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Women and Buddhism (Buddhism)

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  1. Introduction
  2. The very existence of a “Women and Buddhism” entry but no “Men in Buddhism” entry implies a set of methodological lacunae in Buddhist studies. On the one hand, Buddhist studies have often proceeded as if the history of men in Buddhism stands in for Buddhist history, with little effort made to mention or recover the significance of women. On the other hand, systematic methodological choices, such as the discounting of feminist analysis and the privileging of text over other sources of knowledge, have exacerbated the tendency to elide the role of women in Buddhism. This elision of women, or their marginalization, in Buddhist analyses where “man” or “male” is assumed to represent “human” has prompted a countersurge of analyses. These latter analyses have found ample evidence for the centrality of gender and women in shaping Buddhist society and soteriology. Although works are now available that cover the role of women and gender in most Buddhist eras or societies, these have only scratched the surface of an extraordinarily rich set of material and questions. It remains to be seen how well Buddhist scholarship can give gender and women their proper place in developing its central concerns.
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  4. General Overviews
  5. Relatively few single-authored sources attempt to cover the role of women across the wide span of Buddhist history and traditions. Given the depth and breadth required, many scholars have sought a narrower scope. Barnes 1987 provides a broad overview of women’s social and symbolic roles in a range of Buddhist historical periods and literatures. Barnes 1994 analyzes the role of Buddhist women across Asia today and addresses the most significant social shifts that women have brought about in their individual traditions. In addition to Barnes, Gross 1993 surveys the largest set of texts, although the author deploys feminist theory and methods to critique Buddhist attitudes toward women in texts and practice in her search for a “usable Buddhism.” The latter half of the book reenvisions and recuperates the aspects of Buddhist traditions that are most useful for advancing the cause of women and feminists today. Kajiyama 1982 offers a more limited exploration of mostly Mahayana and some early Indian texts on the question of whether women can attain buddhahood. Willis 1985 surveys the major attitudes toward women and the feminine from the Buddha’s day through Vajrayana Buddhism, which the author argues represents the most liberating for women.
  6.  
  7. Barnes, Nancy J. “Buddhism.” In Women in World Religions. Edited by Arvind Sharma, 105–134. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.
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  10.  
  11. A formidable overview of the role of women in Buddhist literatures and societies from the Buddha’s day onward. Traces the shifting role of women from early to later Buddhist societies but elides the internal debates on these issues.
  12.  
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  15.  
  16. Barnes, Nancy J. “Women in Buddhism.” In Today’s Woman in World Religions. Edited by Arvind Sharma, 137–170. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
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  20. Concentrates on the shifting roles of women in contemporary Buddhist societies, including recent initiatives such as the move to reinstate full ordination for nuns in societies in which it has lapsed and women’s participation in lay movements such as the Japanese new religions, Theravada meditation groups, and movements for social justice and peaceful change in Tibet and Sri Lanka.
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  24.  
  25. Gross, Rita M. Buddhism after Patriarchy: Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
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  28.  
  29. Offers a sweeping feminist revalorization of Buddhism by tracing the numerous discourses that have structured the status of women in Buddhism across Asia and across history. Provides a conceptual overview of the symbolic and substantive issues that have led to the subordination and valorization of women.
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  34. Kajiyama, Yuichi. “Women in Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist 15.2 (1982): 53–70.
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  37.  
  38. Surveys Mahayana and Indian Buddhist texts to conclude that, although early Indian Buddhism did not discriminate against women on spiritual grounds, early Mahayana texts denied women buddhahood, a discrimination further developed in Pure Land sutras and sutras in which women changed sex in order to gain buddhahood.
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  42.  
  43. Willis, Jan. “Nuns and Benefactresses: The Role of Women in the Development of Buddhism.” In Women, Religion, and Social Change. Edited by Yvonne Haddad and Ellison Banks Findly, 59–85. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985.
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  46.  
  47. Discusses the critical role that women have played in Buddhist literature, distinguishing major attitudes in early Indian, Mahayana, and later Vajrayana texts. Finds evidence for both egalitarian and somewhat misogynist views in every era, although concludes that the Vajrayana is most conducive to female liberation.
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  51.  
  52. Anthologies
  53. Over the years, most anthologies have attempted to span the role of women in the variety of Buddhist traditions in both contemporary and historical fashion. A number of Karma Lekshe Tsomo’s anthologies draw from a series of conferences organized by Sakyadhita, a transnational institution dedicated to the global development of Buddhist women. These conferences took place in Bodhgaya, India (1987); Thailand (1991); Sri Lanka (1993); Ladakh (1995); Cambodia (1997); Lumbini, Nepal (2000); Taiwan (2002); Korea (2004); Malaysia (2006); Mongolia (2008); Vietnam (2010); and, again, Thailand in 2011. Although Tsomo 1988 and Tsomo 1999 are organized by theme and by geographic area, Tsomo 2000 and Findly 2000 offer a more focused discussion of women’s role across a number of discursive or social arenas in a wide variety of traditions.
  54.  
  55. Findly, Ellison Banks, ed. Women’s Buddhism, Buddhism’s Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
  56.  
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  58.  
  59. A broad outline of contemporary women’s roles in Buddhist traditions across Asia. Organized thematically with key sections on ordination and relations between women and the sangha, teachers and lineages, body and health, art and architecture, and activism and social change.
  60.  
  61. Find this resource:
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  63.  
  64. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Sakyadhita: Daughters of the Buddha. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1988.
  65.  
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  67.  
  68. A very general introduction to the role of women in many Buddhist traditions. Offers some thematic contributions on ordination, education, and community and also commemorates the Dalai Lama’s memorable opening speech in Bodhgaya, India, at the first Sakyadhita conference dedicated to improving the situation of women in Buddhism.
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  70. Find this resource:
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  72.  
  73. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Buddhist Women across Cultures. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.
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  76.  
  77. A compendium of the role of Buddhist women in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Tibet in historical and contemporary terms. Also includes sections on contemporary relations between Asian and Western feminists as well as the role of contemporary women in these discourses.
  78.  
  79. Find this resource:
  80.  
  81.  
  82. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming against the Stream. London: Curzon, 2000.
  83.  
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  85.  
  86. An overview of the role of women in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Himalayas, and Hawaii. Concludes with a moving section on the role of women engaged in Buddhism that addresses race, sexual misconduct, human rights, peace, and other areas of social justice.
  87.  
  88. Find this resource:
  89.  
  90.  
  91. Women and the Buddha
  92. Horner 1930 addresses the role of women in the Buddha’s day most generally in addition to discussing the Buddha’s relation to women. More recent authors have sought to problematize the Buddha’s relations with his aunt and foster mother Gotami (Ohnuma 2006, Strong 2002, Walters 1994), his deceased biological mother Maya (Ohnuma 2006, Shaw 2006), and his wife Yasodhara (Obeyesekere 2009, Kabilsingh 1998, Strong 2002), among other women. Kabilsingh 1998 and Strong 2002 provide a useful account of the various recensions of the Buddha’s birth, his abandonment of his family on the night of his renunciation, and his reunion with his family members, all of which offer startling insight into his relations with his relatives and with women more generally. Shaw 2006 describes the Buddha’s mother’s mythical and cosmic role as well as her connection to ongoing ritual practices in the sacred Lumbini grove. Walters 1994 argues that Gotami is depicted as a female equivalent of the Buddha in the Apadana literature, who alone of the Buddha’s earliest disciples reached parinibbana.
  93.  
  94. Horner, I. B. Women under Primitive Buddhism: Laywomen and Almswomen. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930.
  95.  
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  97.  
  98. Describes the various roles of Buddhist women as mothers, wives, daughters, widows, and eventually nuns in early Indian Buddhism that are described in canonical Pali texts. Recovers the significance of women’s voices and agency in shaping Buddhist institutions such as the nuns order and alms giving. Is somewhat compromised by its Protestant presuppositions and biblical imagery.
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  100. Find this resource:
  101.  
  102.  
  103. Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. “She Who Challenged the Buddha.” Dialogue and Alliance 12.1 (1998): 21–34.
  104.  
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  106.  
  107. Describes the Buddha’s life from the perspective of Yasodhara (or Bimba) and other women in the Buddha’s life. Draws on the social and cultural context to examine the role of an Indian wife, especially one who is abandoned by her husband, in the Buddha’s day. Reexamines the discursive effects of the pain and suffering experienced by those who were renounced or left behind in Indian society.
  108.  
  109. Find this resource:
  110.  
  111.  
  112. Obeyesekere, Ranjini. Yasodhara, the Wife of the Bodhisattva: The Sinhala Yasodharavata. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009.
  113.  
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  115.  
  116. Translation of a Sri Lankan folk poem and 15th-century prose text that details the role the Buddha’s wife Yasodhara played in the Buddha’s story of liberation. The poem develops Yasodhara’s own struggles toward liberation in parallel with the Buddha’s struggles, using each story as a lens through which to view the other.
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  120.  
  121. Ohnuma, Reiko. “Debt to the Mother: A Neglected Aspect of the Founding of the Buddhist Nuns’ Order.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74.4 (2006): 861–901.
  122.  
  123. DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfl026Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  124.  
  125. Analyzes the discourse of reciprocity between the Buddha and Gotami, his aunt. Illuminates the contrasting views of how the reciprocal debts between Buddha and Gotami are to be repaid and their connection to the Buddha’s creation of the nuns’ order. Contrasts the role of the “good” mother (Maya, who dies after delivery and is debt free) with the “bad” mother (Gomati, who either owes or is owed a debt). Available online by subscription.
  126.  
  127. Find this resource:
  128.  
  129.  
  130. Shaw, Miranda E. “Mayadevi: The Buddha’s Wondrous Mother and Her Sacred Grove.” In Buddhist Goddesses of India. By Miranda E. Shaw, 38–61. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
  131.  
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  133.  
  134. Elaborates the details of Maya’s miraculous conception, gestation, and delivery of the Buddha at Lumbini according to early Indian Buddhist texts, including the Buddhacarita, Mahavastu, Lalitavistara, and Nidanakatha. Engages with the mythic and cosmic dimensions of Maya’s role as the paradigmatic mother of all buddhas and elaborates the ritual significance of the Lumbini grove.
  135.  
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  137.  
  138.  
  139. Strong, John S. The Buddha: A Short Biography. Oxford: Oneworld, 2002.
  140.  
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  142.  
  143. Presents a broad overview of the critical events in the Buddha’s life that related to women: his conception, gestation, and birth; his marriage to Yasodhara; his renunciation of wife and child before seeking enlightenment; and his return to the palace to greet his wife, son, and father and convert them to the Buddhist path.
  144.  
  145. Find this resource:
  146.  
  147.  
  148. Walters, Jonathan. “A Voice from the Silence: The Buddha’s Mother’s Story.” History of Religions 33.4 (1994): 358–379.
  149.  
  150. DOI: 10.1086/463377Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  151.  
  152. Revisits the assumptions of Bode and Rhys-Davids that early Indian Buddhism was not androcentric by concluding that early Buddhist women were active constituents of their own worlds. Suggests that the view of Gotami as a female Buddha paved the way for a parallel path of female spirituality that was equal to, but separate from, the male path.
  153.  
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  155.  
  156.  
  157. Women and the Vinaya
  158. The two most critical issues in the study of women and the Vinaya concern the account of the founding of the nuns’ order and comparisons between the number of vows held by fully ordained nuns, in the Vinayas of various Buddhist schools. Horner 1938–1966, Roth 1970, and Hirakawa 1982 either translate or provide complete sources for both issues, while Husken 2000 addresses the authenticity of the eight heavy rules that subordinated nuns. Heirman 2001, Hirakawa 1982, Kabilsingh 1998, and Wu 2001 offer detailed comparisons of the vows a fully ordained nun holds in the Vinayas of both extant and lapsed schools of Buddhism, while Tsomo 1996 contrasts two contemporary Vinayas, the Chinese Dharmaguptaka and the Tibetan Mulasarvastivada, with an excellent introduction to the ways that the Vinaya vows structure nuns’ practices.
  159.  
  160. Heirman, Ann. “Chinese Nuns and Their Ordination in the Fifth Century.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 24.2 (2001): 275–304.
  161.  
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  163.  
  164. Analyzes the views about what constituted proper ordination for nuns by the 5th century using assorted Vinaya texts, including the Pali, the Mahisasaka, the Sanskrit Mahasamghika-Lokottaravada, the Chinese Dharmaguptaka, and the Chinese Mulasarvastivada, as well as two Chinese sutras on Gautami or Bhiksuni Mahaprajapati.
  165.  
  166. Find this resource:
  167.  
  168.  
  169. Hirakawa, Akira. Monastic Discipline for Buddhist Nuns: An English Translation of the Chinese Text of the Mahasamghika-Bhiksuni-Vinaya. Patna, India: KP Jayaswal Research Institute, 1982.
  170.  
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  172.  
  173. Authoritative English translation of Fa-Hsien’s Chinese translation of the Mahasamghika Bhiksuni Vinaya, with footnotes as annotations.
  174.  
  175. Find this resource:
  176.  
  177.  
  178. Horner, I. B. The Book of the Discipline Vinaya-Pitaka. 5 vols. London: Pali Text Society, 1938–1966.
  179.  
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  181.  
  182. Translation of the entire Vinaya, including both the Patimokkha, or vows held by ordained nuns as well as the Cullavaga, Which includes the story of the exchanges between the Buddha, Ananda, and Gautami (his foster mother and aunt), which led to the foundation of the nuns’ order.
  183.  
  184. Find this resource:
  185.  
  186.  
  187. Husken, Ute. “The Legend of the Establishment of the Buddhist Order of Nuns.” Journal of the Pali Text Society 26 (2000): 43–69.
  188.  
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  190.  
  191. An analysis of the founding of the nuns’ order as recounted in the Pali Cullavagga, including the role of the Eight Heavy Rules, or Gurudharma. Concludes that good evidence exists that these eight rules were created after the Buddha’s day at a time when the nuns’ order was already established.
  192.  
  193. Find this resource:
  194.  
  195.  
  196. Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. The Bhikkuni Patimokkha of the Six Schools. New Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1998.
  197.  
  198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199.  
  200. Translates the vows that nuns hold (the Bhikkuni Patimokkha) in the various Vinaya according to six early schools of Buddhism: Theravada, Mahasanghika, Mahisasaka, Sarvastivada, Dharmaguptaka, and Mulasarvastivada. Argues for the close similarity between how these six schools frame and structure the vows for fully ordained nuns.
  201.  
  202. Find this resource:
  203.  
  204.  
  205. Roth, Gustav. Bhiksuni-Vinaya: Manual of Discipline for Buddhist Nuns. Patna, India: KP Jayaswal Research Institute, 1970.
  206.  
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  208.  
  209. Authoritative edition of the Sanskrit Bhiksuni Vinaya from the Mahasamghika-Lokottaravadin school, with extensive introduction and annotations, based on an 11th- to 12th-century palm leaf manuscript from Bengal.
  210.  
  211. Find this resource:
  212.  
  213.  
  214. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
  215.  
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  217.  
  218. A comparative analysis of the Chinese Dharmaguptaka and Tibetan Mulasarvastivada versions of the Bhiksuni Pratimoksha sutras. Uses explicit feminist hermeneutics to provide useful insight into the structure, context, and intent of the Bhiksuni Pratimoksha sutra in two different schools and how they vary as well as resemble one another.
  219.  
  220. Find this resource:
  221.  
  222.  
  223. Wu Yin. Choosing Simplicity: Commentary on the Bhikshuni Pratimoksha. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2001.
  224.  
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  226.  
  227. A preeminent Taiwanese nun discusses the precepts that a fully ordained nun holds today and their relation to the enduring institution of monasticism. Categorizes the vows according to the type of behavior they regulate.
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  230.  
  231.  
  232. Women and the Therigatha
  233. The Therigatha is one of the most remarkable texts in any world religious tradition in its presentation of such a detailed compendium of female spiritual experience. While Rhys-Davids 1909 and Norman 1995 offer more traditional and concise translations of the Pali Therigatha, Murcott 1991 uses a later commentary to flesh out the biographies of individual women and strives for a contemporary translation that addresses female experience and subjectivity. Murcott 1991, Lang 1986, and Blackstone 1988 address the role of authorship and the mediation of female experience within the poems, while Findly 1999 examines the question of women’s Arahant status in the Therigatha and other texts.
  234.  
  235. Blackstone, Kathryn. Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: The Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha. London: Curzon, 1988.
  236.  
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  238.  
  239. A detailed study of the Therigatha, with the Theragatha as a comparison, that attends to issues of authorship and the differences between male and female experiences of liberation, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the poems.
  240.  
  241. Find this resource:
  242.  
  243.  
  244. Findly, Ellison Banks. “Women and the Arahant Issue in Early Pali Literature.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 15.1 (1999): 57–76.
  245.  
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  247.  
  248. Using Vedic sources to uncover the roots of Arahant, analyzes the paucity of textual evidence for women as Arahants in Pali texts. Suggests that although women’s spiritual attainments in the Therigatha implied Arahant status, the inability of women to serve as a proper field of merit denied them this official status.
  249.  
  250. Find this resource:
  251.  
  252.  
  253. Lang, Karen Christina. “Lord Death’s Snare: Gender-Related Imagery in the Theragatha and Therigatha.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2 (1986): 63–79.
  254.  
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  256.  
  257. Attempts to recover the role of women in the formation of early Indian Buddhist discourses through a comparative analysis of the Theragatha and Therigatha poems. Suggests that although the nuns’ poems shared many of the misogynist or androcentric symbols used by monks, they managed to appropriate such stock images as testimony to their own spiritual struggles and accomplishments.
  258.  
  259. Find this resource:
  260.  
  261.  
  262. Murcott, Susan. The First Buddhist Women: Translations and Commentary on the Therigatha. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 1991.
  263.  
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  265.  
  266. A modern translation of the Therigatha poems relying on later commentary by Dhammapala, which presents the remarkable voices of the Buddha’s earliest female disciples. Offers poetic and vivid testimony to the lives and experiences of women in early Indian society. Organizes the poems thematically in order to elaborate on how female enlightenment, or awakening, relates to women’s positions as teachers, mothers, widows, courtesans, and friends, among other roles.
  267.  
  268. Find this resource:
  269.  
  270.  
  271. Norman, K. R. The Elders Verses II: Therigatha. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1995.
  272.  
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  274.  
  275. Updated version of Rhys-David’s original translation of the poems by the Buddha’s early female disciples that uses a later and improved edition of the text. It strives for a simple translation from the Pali that sacrifices poetry to the goal of immediacy.
  276.  
  277. Find this resource:
  278.  
  279.  
  280. Rhys Davids, Caroline. Psalms of the Early Buddhists: Psalms of the Sisters, Psalms of the Brethren. London: Pali Text Society, 1909.
  281.  
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  283.  
  284. The earliest translation of the Therigatha poems that describes the experiences of the Buddha’s earliest female disciples using commentary by Dhammapala, a 6th-century Sri Lankan. Tends to rely on biblical language and imagery as well as unstated Protestant presuppositions.
  285.  
  286. Find this resource:
  287.  
  288.  
  289. Decline of the Nuns’ Order
  290. The decline of the nuns’ order in India and elsewhere in Asia has been a topic of perennial interest, particularly when contrasted with similar declines and subsequent revivals of the monks’ order across Asia. Falk 1980 offers a classic analysis of the economic and social reasons for decline, while Skilling 1993–1994 finds evidence of fully ordained nuns in India up through the 8th century. Schopen 1996, Schopen 1997, and Barnes 2000 discuss epigraphic and textual sources up through the first centuries CE that offer ample evidence for the nuns’ social and economic power as well as the corresponding anxiety it caused monks and the effects on the relations between the orders.
  291.  
  292. Barnes, Nancy J. “The Nuns at the Stupa: Inscriptional Evidence for the Lives and Activities of Early Buddhist Nuns in India.” In Women’s Buddhism, Buddhism’s Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Edited by Ellison Banks Findly, 17–36. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
  293.  
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295.  
  296. Describes the power and wealth of Buddhist nuns relative to monks by contrasting inscriptions that describe nuns and monks as donors in the early Indian Buddhist landscape. The analysis yields insight into competition between the orders and serves as a tribute to nuns’ power.
  297.  
  298. Find this resource:
  299.  
  300.  
  301. Falk, Nancy Auer. “The Case of the Vanishing Nuns: The Fruits of Ambivalence in Ancient Buddhism.” In Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures. Edited by Nancy Falk and Rita Gross, 207–224. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.
  302.  
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  304.  
  305. Traces the economic and social decline of the nuns’ order in India; blames the final dissolution of the nuns’ order on its lack of patronage and declining prestige, which originated with the eight rules subordinating nuns to monks. Misdates the final dissolution of the nuns order in India to the 7th century when later sources (see Gutschow 2004,cited under Contemporary Women in the Himalayas and Tibet) find evidence for fully ordained nuns in the Indian Himalayas in the 11th century.
  306.  
  307. Find this resource:
  308.  
  309.  
  310. Schopen, Gregory. “The Suppression of Nuns and the Ritual Murder of Their Special Dead in Two Buddhist Monastic Texts.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 24.6 (1996): 563–592.
  311.  
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  313.  
  314. Analyzes the persistent anxiety of monks vis-à-vis nuns in their struggle for social and economic status in early Indian Buddhism using both textual and epigraphic sources. Relays stories that depict monks destroying stupas built by nuns on several occasions as a means of discussing the ways that monks sought, early on, to control and limit the degree to which nuns found means of support or alms independent of, and in competition with, the monks’ order.
  315.  
  316. Find this resource:
  317.  
  318.  
  319. Schopen, Gregory. “On Monks, Nuns, and Vulgar Practices: The Introduction of the Image Cult into Indian Buddhism.” In Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. By Gregory Schopen, 238–257. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997.
  320.  
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  322.  
  323. Traces the epigraphic and archaeological sources as well as texts that provide evidence for the active role of nuns in perpetuating the cult of Buddhist relics and images in the centuries after the Buddha’s death. The new evidence that nuns were quite central in the image cults and the alms that flowed from them suggests that competition and jealousy by monks played a role in their subsequent marginalization.
  324.  
  325. Find this resource:
  326.  
  327.  
  328. Skilling, Peter. “A Note on the History of the Bhikkhuni Sangha: The Order of Nuns after the Parinirvana.” World Fellowship of Buddhists Review 30.4–31.1 (1993–1994): 29–49.
  329.  
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  331.  
  332. Skilling (1994) describes archaeological and epigraphic evidence for the decline of the nuns’ order in India, including evidence from Gujarat that attests to the presence of fully ordained nuns as late as the 8th century in India.
  333.  
  334. Find this resource:
  335.  
  336.  
  337. Early Buddhism
  338. The study of women in early Indian Buddhism has focused on the degree to which this period was androcentric, egalitarian, or harbored outright misogyny. Although most authors agree that one can find traces of all these attitudes in early Indian Buddhism, they disagree on the degree to which any single attitude dominated a given historical period. Sponberg 1992 opens the debate with the author’s summary of four dominant Buddhist attitudes toward women that characterized Indian Buddhism from the Buddha’s day through the 8th century. Collett 2006 offers a recent reframing of this debate that argues against an earlier and too heavy reliance on the Vinaya and Therigatha as authoritative texts for the early Indian period. The author points to noncanonical sources, such as the Tamil texts discussed in Richman 1988, that offer more colloquial or regional appreciations of the role of early Buddhist nuns. Wilson 1996 considers the role that the female body and female subjectivity played in early Buddhist texts, while Ohnuma 2001 revisits the complex shifts in feminine symbols and their meanings in the early bodhisattva literature. Young 2004 surveys the roles played by women in early Indian as well as later Indian tantric Buddhism, arguing that female sexuality was a means to liberation for both the courtesan and the yogini in the tantric tradition. Obeyesekere 2001 translates a medieval Sinhala text that characterizes the roles of the Buddha’s first female disciples.
  339.  
  340. Collett, Alice. “Buddhism and Gender: Reframing and Refocusing the Debate.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22.2 (2006): 55–84.
  341.  
  342. DOI: 10.2979/FSR.2006.22.2.55Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343.  
  344. Questions the primacy of texts such as the Vinaya and Therigatha in the analysis of early Indian Buddhism by examining how early translators, such as Rhys-Davids, Bode, and Horner, framed Buddhism in Protestant, feminist, and rational terms that reflected their own times more than the historical period they were studying. Available online by subscription.
  345.  
  346. Find this resource:
  347.  
  348.  
  349. Obeyesekere, Ranjini. Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories from the Saddharmaratnavaliya. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
  350.  
  351. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  352.  
  353. Translation of the Saddharmaratnavaliya, an 11th-century Sinhala text, that is itself a translation of the Pali Dhammapadattakata, a 5th-century account of the lives of the Buddha’s early female disciples. The later Sinhala text embellished the early Pali one with metaphors and images that account for its current popularity.
  354.  
  355. Find this resource:
  356.  
  357.  
  358. Ohnuma, Reiko. “Woman, Bodhisattva, and Buddha.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 17.1 (2001): 63–83.
  359.  
  360. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  361.  
  362. Analyzes the gender discourses around femininity and masculinity in bodhisattva narratives from early Indian and some Mahayana texts. Argues that the male bodhisattva occupies an ambivalent or fluid status between female and male, and that formerly negative feminine qualities are inverted as positive when associated with a bodhisattva who signifies bodily perfection as well as masculinity.
  363.  
  364. Find this resource:
  365.  
  366.  
  367. Richman, Paula. Women, Branch Stories, and Religious Rhetoric in a Tamil Buddhist Text. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1988.
  368.  
  369. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  370.  
  371. Discusses the rhetoric surrounding gender, renunciation, and its relation to social and cultural discourses in a 6th-century Tamil text called the Manimekalai, which is about a courtesan who renounces her wealth to become a Buddhist nun. Describes the lengthy philosophical training of the nun as evidence that nuns still commanded considerable resources at this late date in Indian Buddhism.
  372.  
  373. Find this resource:
  374.  
  375.  
  376. Sponberg, Alan. “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. Edited by José Ignacio Cabezón, 3–36. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
  377.  
  378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379.  
  380. Offers an insightful analysis of attitudes toward women in Indian Buddhist literature from the Buddha’s day through the 8th century, including early tantra. Produces a typology of four major attitudes: soteriological inclusiveness, institutional androcentricism, ascetic misogyny, and soteriological androgyny.
  381.  
  382. Find this resource:
  383.  
  384.  
  385. Wilson, Liz. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
  386.  
  387. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  388.  
  389. Very detailed analysis of the variety of Buddhist gazes in early and medieval Buddhist literature that situate the female body as a paradigmatic representation of transience, impermanence, and foulness. Discusses the explicit gendering of discourses in which the body is a vehicle for abjection, or an object of horror, for male and female disciples.
  390.  
  391. Find this resource:
  392.  
  393.  
  394. Young, Serenity. Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual. New York: Routledge, 2004.
  395.  
  396. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  397.  
  398. Uses Buddhist literature and art to analyze the interplay of gender and sexuality in Buddhist discourses on mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, courtesans, and consorts. Elaborates the way that Buddhist women have challenged and accommodated the prevailing gender and sex norms in early Indian and Tibetan society.
  399.  
  400. Find this resource:
  401.  
  402.  
  403. Mahayana Women in China
  404. This exploration of the role of women in Chinese Mahayana Buddhist literature offers ample evidence both for and against a rhetoric of equality. Paul 1985 gives the classic overview of the degree to which the female body is an obstacle or an impediment to enlightenment and the question of whether women could gain the status of irreversible Buddha or bodhisattva. Levering 1992 focuses on the Ch’an literature and Schuster 1981 addresses the Mahayana sutras that discuss the changing of the female bodies to extend the analysis. Baochang 1994, Schuster 1985, and Grant 2003 all interpret what the biographies of the earliest Chinese nuns might have to tell us about the role of Buddhist women in Chinese society. Grant 2009 interprets the role of women in Ch’an Buddhism as well as broader Chinese society in 17th-century China. Adamek 2006 analyzes the kinship and gender relations that are evidenced by a set of 7th-century memorials for Chinese nuns, situating them within the wider evidence for female religious activities in that era.
  405.  
  406. Adamek, Wendy Leigh. “A Niche of Their Own: The Power of Convention in Two Inscriptions for Medieval Chinese Nuns.” History of Religions (2006): 1–26.
  407.  
  408. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  409.  
  410. Describes a set of 7th-century memorial niches in relation to a discussion of kinship, gender, reciprocity, and representation in Tang-era Buddhism. Argues that these memorials are testament to the enduring collective power of women at a less well-known rural site as well as to the power of extreme austerities or exemplary discipline as a means to elide or transcend sexual identity.
  411.  
  412. Find this resource:
  413.  
  414.  
  415. Baochang. Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries. Translated by Katherine Tsai. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994.
  416.  
  417. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  418.  
  419. A translation of fifty-six biographies of Chinese Buddhists who lived between the 4th and late 5th centuries CE that offers insight into the individual as well as broader cultural and social circumstances that led women to ordain in this period. These biographies provide glimpses of women’s close connections to the Imperial Court and its power as well as other accomplishments in society as much as it does into the newly established monastic order.
  420.  
  421. Find this resource:
  422.  
  423.  
  424. Grant, Beata. Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003.
  425.  
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427.  
  428. Beautifully produced anthology of poems written by Chinese Buddhist nuns between the 3rd and 19th centuries. Provides a brief biographical introduction to each poet and presents the Chinese text side by side with an English translation.
  429.  
  430. Find this resource:
  431.  
  432.  
  433. Grant, Beata. Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth Century China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009.
  434.  
  435. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  436.  
  437. Analyzes the “discourse records,” or collections of sermons, letters, poems, and other autobiographical materials, of notable female Ch’an Buddhists in 17th-century China. Uses these texts, which largely adopt male conventions, to balance the negative view of nuns found in popular literature of the era.
  438.  
  439. Find this resource:
  440.  
  441.  
  442. Levering, Miriam. “Lin-Chi (Rinzai) Ch’an and Gender: The Rhetoric of Equality and the Rhetoric of Heroism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. Edited by José Ignacio Cabezón,137–156. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
  443.  
  444. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  445.  
  446. Contrasts the Ch’an Buddhist rhetoric of equality—the belief that all sentient beings have an originally enlightened mind—with the rhetoric of heroism, which provides a predominantly masculine model for enlightenment and could not fully account for female spiritual experience.
  447.  
  448. Find this resource:
  449.  
  450.  
  451. Paul, Diana. Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in Mahayana Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
  452.  
  453. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  454.  
  455. Examines the central discourses on gender in several Chinese Mahayana texts and one Sanskrit Vinaya fragment. Explores the internal contradictions in the way such texts interpret the female body as an impediment or obstacle to enlightenment and queries the discursive effect of women’s roles as nun, wife, mother, and dharma friend.
  456.  
  457. Find this resource:
  458.  
  459.  
  460. Schuster, Nancy. “Changing the Female Body: Wise Women and the Bodhisattva Career in Some Maharatnakutasutras.” Journal of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 4.1 (1981): 24–69.
  461.  
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463.  
  464. Interrogates several Mahayana sutras (the Maharatnakutasutra, the Saddharmapundarikasutra, the Vimalakirti sutra, and the Srimalasimhanadasutra) on the issue of whether it is possible to gain enlightenment in the female body. Shows the strengths and weaknesses of each sutra in arguing for irrelevance of gender in the quest for enlightenment.
  465.  
  466. Find this resource:
  467.  
  468.  
  469. Schuster, Nancy. “Striking a Balance: Women and Images of Women in Early Chinese Buddhism.” In Women, Religion, and Social Change. Edited by Yvonne Y. Haddad and Ellison Banks Findly, 87–112. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985.
  470.  
  471. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  472.  
  473. Explores possible connections between views on women promulgated by the major Mahayana sutras translated into Chinese between the 3rd and 5th centuries and the status of early Buddhist nuns in China. Contextualizes Bao-chang’s biographies of the first Chinese nuns within Mahayana views of women as teachers or bodhisattvas as well as Confucian culture and politics.
  474.  
  475. Find this resource:
  476.  
  477.  
  478. Mahayana Women in Japan
  479. Faure 2003 offers a powerful analysis of the shifting power relations between women and men within and across Buddhist discourses and institutions in Japanese society (using some Indian and Chinese sources as contrast). Ruch 2002 provides a groundbreaking anthology of the history of women in premodern Japan that attends to the complex status of women and nuns across, and within, different historical periods and sects. Ruch’s anthology revisits a variety of sources, including pilgrimage routes, art and other artifacts, and temple architecture, to survey an eclectic set of topics, including tonsure, divorce temples, female guardians, burial rites, husband–wife congregations, and female proselytizers (kumano bikuni) in medieval Japanese society. Wacker 2005 reviews Ruch’s book together with other recent works that explore the art and society of Japanese nuns and laywomen in relation to Buddhism. Meeks 2010 looks at a single temple to understand the ways that women were able to negotiate a space of power and agency within Buddhist society by looking past the restrictions imposed by canonical doctrine and jealous monks. Meeks 2006 uses the ordination experiences of aristocratic women to critique the current views that women had no access to ordination in Japan after the 8th century. Kawahashi 2003 considers the historical development of the priestly ideal in Japan as a factor that obstructs gender equality in Japanese Buddhism today, while Hirakawa 1992 offers a broader analysis of the historical development of the nuns’ order in relation to broader social currents in Japan.
  480.  
  481. Faure, Bernard. The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
  482.  
  483. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  484.  
  485. Reviews the dialectics of power between the genders in Buddhist (predominantly Japanese) Mahayana literature. Argues against a simplistic view of women as victims or agents by attending to the variety of Buddhist discourses that variously promoted or constrained women’s status across, and within, historical periods, geographic areas, or social strata.
  486.  
  487. Find this resource:
  488.  
  489.  
  490. Hirakawa, Akira. “The History of Buddhist Nuns in Japan.” Buddhist Christian Studies 12.1 (1992): 147–158.
  491.  
  492. DOI: 10.2307/1389961Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  493.  
  494. Detailed historical account of the development of Buddhist nuns in Japan, beginning with a short account of how the nuns’ order arrived in China and was first transmitted to Japan. After noting the lack of a quorum of fully ordained nuns who could transmit their order, the author describes the shift toward bodhisattva precepts by both monks and nuns following the introduction of Tendai Buddhism and its many offshoots, which constitute most of the Buddhist orders in Japan today.
  495.  
  496. Find this resource:
  497.  
  498.  
  499. Kawahashi, Noriko. “Feminist Buddhism as Praxis: Women in Traditional Buddhism.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 30 (2003): 291–313.
  500.  
  501. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  502.  
  503. Critiques the role of men who appropriate women’s voices or human rights idioms to legitimize the status quo of female subordination within Japanese Buddhism. Explores the invisibility of women and the distortion of their roles that results from a laicized priesthood that relies on temple wives while idealizing renunciation.
  504.  
  505. Find this resource:
  506.  
  507.  
  508. Meeks, Lori. “Reconfiguring Ritual Authenticity: The Ordination Traditions of Aristocratic Women in Premodern Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 33.1 (2006): 51–74.
  509.  
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511.  
  512. Argues that even as women lost the right to Vinaya ordinations in 8th- and 9th-century Japan, they excelled in prominent court-centered Buddhist ordinations that established their legitimacy in elite society. The ability of elite women to commission their own ordinations gave them the authenticity of bodhisattva vows even as they were denied formal monastic ordinations.
  513.  
  514. Find this resource:
  515.  
  516.  
  517. Meeks, Lori. Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010.
  518.  
  519. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  520.  
  521. Discusses the revival and slow decline of the Hokkeji temple between the 8th and 12th centuries in order to examine the cultural, economic, and social factors that advanced, as well as obstructed, the power of women in Japanese society and Buddhism.
  522.  
  523. Find this resource:
  524.  
  525.  
  526. Ruch, Barbara, ed. Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
  527.  
  528. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  529.  
  530. First anthology of essays to explore the role of women and nuns in the introduction and development of Buddhism in premodern Japan, spanning the different attitudes toward women in many ritual traditions and individual sects.
  531.  
  532. Find this resource:
  533.  
  534.  
  535. Wacker, Monica. “Research on Buddhist Nuns in Japan: Past and Present.” Asian Folklore Studies 69 (2005): 289–300.
  536.  
  537. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  538.  
  539. Review article that discusses the current research on Buddhist nuns in Japan as found in Ruch 2002; Patricia Fister, Art by Buddhist Nuns: Treasures from the Imperial Convents of Japan (New York: Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies); the catalogue from the Nara National Museum’s Special Exhibition, “Women and Buddhism”; and two works by Josei To Bukkyo Tokai Kanto Nettowaku.
  540.  
  541. Find this resource:
  542.  
  543.  
  544. Women in Tantric Buddhism
  545. The role of women in tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism has been much debated as one that involves a radical envisioning of female power and potency as well as inevitable concessions to a predominantly patriarchal society. Allione 1984, Dowman 1984, Edou 1996, and Schaeffer 2004 each translate the life stories (rnam thar) of famous women in Tibetan history in relation to the development of Tibetan Buddhist ritual, practice, and literature. Shaw 1994 rewrites the history of women in Indian and Tibetan tantra by seeing them as active agents of enlightenment for self and others, while Simmer-Brown 2001 elaborates the development of the Dakini concept in Tibetan Buddhism from its roots in Indian tantra and Mahayana. Klein 1995 and Campbell 1996 both use feminist analysis to engage with notions of self, subjectivity, and the agency of women in Tibetan Buddhism.
  546.  
  547. Allione, Tsultrime. Women of Wisdom. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
  548.  
  549. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  550.  
  551. Presents the life stories of six famous Tibetan teachers—Machig Labdron, Nangsa Obum, Jomo Memo, Machig Ongjo, Drenchen Rema, and Ayu Khadro—–whose lives span nearly a millennium of Tibetan history. Allione’s biographies draw from both textual and oral sources and show the numerous obstacles women faced on their paths to liberations in the Tibetan hagiographical tradition.
  552.  
  553. Find this resource:
  554.  
  555.  
  556. Campbell, June. Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. New York: George Braziller, 1996.
  557.  
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559.  
  560. Explores the fault lines of gender and sexuality in Tibetan Buddhism using both feminism and psychoanalysis. Surveys discourses both in historic Tibet and in exile that subvert as well as valorize female identity and subjectivity in relation to prevailing patriarchal attitudes.
  561.  
  562. Find this resource:
  563.  
  564.  
  565. Dowman, Keith. Sky Dancer: The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
  566.  
  567. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  568.  
  569. Translates an 18th-century biography of the 8th-century yogini Yeshe Tsogyel (Ye shes mtsho rgyal), one of early Tibet’s most important teachers. This classic Tibetan hagiography details Tsogyel’s miraculous birth, ascetic privations, flight from near-death experiences, miraculous deeds, and final attainment of buddhahood.
  570.  
  571. Find this resource:
  572.  
  573.  
  574. Edou, Jerome. Machig Labdrön and the Foundations of Chöd. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996.
  575.  
  576. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  577.  
  578. A translation of the biography of the 11th-century teacher Machig Labdron, one of the most important teachers in the later transmission of Tibetan Buddhism from India. Also elaborates the liturgy of the Chöd ritual tradition that she founded, which is practiced across the Tibetan cultural realm today.
  579.  
  580. Find this resource:
  581.  
  582.  
  583. Klein, Anne. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self. Boston: Beacon, 1995.
  584.  
  585. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  586.  
  587. Places Buddhist philosophy in conversation with feminist theory by interrogating how each attempts to undermine or deconstruct conventional assumptions about the self and the construction of individual identity. Finds common ground between Buddhist discussions of self and emptiness and feminist debates over constructivist and essentialist views of the self.
  588.  
  589. Find this resource:
  590.  
  591.  
  592. Schaeffer, Kurtis. Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  593.  
  594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595.  
  596. Translates the autobiography of a 17th-century Buddhist nun from the Tibetan borderland region of Dolpo (now in Nepal). The rustic life story, which offers considerable details of rural life, menial labor, and the struggles of an ordinary woman to attain ascetic solitude and spiritual practices, is one of the earliest autobiographies by a woman in Tibetan literature.
  597.  
  598. Find this resource:
  599.  
  600.  
  601. Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
  602.  
  603. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  604.  
  605. Applies feminist analysis to reinterpret Indian and Tibetan tantra by suggesting that women were more active agents in search of their own release than passive objects who provided male adepts a means for enlightenment as previously argued. Emphasizes tantra’s reliance on the feminine as a critical component of, and the culmination of, Indian goddess traditions.
  606.  
  607. Find this resource:
  608.  
  609.  
  610. Simmer-Brown, Judith. Dakini’s Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Shambhala, 2001.
  611.  
  612. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  613.  
  614. An expansive study of the Dakini as conceptual principle in Tibetan Buddhism. Traces Dakini’s original meanings in Indian tantra and Mahayana while also elaborating the symbol’s secret, inner, and outer meanings in relation to gender, ritual discourse, and individual as well as institutional practices.
  615.  
  616. Find this resource:
  617.  
  618.  
  619. Contemporary Women in Southeast Asia
  620. This section focuses on the substantial scholarship on Buddhist women in Thailand and Sri Lanka, yet space does not allow for several essays on Buddhist women in Cambodia and Vietnam, which are found in the edited anthologies in Tsomo 2000 (cited under Anthologies). Keyes 1984 provides an early anthropological analysis of why Thai women cannot aspire to be monks, while Brown 2001 uses the life of a single lay nun (maechii) to investigate the personal obstacle as well as social norms that discourage women from seeking the spiritual path in Thailand. Falk 2007 and Kabilsingh 1991 offer comprehensive analyses of the historical circumstances, institutional practices, and cultural discourses that shape the role of individual Thai maechii in Thailand. Kabilsingh 1991 also addresses the role of laywomen and prostitutes, while Cook 2010 offers the most up-to-date analysis of the role of women in shaping the modern meditation movement and other lay reform initiatives such as the growth of maechii centers in Thailand. Kawanami 2000 discusses the social and cultural factors that constrain the role of Burmese nuns, or Thilashin (ten precept holders), while Bartholomeusz 1994 analyzes the remarkable strides that dasa sil mata, or ten precept holders, have made in Sri Lanka. Salgado 2000 addresses the role of landholdings in helping Sri Lankan precept holders create and sustain teaching lineages.
  621.  
  622. Bartholomeusz, Tessa. Women under the Bo Tree. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  623.  
  624. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511896026Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  625.  
  626. Discusses the history of the nuns’ order in Sri Lanka, including the demise of fully ordained nuns and the later development of the dasa sil mata (ten precept holders) in the 19th and 20th centuries in relation to the Buddhist reforms initiated by Theosophists.
  627.  
  628. Find this resource:
  629.  
  630.  
  631. Brown, Sidney. The Journey of One Buddhist Nun: Even against the Wind. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
  632.  
  633. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  634.  
  635. Uses the life of a single maechii to illustrate the personal, religious, socioeconomic, and other cultural obstacles women face in seeking individual liberation in Thai society. Analyzes the experience of one maechii to describe the institutional challenges and successes of maechii in modern Thailand.
  636.  
  637. Find this resource:
  638.  
  639.  
  640. Cook, Joana. Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai Monastic Life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  641.  
  642. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511760785Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643.  
  644. Describes the inherent ambiguity that Thai maechii face as they straddle an ambiguous position between layperson, who donates alms to monks, and renunciant, who receives alms from the laity on behalf of the entire monastic community.
  645.  
  646. Find this resource:
  647.  
  648.  
  649. Falk, Monica Lindberg. Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007.
  650.  
  651. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  652.  
  653. An ethnography of the individual and institutional practices of Thai maechii in relation to the surrounding Buddhist and socioeconomic context of Thai society. Describes the agency and identity of maechii at one self-governing nunnery (samnak chii), which reflects the changing face of women’s asceticism in Thailand.
  654.  
  655. Find this resource:
  656.  
  657.  
  658. Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. Thai Women in Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 1991.
  659.  
  660. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  661.  
  662. Discusses the cultural, educational, and legal status of women in Thai society and has a detailed chapter on maechii, prostitutes, and the movements to reinstate full ordination for nuns in Thailand. The author includes her own mother’s establishment of the first temple exclusively for women (maechii) in modern Thailand.
  663.  
  664. Find this resource:
  665.  
  666.  
  667. Kawanami, Hiroko. “Patterns of Renunciation: The Changing World of Burmese Nuns.” In Women’s Buddhism, Buddhism’s Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Edited by Ellison Banks Findly, 159–171. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
  668.  
  669. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  670.  
  671. Uses case studies to illustrate the conscribed religious and social roles of nuns, widows, and elderly women in Burma today. Considers the lack of economic power or prestige of nuns in relation to monks and the changing role of women in the lay meditation movements.
  672.  
  673. Find this resource:
  674.  
  675.  
  676. Keyes, Charles. “Mother or Mistress but Never a Monk: Buddhist Notions of Female Gender in Rural Thailand.” American Ethnologist 11.2 (1984): 223–241.
  677.  
  678. DOI: 10.1525/ae.1984.11.2.02a00010Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  679.  
  680. Examines the social roles available to women in Thailand, arguing that although women cannot become monastics, women nurture Buddhism by making offerings to the sangha and sending sons into the monkhood. Available online by subscription.
  681.  
  682. Find this resource:
  683.  
  684.  
  685. Salgado, Nirmala. “Teaching Lineages and Land: Renunciation and Domestication among Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka.” In Women’s Buddhism, Buddhism’s Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Edited by Ellison Banks Findly, 175–200. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000.
  686.  
  687. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  688.  
  689. Examines the current social and economic status of dasa sil mata, using several case studies of female teachers who did or did not establish teaching lineages, hermitages, and secure landholdings for their followers. Their obstacles and successes offer much insight into the opportunities for female Buddhist disciples in Sri Lanka today.
  690.  
  691. Find this resource:
  692.  
  693.  
  694. Contemporary Women in East Asia
  695. This section looks at how women are shaping, and being shaped, by Buddhism in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Arai 1999 leads us through the history of Soto nuns in Japanese society, tracing the causes and effects of their achieving educational and ritual parity with monks in the course of the 20th century. Hardacre 1999 provides an analysis of the social, economic, and gender dynamics behind a major Japanese ritual for aborted fetuses. Devido 2010, Huang and Weller 1998, and Li 2001 each address the phenomenal success of Taiwanese nuns, who arguably have more power and wealth than nuns in any other society. Cheng 2006 contrasts the roles of nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka to provide insight into how different social histories can produce such different effects for Buddhist women. Batchelor and Sunim 2006 examines the status and interrelationships between nuns and laywomen in Korean Buddhism, while Park 2000 discusses the gendered tropes within a popular Korean shaman narrative and its implications for Korean women today.
  696.  
  697. Arai, Paula Kane. Women Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
  698.  
  699. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  700.  
  701. Explores the history and current position of Japanese Soto nuns within Japanese society; relates how Soto nuns worked within traditional society and within the confines of monastic institutions and rules to achieve educational and ritual parity with monks in the 20th century.
  702.  
  703. Find this resource:
  704.  
  705.  
  706. Batchelor, Martine, and Son’gyong Sunim. Women in Korean Zen: Lives and Practices. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006.
  707.  
  708. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  709.  
  710. Popular account of women and Zen Buddhism in Korea, which was home to 10,000 nuns and 800 nunneries by 2004. Each co-author describes Korean monastic life through the lens of personal details about the obstacles to, and opportunities for, monastic life in Korea.
  711.  
  712. Find this resource:
  713.  
  714.  
  715. Cheng, Wei Yi. Buddhist Nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka. New York: Routledge Press, 2006.
  716.  
  717. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  718.  
  719. Explores the postcolonial development of Buddhist nunneries and the roles of nuns in Taiwan and Sri Lanka. Uses a comparative framework to consider the varying degrees of social power and prestige nuns hold and the efforts to advance the cause of women and nuns in these very different societies.
  720.  
  721. Find this resource:
  722.  
  723.  
  724. Devido, Elise Anne. Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010.
  725.  
  726. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  727.  
  728. Examines the social and economic status of Buddhist nuns after 1949 in Taiwan, where nuns represent a greater proportion of monastics than in any other country in the world. Explores the influence of Buddhism on the status of women in Taiwan and the role of Buddhist women and institutions, such as Ciji, in shaping the future of Taiwanese society.
  729.  
  730. Find this resource:
  731.  
  732.  
  733. Hardacre, Helen. Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
  734.  
  735. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  736.  
  737. Examines the role of women in the cultural and social debates that have arisen around mizuko kuyo, a ritual for aborted fetuses in Japan. Explores the tensions between the economic and subjective forces that propel women to perform the rite as well as the feminist, Buddhist, and humanist discourses that question it.
  738.  
  739. Find this resource:
  740.  
  741.  
  742. Huang, Chien-Yu Julia, and Robert Weller. “Merit and Mothering: Women and Social Welfare in Taiwanese Buddhism.” Journal of Asian Studies 57.2 (1998): 379–396.
  743.  
  744. DOI: 10.2307/2658829Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  745.  
  746. Traces the symbolic and actual prominence of women in Ciji, a Buddhist charity foundation that has more than 3 million members and is the largest nongovernmental organization in Taiwan. Also discusses the relationship between women’s roles and the symbolic status of Guanyin, the bodhisattva as mother, the guardian saint of the organization and its lay members.
  747.  
  748. Find this resource:
  749.  
  750.  
  751. Li, Yuzhen. “Crafting Women’s Religious Experience in a Patrilineal Society: Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns in Action (1945–1999).” PhD diss., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 2001.
  752.  
  753. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  754.  
  755. Examines the roles of both nuns and laywomen in shifting the gender dynamics of Taiwanese Buddhism and society through their active roles in the sangha and in women’s welfare associations and other powerful institutions.
  756.  
  757. Find this resource:
  758.  
  759.  
  760. Park, Chan E. “Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Shim Ch’ông: Mistress of the Spiritual Domain.” In Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming against the Stream. Edited by Karma Lekshe Tsomo, 130–141. London: Curzon, 2000.
  761.  
  762. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  763.  
  764. Analyzes the role of gender and agency within a popular Korean shaman narrative of filial piety in which a miraculous semi-orphaned daughter fulfills promises to her father through sacrificial death and resurrection.
  765.  
  766. Find this resource:
  767.  
  768.  
  769. Contemporary Women in the Himalayas and Tibet
  770. Our knowledge of women in historic and modern Tibet is still limited by the lack of access and interest in women, as well as the unfortunate disinclination of many Tibetologists to impose feminist concerns on Tibetan materials. Two edited volumes that have brought women into focus include Gyatso and Havnevik 2005, which deals with women’s prominence in early Tibetan history and their more recent roles as oracles, singers, traditional doctors, political dissidents, and nuns, and Willis 1987, which covers the traditional concepts of Dakini and demoness, key historical figures, and the situation of nuns in modern Tibet. Havnevik 1989 provides a critical early study of the cultural norms that structured the social status of nuns in the Tibetan exile community, while Makley 2002 describes the way that gender and sexuality structure women’s social power and agency in China in the post-Mao era. The Himalayas have long been fertile ground for research on gender and other dynamics. Gutschow 2004 analyzes the “economy of merit” that has perpetuated gender and other forms of social hierarchy within the Indian Himalaya. Gutschow’s work responds directly to Ortner 1995, which provocatively questions how gender intersects with other discourses of hierarchy, such as social status and economic power, to impact the founding of Sherpa monasteries and nunneries. LeVine and Gellner 2005 explores the role of women in promulgating Theravada Buddhism and its associated push for full ordination for nuns within Nepal, while Watkins 1996 explores the shifting gender relations and other patterns of social power formed in the disjunctions between rural villages and urban-based Nyeshangte communities.
  771.  
  772. Gutschow, Kim. Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
  773.  
  774. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  775.  
  776. An ethnography exploring the “economy of merit” that has produced and legitimized a gender hierarchy within Buddhist monasticism in the Himalayas and Tibet. Builds on fifteen years of fieldwork to analyze the social and cultural forces that promote and obstruct women’s agency in being and becoming nuns.
  777.  
  778. Find this resource:
  779.  
  780.  
  781. Gyatso, Janet, and Hannah Havnevik, eds. Women in Tibet. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
  782.  
  783. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  784.  
  785. Offers detailed analysis of women during select periods in historic and modern Tibet by covering a diverse set of topics, including spiritual leaders, oracles, medicine, nuns, singers, and women who have engaged in political resistance in recent decades.
  786.  
  787. Find this resource:
  788.  
  789.  
  790. Havnevik, Hanna. Tibetan Buddhist Nuns: History, Cultural Norms, and Social Reality. Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1989.
  791.  
  792. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  793.  
  794. A historical and textual study of Tibetan Buddhist nuns. Builds on three months of fieldwork at a single nunnery and research among Tibetan exile communities in north India to explore the cultural norms that shape the lived reality of Tibetan Buddhist nuns in exile.
  795.  
  796. Find this resource:
  797.  
  798.  
  799. LeVine, Sarah, and David Gellner. Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
  800.  
  801. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  802.  
  803. A comprehensive analysis of the Theravada Buddhist reform that encompasses the charisma of individual women and men as well as the social and economic forces within and beyond Nepal that have led to a lay meditation movement within urban Nepal.
  804.  
  805. Find this resource:
  806.  
  807.  
  808. Makley, Charlene. “On the Edge of Respectability: Sexual Politics in China’s Tibet.” Positions 10.3 (2002): 575–630.
  809.  
  810. DOI: 10.1215/10679847-10-3-575Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  811.  
  812. Describes the dynamics around gender and sexuality that lead to the denial of certain kinds of agency to women in the Labrang region in post-Mao China. Is especially interested in social transformation and changing cultural norms that have arisen during the transition to a market economy. Available online by subscription.
  813.  
  814. Find this resource:
  815.  
  816.  
  817. Ortner, Sherry. “The Problem of ‘Women’ as an Analytic Category.” In Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. By Sherry Ortner, 116–138. Boston: Beacon, 1995.
  818.  
  819. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  820.  
  821. Explores the different gender dynamics at work in the founding of the first Sherpa nunneries and monasteries. Argues that middle sons occupy a role closer to that of daughters and that social or economic class is as important an axis of difference as gender.
  822.  
  823. Find this resource:
  824.  
  825.  
  826. Watkins, Joanne. Spirited Women: Gender, Religion, and Cultural Identity in the Nepal Himalaya. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
  827.  
  828. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  829.  
  830. A multisited ethnography of the links between gender and other forms of social prestige and power within the rapidly modernizing rural and urban Nyeshangte communities in Nepal. Explores the effect of commercialization on gender egalitarianism within Nyeshangte culture and society.
  831.  
  832. Find this resource:
  833.  
  834.  
  835. Willis, Jan, ed. Feminine Ground: Essays on Women in Tibet. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1987.
  836.  
  837. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  838.  
  839. Essays cover critical themes on gendered symbols and concepts in Tibetan Buddhism, including the Dakini, the demoness, Yeshe Tsogyal, Laksminkara, and three essays covering the sociology of women and nuns in modern Tibet.
  840.  
  841. Find this resource:
  842.  
  843.  
  844. Contemporary Women in North America
  845. Most of the books in this section are written for a general audience in search of additional resources concerning how feminism and women have shaped Buddhism in America. Boucher 1993 presents an early and comprehensive summary of the early contributions women made to Buddhist traditions in America and a discussion of the early abuses of power made by male teachers, while Gross 1998 continues the discussion by analyzing the gender dynamics behind more recent abuses of power in American Buddhism. Friedman and Moon 1997, Dresser 1996, and Tsomo 1995 are anthologies that each present a number of female teachers writing about how Buddhism helps them negotiate a variety of personal and political issues. Subjects addressed include race, sexuality, anger, birth, death, illness, activism, engaged Buddhism, and other topics. Gregory and Mrozik 2007 reports the results of a conference held at Smith College that examines the shifting interests women have in adapting Buddhism to the 21st century around issues such as lineage, leadership, and dharma transmission. Loundon 2001 provides a compendium of youthful voices that present honest experiences and practical advice on a number of issues, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class.
  846.  
  847. Boucher, Sandy. Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. Boston: Beacon, 1993.
  848.  
  849. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  850.  
  851. Traces the experiences and voices (using interviews and letters) of key female leaders at Buddhist centers in America from the 1960s through the late 1980s. Discusses their major achievements, struggles, and crises of leadership in this period as well as women’s activism around issues of peace, politics, family, and community. Originally published in 1988 (San Francisco: Harper & Row).
  852.  
  853. Find this resource:
  854.  
  855.  
  856. Dresser, Marianne, ed. Buddhist Women on the Edge: Contemporary Perspectives from the Western Frontier. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1996.
  857.  
  858. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  859.  
  860. Contains pithy personal essays from many of the most prominent female Buddhists in America about how they combine feminism, activism, and Buddhism to fashion meaning around issues such as race, peace, violence, and sexuality.
  861.  
  862. Find this resource:
  863.  
  864.  
  865. Friedman, Lenore, and Susan Ichi Su Moon, eds. Being Bodies: Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.
  866.  
  867. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  868.  
  869. Squarely addresses the tensions between Buddhism and the female body from an American, feminist, and narrative perspective. Looks at issues such as birth, illness, midlife, aging, anger, sexuality, identity, celibacy, attachment, craving, addiction, and recovery.
  870.  
  871. Find this resource:
  872.  
  873.  
  874. Gregory, Peter, and Susanne Mrozik, eds. Women Practicing Buddhism: The American Experiences. Papers presented at a conference held at Smith College in Northampton, MA, 7–10 April 2005. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2007.
  875.  
  876. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  877.  
  878. Edited collection of transcripts from public discussions or panels held at a conference on women and Buddhism at Smith College in 2005. Looks at how women are addressing critical areas such as practice, power, leadership, sexual conduct, and dharma transmission.
  879.  
  880. Find this resource:
  881.  
  882.  
  883. Gross, Rita M. “Helping the Iron Bird Fly: Western Buddhist Women and Issues of Authority in the Late 1990s.” In The Faces of Buddhism in America. Edited by Charles S. Prebish and Kenneth A. Tanaka, 238–252. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  884.  
  885. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  886.  
  887. Analyzes the factors that led to the systematic abuse of power by male teachers in American Buddhism and offers some feminist proscriptions for promoting women into positions of authority and avoiding similar situations in the future.
  888.  
  889. Find this resource:
  890.  
  891.  
  892. Loundon, Sumi, ed. Blue Jean Buddha: Voices of Young Buddhists. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2001.
  893.  
  894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  895.  
  896. A set of lively essays by young American Buddhists from across the Buddhist spectrum that engage with issues of gender, diversity, class, and consciousness around the question of what it means to be a young and active Buddhist in America today.
  897.  
  898. Find this resource:
  899.  
  900.  
  901. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Buddhism through American Women’s Eyes. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1995.
  902.  
  903. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  904.  
  905. Explores the multiple and cross-cutting voices of contemporary women who have shaped Buddhism in America around issues such as abortion, relationships, stress, peace, mothering, and alienation.
  906.  
  907. Find this resource:
  908.  
  909.  
  910. Buddhist Feminism and Social Justice
  911. This section covers works that engage Buddhism as well as feminism to address issues of social justice, often from a transnational perspective. Tsomo 2004 addresses the ways that Buddhist women across Asia are struggling to promote social justice and human rights while moving Buddhist institutions toward greater equality in terms of gender, caste, and other issues. Gross 1998 consists of a set of essays (many published elsewhere) that use the cross-cutting tools of feminism and Buddhism to address issues of social justice and concern, including topics such as family life and children’s rights, consumerism, fertility, and death. Gross 1999 condenses and updates the arguments made for the revalorization of Buddhism in line with feminist principles. Tsomo 2006 surveys a range of Buddhist views on ethical issues such as life and death. Mohr and Tsedroen 2010 is a collection of essays, including a notable statement by the Dalai Lama, that arose from an international conference dedicated to reviving full ordination for nuns in both Tibetan and Theravada traditions. Ho 2009 provides a personal account of the rise and early hardships of a Taiwanese nun who founded the Tzu Chi Foundation, which is now one of the largest international relief organizations in Taiwan.
  912.  
  913. Gross, Rita M. Soaring and Settling: Buddhist Perspectives on Contemporary Social and Religious Issues. New York: Continuum Press, 1998.
  914.  
  915. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  916.  
  917. A candid, partly autobiographical analysis of how feminism and Buddhism can help us rethink contemporary social concerns, including the environment, peace, the abuse of spiritual authority or power, sex discrimination, consumerism, and pro-natalism.
  918.  
  919. Find this resource:
  920.  
  921.  
  922. Gross, Rita M. “Strategies for a Feminist Revalorization of Buddhism.” In Feminism and World Religions. Edited by Arvind Sharma and Katherine Young, 78–109. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.
  923.  
  924. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  925.  
  926. A condensed account of arguments presented in Gross 1993 (cited under General Overviews), which outlines the ways in which the revalorization of Buddhism using feminist principles offers Buddhism an opportunity to complete its own tradition by recognizing the centrality and significance of both genders.
  927.  
  928. Find this resource:
  929.  
  930.  
  931. Ho, Gary. Challenges: The Life and Teachings of Venerable Master Cheng Yen. Vancouver, Canada: Douglas & McIntyre, 2009.
  932.  
  933. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  934.  
  935. Offers an inspirational account of the remarkable rise of one Taiwanese nun, Cheng Yen, and her international charitable relief organization, Tzu Chi, which is dedicated to relief work and “humanistic Buddhism” in Taiwan and across the globe.
  936.  
  937. Find this resource:
  938.  
  939.  
  940. Mohr, Thea, and Jampa Tsedroen, eds. Dignity and Discipline: Reviving Full Ordination for Buddhist Nuns. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2010.
  941.  
  942. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  943.  
  944. Collection of essays that draws from a conference organized in Hamburg, Germany, in 2007 to promote full ordination for nuns in the Tibetan and Theravada traditions, where it has lapsed. Includes technical discussion of Vinaya and historical precedents of ordination in multiple traditions.
  945.  
  946. Find this resource:
  947.  
  948.  
  949. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. Into the Jaws of Yama, Lord of Death: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.
  950.  
  951. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  952.  
  953. Surveys a range of Buddhist texts, many from the Tibetan tradition, to elaborate Buddhist ethics that describes the self, consciousness, death, abortion, euthanasia, and other end- or beginning-of-life issues.
  954.  
  955. Find this resource:
  956.  
  957.  
  958. Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Buddhist Women and Social Justice: Ideals, Challenges, and Achievements. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
  959.  
  960. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  961.  
  962. Explores the ways that Buddhism can serve as a tool for work in human rights and conflict resolution, as well as for activists seeking to address gender-based violence, female trafficking, and other issues of discrimination or structural violence against women.
  963.  
  964. Find this resource:
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