Brihannala- The Eunuch from Mahabharata

                                   From the Vana Parva [Maha: 3.40-3.46] of the Mahabharata we come to know that the Pandavas had to spend 12 years in exile and another year incognito. During these years of exile Arjuna spent a period of time with his father Indra at Indraprastha. Once as he was watching the celestial dancer Urvashi dance in the court of his father, both his father and Indra’s chief Gandharva musician Chitrasena mistook the adoring gaze of Arjuna at the dancing of Urvashi, as if he had been smitten by Kama.

  Arjuna spurned the amorous advances of Urvashi as unbecoming of a mother towards her son. Urvashi had once been married to a king named Pururavas and had borne a son named Ayus from that liaison; Ayus was a distant forebear of Arjuna, hence he regarded Urvashi as a mother. Arjuna reminded Urvashi of this connection while rejecting her advances. But in her aroused passion for the male in Arjuna, Urvashi has lost her power of reasoning. Urvashi, the love smote Apsara curses Arjuna in her anger, born out of unrequited love cursed him that he may lose his manliness and would have to spend time among women, unregarded and scorned as a eunuch.
 

Arjuna was stupefied. He did not know what to do. At that juncture, his father Indra comes forward, to modify the curse of Urvashi, such that the curse will be effective only for a period of twelve months and that too of Arjuna’s choosing.So, During the 13th year of exile of the Pandavas at which time they are required to live in disguise Arjuna chooses to live the life of a transgender, or Brihannala in the inner apartments of the Queen of King Virata, teaching dance and fine arts to her daughter Uttara, the princess of the Kingdom of Matsya and later also won the battle against the Kauravas for Uttara Kumara, when they attacked the kingdom suspecting the presence of the Pandavas. This episode in the Mahabharata gave birth to a proverb “The curse of Urvashi is a blessing in disguise”