Term paper The first reference to lesbian love in Indian literature is found in the Rig Veda. According to Gita Thalani, there were laws against lesbian love, which only validated procreative sex. The code of Manu contains the punishments inflicted on women engaged in homosexual acts, a virgin girl who makes love to another deserves the punishment of being fined and beaten. We thus see that lesbianism and homosexuality were not only present in ancient India, but were also repressed and punished. Same-Sex Love in India: A Literary History, edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, explores the history of the Indian literary tradition from the perspective of homoerotic love. The book begins with ancient Puranic texts with tropes indicating homosexual attachments. In the Mahabharata, for example, the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna goes beyond that of friendship and has homoerotic overtones. Another homoerotic trope is that of rebirth, in Somadatta's Kathasaritsagara, Somaprabha falls in love with princess Kalingasena and attributes this to their previous birth where he must have been her intimate female companion. The same sexual desire among women is illustrated in the Bengali text Kritivasa Ramayana i.e. Ramayana written by Krittivasa, the birth of the sage Bhagiratha is attributed to the sexual union between two females since his father died before his conception, his birth occurs by divine sanction of the god Sankara, “You two have mutual relations. With my blessing one of you will have a lovely baby.” The book also talks about the multidimensional representation of gods in the Bhakti tradition where gods appeared in male, female or even neutral and animal forms, carrying overtones of homosexuality. ..... half of the paper ...... knowledge of one's sexuality, the lack of appropriation of spaces and discourses for homosexual relationships. As Radha states, “There is no word in our language to describe what we are to each other.” Lihaaf and Fire represent two highly controversial literary and artistic works, Chughtai argued that purdah had already been imposed on her, but her tongue would be an unsheathed, unstoppable sword. While Chughtai was accused of obscenity for its story, Fire, loosely based on Lihaaf, was roundly condemned by right-wing parties such as Shiv Sena and Bhartiya Janta Party as alien to Indian culture, with acts of vandalism carried out in theatres. However, the voice of female sexuality has proven indomitable. Over the years, writers such as Kamala Das, Arundhati Roy and Manju Kapur have explored forbidden female desires ranging from the homoerotic to the incestuous..