Most respected among the hijras are the hermaphrodites (who are only very few) and the nirvan. Nirvan (or nirban) means to have undergone a sacred castration ceremony that turns you into someone who is really neither male nor female. In the past being nirvan was a requirement for every non-hermaphrodite hijra to be able to work as servant and guard in the muslim harems. Therefore, traditional hijras up to today see "the operation" as an important feature to legitimize one as a "true hijra". However, today some hijras - especially in Pakistan and big cities like Bombay, it seems- do not undergo the castration or prefer hormones and a modern "gender re-assignment chirurgy", but still regard themselves as part of the hijra community.
The Hindu side of hijra culture is closely tied to the worship of God in the form of Bahuchara Mata, something that does not have any significance among khusras of today`s Pakistan. However, muslim hijras in India carry out a certain interreligious respect for the sacred places of Bahuchara Mata. Hindu hijras usually also celebrate muslim festivals, follow many muslim customs, often carry muslim female names and are - like muslims - buried (although hindus are ususally burned) after death. In this one can see that the hijra community has its historical roots both in Islam and in Hinduism.
The social community itself was probably introduced to India in the 12th century (a.C.), when muslim rule started in the north of the subcontinent. The muslim rulers used to employ castrated mukhannathun, who wore a combination of male and female clothes, as servants and guards in the private realm of their women. In many cases those mukhannathun also rose to high positions in the muslim principalities, forming a community of great influence. Those court mukhannathun were highly organized, being, like almost every trade in a traditional muslim society, part of an own "guild", holding "decisive conventions" and following experienced elders. On the other hand, ancient indian hindu society knew a "third gender", too. Old scriptures tell of the existence of so called "kliba", female behaving male borns, who wore long hair, but were not castrated. During the long years of muslim rule in India (the Moghul empire existed until the 18th century, partly independent muslim principalities exixted until the Indian independence in 1947) those "kliba" started to esteem the highly organized structures of the court mukhannathun, while on the other side the mukhannathun accepted the kliba into their community. In Urdu, the Persian influenced language of India`s muslim culture, both mukhannathun and klibas were related to the word "hich", which designated soemething without a proper place (in this case: in the scheme of two sexes; hich - gah means "nowhere"). The modern word "hijra" probably derived from "hich"!
The prevalence of muslim influences in the hijras´ social structures is still evident today. Interviewed hijras sometimes said that it is seen as an ideal that a hijra - guru should be muslim and not hindu. The most respected among the hijra-gurus are those who had undertaken the pilgrimage to Makkah and many hindu hijras formally convert to Islam out of respect for the strong connection between muslim court culture and the "third gender" in India.
In Indian and Pakistani society the khusras are visible as female dressing transgenders and intersexuals who display a special way of behaviour. In general their idealized type of behaviour would be "ladylike" and, indeed, they usually behave in a very feminine way that they regard as an expression of their "ruh". On the other side they are also allowed to display certain ways of acting that are considered to be "unfitting" for women in traditional hindu and muslim societies. E.g. they might get very loud and aggressive when given offence.
The social functions of the hijras are diverse and they will be outlined in following articles, but in court life they were mainly related to all those functions that were lined out for the mukhannatheen in early muslim society:
Being intermediaries between men and women, guarding the sacred private realm of the women and being advicing servants with a crucial position in noble households.