Shloka
अहं नामरो नैव मर्त्यो न दैत्यो
न गन्धर्वयक्षः पिशाचप्रभेदः ।
पुमान्नैव न स्त्री तथा नैव षण्डः
प्रकृष्टः प्रकाशस्वरूपः शिवोऽहम् ॥१॥
ahaṃ nāmaro naiva martyo na daityo
na gandharvayakṣaḥ piśācaprabhedaḥ ;
pumānnaiva na strī tathā naiva ṣaṇḍaḥ
prakṛṣṭaḥ prakāśasvarūpaḥ śivo’ham .1.
English Translation
I am not a God. I am certainly not a mortal. I am not a demon nor any variety of Gandharvas, Rakshasas or Pisachas. I am not at all a male nor am I a female. I am not a eunuch either. I am the auspicious (Brahman) of a highly luminous nature.
Accompanying notes to English Translation of Nirvana Manjari
It is well-known that the individual soul as the result of his varied Karma-good and bad-has to take birth repeatedly and sojourn in higher or lower regions of experience and has to inhabit appropriate bodies. This shows beyond doubt that, in as much as he is not confined always to any particular kind of embodiment, no kind of embodiment essentially attaches itself to him and that he is in his essential nature above the particular embodiments which happen to be his lot. The classification of beings into human beings, animals, gods, demons, etc., is possible only of those embodiments and not of the Self which happens to inhabit them now and then. Similarly, the distinction between males, females and eunuchs apply to the bodies only and do not affect the essential nature of the soul, for a man in one birth may, by his Karma, be born as a woman in the next birth and vice versa. There have been rare cases of change of sex even in the same birth also. When these distinctions do not attach themselves even to the individual soul who has to transmigrate from one body to another or from one region to another, it need hardly be emphasised that the Absolute Self which transcends all individuality and is therefore quite unaffected by any Karma has no place in it for such distinctions, for its nature is pure consciousness unrelated to any kind of embodiment.