Enaree / Энареи: Nara and Narayana

Urvashi's birth is narrated in the Devi-Bhagavata Purana. In the legend, the brothers Nara and Narayana are performing penance to please the creator god Brahma, but this makes Indra (the king of the devas) insecure about his throne and he does not want the sage to acquire divine powers. As a result, he creates multiple illusions to break their penance, but all of his tricks fail. Finally, he orders the apsaras of his court, including Rambha, Menaka, and Tilottama, to go to Nara-Narayana and distract them through seduction.

Accompanied by the god of love, Kama, and his consort, Rati, the apsaras go to Nara-Narayana, and start to dance seductively in front of them. However, the sages remain unaffected by this and decide to break the pride of the apsaras. Narayana slaps his thigh, from which Urvashi emerges. Her beauty leaves Indra's apsaras matchless, and they become ashamed of their evil act. Nara and Narayana assure Indra that they would not take his throne, and gift Urvashi to him. She occupied the place of pride in Indra’s court.

Enaree

An Enaree or Enarei (Ancient Greek: ἐναρής) was a Scythian shaman; described as effeminate or androgynous. Scythian shamanism involved religious ecstasy through the use of entheogens; they had no temples and worshipped the forces of nature.

According to Herodotus, the Scythians who pillaged the temple of Aphrodite (see Venus Castina) at Ascelon, and all their descendants after them, were afflicted by the goddess with the “female” sickness: and so the Scythians say that they are afflicted as a consequence of this and also that those who visit Scythian territory see among them the condition of those whom the Scythians call Enarees. Herodotus associates their patron goddess, Argimpasa, with Aphrodite Urania via interpretatio graeca.

Herodotus also mentions some of their religious practices:

There are many diviners among the Scythians, who divine by means of many willow wands as I will show. They bring great bundles of wands, which they lay on the ground and unfasten, and utter their divinations as they lay the rods down one by one; and while still speaking, they gather up the rods once more and place them together again; this manner of divination is hereditary among them. The Enarees, who are hermaphrodites, say that Aphrodite gave them the art of divination, which they practise by means of lime-tree bark. They cut this bark into three portions, and prophesy while they braid and unbraid these in their fingers.

The Greek physician Hippocrates, who speaks about the Enarees in his work On Airs, Waters, Places, theorized that although the inhabitants of Scythia believe the cause of their effeminacy is divine, he believed the cause of their impotency was a result of continuous horseback riding, and it was for this reason they have adopted feminine roles.

Nara and Narayana

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