Meenakshi and The Supernumerary Nipple
Legend says that the Pandya king, the ruler of Madurai, rejoiced at the birth of his daughter. She had beautiful eyes, like a pair of chiral fish. So she became Meenakshi (Sanskrit for “fish eyes”).
The royal child had another physical characteristic, which the king and his wife didn’t think was so hot. That was the extra nipple on her chest. Not to worry, the wise men of the court told the parents. It would just fall away when she met her destined suitor.
As a child, I remember recoiling in horror when I first heard this story. Who dreams up a three-nippled goddess? Many-armed gods with a choice of weapons to slay evil-doers make sense. You are going for effect. Multi-headed gods who can see things in every direction. We’ll roll with that. But a whole extra boob? The mind boggles.
But Hindus are not unique in this. Ancient Greeks too depicted Artemis, Goddess of The Hunt, with multiple breasts. Followers of her Phoenician counterpart regarded extra breasts/nipples as indicators of fertility. At least, they considered it a desirable feature worth retaining.
If something’s good for divinity, it is good for characters in modern fiction as well, right? So we have Eccentrica Gallumbits, the “The Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six,” from A Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. More recently, Total Recall featured a three-breasted mutant hooker. When asked about her third boob, the actress would tell people, “I had it removed. It is in a jar on my desk.”
Despite all these instances from popular culture, I firmly relegated the concept of extra mammaries to the realm of fantasy. A recent article in BBC Future set me straight. Apparently, real people (both men and women) can have extra nipples/entire breasts, or something in-between. Initially, it was thought of as evolutionary atavism: other mammals gave birth to a litter of young ones have a row of teats to suckle them all at one go.
But, in humans these extra nipples were not just along the “milk line.” Some have them in locations like the back of a thigh or in even more inconvenient places like inside an armpit. In women, the extra breast can lactate. This anatomical oddity can get cancerous too. People opt to have their protuberances surgically removed; others treat them like mere moles.
What was Meenakshi’s attitude towards her third breast? We don’t know. It didn’t give her special powers. It was just there as a test for her suitor, the three-eyed one.
Perhaps, this extra boob did have something going for it. When friends asked the warrior princess, “Meen. How did you know he was THE one?” All she had to say in response was: “Well. He made my third breast go away….”
Here is a lovely poem on Meenakshi by Nancy Gandhi.
Meenakshi
I am a green goddess. My name means Fish-eye: like a fish-mother, whose eyes never close, I’m always watching over my children.
Yes, fish eat their young – I do that too. I protect the city, I destroy it. Even I don’t know what I’m going to do next.
It’s safest to keep me confined. My priests let me out once a year for my wedding.
Each year I marry Shiva, an invader from the north. He smears himself with ashes, wears snakes around his neck. My parents find him disgusting, which only increases my ardour.
Soon we’ll do battle, just like last year: I’ll defeat him, emerge from my sanctum, the people will celebrate our union. Then they’ll lock me up again.
Sometimes I want to be plain Meen, to swim away from husband and city, from the heavy garlands that weigh on my neck,
from the chanting priests’ oil lamps and flowers, from my worshippers’ fears and expectations, to lose myself in the teeming ocean, get a day job, cut my hair, go shopping, sit in a bar alone, and once a year, perhaps, remember.