n the Buddhist
Vinaya, codified in its present form around the 2nd century BC and said to be handed down by oral tradition from
Buddha himself, there are four main sex/gender categories: males, females,
ubhatobyañjanaka (people of a dual sexual nature) and
paṇḍaka (people of non-normative sexual natures, perhaps originally denoting a deficiency in male sexual capacity).
[83] As the Vinaya tradition developed, the term
paṇḍaka came to refer to a broad third sex category which encompassed intersex, male and female-bodied people with physical or behavioural attributes that were considered inconsistent with the natural characteristics of man and woman.
[93]