewhat in their orientation: the sacred holes tend to be earth-directed, and the sacred poles sky-directed. Thus in the creation myth of the Gilbert Islanders the culture hero Na Areau the Younger walks in sacred time upon the rocklike upper surface of the sky, then pokes a hole down through it to apprehend the earth. From the bowels of the earth Na Areau then enlists an eel that braces himself against the earth with his tail in order to lift the sky upward by his snout. Thus the once direct contact between earth and sky comes to be mediated by the phallic force of that cosmic uplifter, the divine eel.

The performance of rituals for reestablishing primordial contact between the mundane world and the sublime is fairly common in religious systems. Such rituals tend to embody the symbolism of ascent, and the implements used in them are often of a phallic appearance. Thus to symbolize the axis mundi —the sacred connector of heaven and earth—a pole, ladder, or tree is often used; it may be ascended by a ritual specialist, who thereby symbolically journeys to heaven on behalf of his community. Such ascent rituals are typically performed in Siberia and other areas of the world by shamans, ritual specialists in techniques of healing and ecstasy.

Fecundity

Masculine sacred being is widely associated with generative and fecundating powers. This association seems to be based on the natural functioning of the sky, which fecundates the receptive earth by precipitation. One ritual of ancient India gives explicit expression to the association: the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad enjoins the husband to unite with the wife after uttering the formula, "I am the heavens, thou, the earth."

High gods and important male supernaturals tend to be credited with extraordinary potency and sexual capacity. These capabilities may be seen as independent of and additional to any role played by a given divinity in the creation of the cosmos. In popular Hinduism, for instance, the high god Śiva shakes the cosmos by the force of his copulation. A symbol of Śiva is the lingam, a stylized phallus usually given concrete realization in black stone.

In natural symbology, the masculine attribute of fecundity is often expressed by animals of high fertility. Bulls are a particularly common symbol. Śiva's cosmic vehicle is a fabulous bull, and the bull is also the form assumed by Zeus in the early Greek myth of Europa's ravishment.

As a symbol of the masculine, the bull tends to be cross-linked with the symbolism of thunderbolts. The latter are sometimes represented in the shape of stylized horns. Also, the bull's bellowing, like thunder, is an epiphany of godhood. Thus in the ancient Near East, the god Min had the epithet Great Bull, lightning was one of his attributes, and he was responsible for rain and for giving life. In Papua New Guinea, the culture hero Sosom is aurally evoked by the bull-roarer, which is his voice; his body is of stone, and he has an exaggerated penis, suggesting his sexual and fertile powers. Indeed, Sosom is credited with fertilizing man as well as soil.

Acculturation

Man's conception of order as a sacred force plausibly derives from observation of the events and entities of the heavens. Within the sky, which is itself unchanging and stable, celestial bodies move about according to a placid and unvarying rhythm. Because the sky is associated with the masculine, masculine sacrality comes to be seen more or less universally as the principle of permanence and order.

Thus, in mythology, the establishment of things that give permanence and stability to existence—rule, law, and the structured bases of things and institutions—tends to be treated as a masculine function. High gods and culture heroes delineate the features of the primordial landscape. They separate land from water and establish landmarks in the cosmos: sacred mountains, boulders, trees, rivers, and the like. Moreover, male supernaturals furnish society with the permanent institutions of culture, including law, moral code, and the forms of religious practice itself. At the same time, high culture tends to be perceived in religious communities as a domain proper to men. This is particularly true in regard to religion. Virtually without exception, human societies exclude women from the most sacred religious rites, as well as from manipulation of the most sacred objects of cult.

Where sacred values are associated with a dichotomy of gender, the usual tendency is for the masculine to be associated with stability and essentiality, and the feminine with change and materiality. The masculine may be identified with being's inner form—thought or structure—while the feminine is identified with being's outer forms—word or substance. The masculine may be associated with the potential, inactive form of being; the feminine, with kinetic, active being. The masculine is one and/or integrated; the feminine is plural and/or diffuse.

Thus in the Yoga and Sāṃkhya religious philosophies of India, the universe is said to be based on a polarity of two metaphysical principles. The masculine principle, puruṣa (which itself means "male" or "man"), is that of immanent and essential being, whose nature is immutable. By contrast, the feminine principle is associated with śakti, the energy that activates the ever-changing material universe. In the philosophical writings of the tradition, the masculine deprived of its śakti is compared to a lifeless god, while the feminine principle out of balance with the masculine is said to be rampant, capricious, and dangerous.

Navajo religion likewise associates dichotomies of cosmic function and religious value with the sacred masculine and feminine. In mythology the primordial being, First Man, creates a son and a daughter who are respectively Thought and Speech. The latter is called the outer form of Thought, and the former, the inner form of Speech; both are necessary for the creation of the inner forms of the present universe. As first boy and first girl, these entities are also said to have produced a daughter, a feminine deity identified with the earth. Her name, not insignificantly, is Changing Woman.

Gender dichotomies expressed in Navajo mythology are reflected with great consistency in the cultural and social patterns of the community. In Language and Art in the Navajo Universe (Ann Arbor, 1977), Gary Witherspoon points out that the Navajo associate the ritual and ceremonial domain with thought and the masculine. Thus most ceremonial practitioners are men. The ceremonies they conduct, moreover, are rigidly structured and must be performed without mistakes or modifications. Usually, Navajo ceremonies are concerned with restoring prior states of being. The fact that such ceremonies are the domain of men bespeaks a religious view that masculinity has to do with the origins of things and their culmination.

On the other hand, Navajo women are active in productive and domestic matters. They head most domestic groups and control land and sheep on behalf of those groups. This life pattern is consistent with the religious view of the feminine as the domain of growth, process, and change. For the Navajo, social and economic life concerns the generation of new conditions and new beings; it is characterized by movement, change, activity, and productivity. Here, then, it is appropriate that women dominate.

Summary

Belief in a masculine domain of the sacred universe is common in religious systems and tends to be associated with recurrent natural symbols, cosmic functions, and religious values. Based on the patterns discussed above, the following can be enumerated as more or less universal tendencies. (1) Primordial first beings of cult and/or mythology are most often male or masculine. (2) Cosmic functions pertaining to creation and fecundation are usually associated with masculine—as opposed to feminine—entities, principles, and beings. (3) Elements of culture tend to be associated with or attributed to masculine—as opposed to feminine—principles and/or supernaturals. (4) In community life, important differences in life patterns between the sexes have sanction and justification in beliefs about gender sacrality. In particular, manipulation of sacred objects and ceremonies tends to be seen as the appropriate domain of men. (5) The most exalted beings and entities of the masculine sacred universe are almost always associated with the natural symbolism of the sky and derive their attributes accordingly.

See Also

Ascension; Axis Mundi; Bull-Roarers; Culture Heroes; Feminine Sacrality; Fire; Hieros Gamos; Kingship; Light and Darkness; Phallus and Vagina; Shamanism; Sky; Supreme Beings; Tjurungas; Transcendence and Immanence; War and Warriors.

Bibliography

There is no single reference work devoted to the topic of masculine sacrality, though many pertinent sources are available. Concerning male supernaturals, a worthwhile and concise, if dated, treatment is Wilhelm Schmidt's "The Nature, Attributes and Worship of the Primitive High God." It appears in a volume edited by William Lessa and Evon Vogt, Reader in Comparative Religion, 4th ed. (New York, 1979). The standard reference work on comparative religions by Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (London, 1958), contains much useful material on masculine sacrality.

Also worth citing are a number of studies on religious systems in particular world areas. For material on Australian systems, see Eliade's Australian Religions (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973). Some pertinent material on Papua New Guinea is found in Roy Wagner's Habu (Chicago, 1972). For a wealth of material on religious systems of the Western Hemisphere (and some references to northeastern Asia), see the valuable survey by Åke Hultkrantz, The Religions of the American Indians (Los Angeles, 1979). For Hawaiian and related Polynesian religions a standard source is Martha Warren Beckwith's Hawaiian Mythology (1940; Honolulu, 1970). A legend of the Gilbert Islanders that speaks for itself in the richness of its gender symbolism is reproduced by Arthur Grimble in "A Gilbertese Creation Myth," included in the Lessa and Vogt collection mentioned above.

On religious traditions of India and southern Asia there is a profusion of material related to masculine sacrality, among which several studies may be particularly recommended. Heinrich Zimmer provides a very accessible treatment on Indian sacrality in general, including much information on masculine sacrality, in Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, edited by Joseph Campbell (1946; Princeton, 1972). Zimmer's Philosophies of India, also edited by Campbell (1951; Princeton, 1969), offers in its chapter "Sāṅkhya and Yoga" a penetrating discussion of the relationship of gender sacrality to the philosophical traditions of India. As a detailed account of sexual technique and symbolism in relation to metaphysics and philosophy within a single religious tradition, no study supersedes Mircea Eliade's classic Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 2d ed. (Princeton, 1969). A stimulating treatment of masculinity and the sacred in Nepalese and Tibetan religious traditions is furnished by Robert A. Paul in The Tibetan Symbolic World: Psychoanalytic Explorations (Chicago, 1982). The joint monograph Women in India: Two Perspectives by Susan S. Wadley and Doranne Jacobson (Columbia, Mo., 1977) contains in Wadley's essay one of the best concise treatments available of śakti and its relationship to the Indian conception of the masculine and feminine sacred worlds.

Lastly, for a general anthropological perspective on the relationship of gender sacrality to social ethic and male/female life patterns, consult Sherry Ortner's "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" in the collection Woman, Culture, and Society, edited by Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford, Calif., 1974).

New Sources

Bodies, Lives, Voices: Gender in Theology. Kathleen O'Grady, Ann L. Gilroy and Janette Gray, editors. Sheffield, 1998.

Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. Jose Ignacio Cabezón, editor. Ithaca, N.Y., 1992.

Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols. Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrel and Paula Richman. Boston, 1986.

Invented Identities: The Interplay of Gender, Religion, and Politics in India. Julia Leslie and Mary McGee, editors. New Delhi and New York, 2000.

Shillony, Ben-Ami. Divinity and Gender: The Riddle of the Japanese Emperors. Oxford, 1999.

Spellberg, D. A. Politics, Gender and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha bint Abi Bakr. New York, 1996.

Suchocki, Marjorie. "The Unmale God: Reconsidering the Trinity." Quarterly Review 3 (1983): 34–49.

Wickremeratne, Ananda. "Shifting Metaphors of Sacrality: The Mythic Dimensions of Anurädhapura." Journal of Developing Societies 2/2 (1986): 193–207.

M. H. Klaiman (1987)

Revised Bibliography