The King Who Was Both

The sages told the Pandavas of the king who was changed from man to woman and back again, dwelling now as one and now as the other, and who became the ancestor of a great line - a tale of the strange turns of fate, of the acceptance of what cannot be changed, and of how blessing may be woven even out of a curse.

There was a mighty and righteous king who went out hunting in the mountains, and in the chase he wandered, all unknowing, into a certain forest that lay upon the slopes of the great mountains - a wood that was sacred and forbidden. For that forest had been hallowed by the great Lord Shiva, who sported there with his consort the goddess; and Shiva, that the goddess might not be disturbed, had laid a powerful enchantment upon the wood: that any male who entered it, of whatever kind, man or beast, should at once be turned into a female. Into this enchanted forest the king, hunting, all unaware, now strayed.