JIABS 24-2

Peter SKILLING

JIABS Journal of the International

Association of Buddhist Studies

Volume 24 Number 2 2001

Buddhist Nuns

E~ii agrii: Images of Nuns in (Miila-)Sarviistiviidin Literature ...... 135

Ivette M. VARGAS-O'BRIAN

The Life of dGe slong ma dPal mo: The Experience of a Leper,

Founder of a Fasting Ritual, a Transmitter of Buddhist

Teachings on Suffering and Renunciation in Tibetan Religious

History................................................ ............................................... 157

Kim GUTS CHOW

What Makes a Nun? Apprenticeship and Ritual Passage in Zanskar,

North India................................................. ....................................... 187

Sarah LEVINE

The Finances of a Twentieth Century Buddhist Mission:

Building Support for the Theraviida Nuns' Order of Nepal............ 217

Peter SKILLING

Nuns, Laywomen, Donors, Goddesses

Female Roles in Early Indian Buddhism ......................................... 241

AnnHEIRMAN

Chinese Nuns and their Ordination in Fifth Century China ........... 275

Notes on the Contributors................................................................. 305

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EDITORIAL BOARD

SCHERRER-SCHAUB CristL.'1aA.

TILLEMANS Tom J.F.

Editors-in-Chief

BUSWELL Robert

COLLINS Steven

Cox Collet G6MEZ Luis O. HARRISON Paul

VON HlNOBER Oskar JACKSON Roger JAINl PacImanabh S.

KATSURA Shoryu

KuoLi-ying LOPEz,Jr. Donald S.

MAcDONALD Alexander

RUEGG D. Seyfort

SHARF Robert

STEINKELLNER Ernst

ZORCHER Erik

ESA AGRt1: IMAGESOF NUNS IN (MULA-)SARVASTIV.ADIN LITERATURE

PETER SKILLING

Buddhist literature evolved over centuries across a widespread area. The Buddhist texts that we know today are social products, constituted by negotiation, compromise, and adaptation. Should we expect them to present a single position on nuns or female spirituality? Should we close our eyes to the positive, and see only the negative, or vice versa, according to our proclivities? Or should we accept that both nuns and monks may be portrayed either positively or negatively, and see what different texts have to say? In this article I look at (MUla-)Sarvastivadin avadiinas from the perspective of a literary anthropologist, revealing embedded values and displaying narratory artefacts related to nunship. I discover positive images connected with teaching and transmitting the Dharma. The very fact of being transmitted and circulated - through manuscripts, sermons, or print media, in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, or modem translation - indicates that these texts have been - and still can be - living entities, things of the present, with the power to invoke images, motivate religious practice - and provoke debate.

We are now in a better position than before to study the lives of Buddhist nuns trom literary sources. The well-known Verses a/the Elder Nuns, or Ther"igiithii, is available in several translations, including the meticulously annotated translation by K.R. NORMANl . The commentary, the Therigiithiiatthakathii - a skillful weave of bardic, philological, hermeneutic, and narrative genres --:- is accessible in a new edition of the Piili and in an excellent translation, both by William PRU1Tf2. The fifth chapter of the

1 Elders'Verses, Vol. n, The Pall Text Society, Oxford (1971, 1992, 1995). Caroline RHYs DAVIDS' psalms of the Sisters (1909) has been superseded by Elders'Verses and by PRurrr (see following note).

2 Therigiithii-atthakathii (Paramatthadipani VI) by Achariya Dhammapiila, The Pall Text Society, Oxford, 1998; The Commentary on the Verses of the TheTis (Therigiithiiatthakathii Paramatthadipani VI) byAcariya Dhammapiila, The Pall Text Society, Oxford, 1998.

Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies Volume 24 • Number 2 • 2001

136· PETER SKILLING

,

Etadagga-vagga of the Anguttara-nikaya and its commentary, long avail-able in roman-script editions, is now supplemented by the publication of the sub-commentary3 .. The chapter deals with thirteen outstanding nuns. Although the Pali of the . commentary itself has not been translated, one may consult U TIN Oo's English translation of the "Life Stories of BhikkhunI Elders" from MINoVN SAYADAW'S encyclopredic Mahabuddhava'!lsa, a work composed in Burmese on the basis of PaIi sources4, and the composite selections in NYANAPONIKA Thera and Hellmuth HECKER'S Great Disciples of the Buddha5• Another source for narratives about nuns is the Saddharmaratnavaliya, a Sinhalese rendition of the Dhammapada-atthakatha6. The short but important Bhikkhunzsa'!lyutta of the Sa'!lyuttanikaya is available in both a new edition of the PaIi by G.A. SOMARATNE and a new translation by Bhikkhu BODm7. Mohan WIJAYARATNA has published a study of nuns based on PaIi texts, with an appendix giving the Pili Bhikkhunz Patimokkha in roman letters8• WIJAYARATNA also devoted an appendix to nuns in his Buddhist Monastic Life9• The Pall Text Society's new edition with English translation enface of the Theravadin Patimokkha includes the Bhikkhuni Patimokkha10, and

3 Primoz PECENKO (ed.), Anguttaranikiiya{ika Volume II, Catuttlui Siiratthamaiijusii, Ekanipiita(ikii II-XIV, The Pall Text Society, Oxford, 1997, pp. 279-97.

4 The Most Venerable MrNGW SAYAJJAW Bhaddanta Vicittasarabhiv3l11sa, The Great Chronicle of Buddhas: The State Buddha Siisana Council's Version, Vol. 6, Part 2, (edited by U Ko LAy [Zeyar Mating], translated by U TIN 00 [Myaung]), Rangoon, 1998. For the lives of the nuns in Thai see Banjob BANNARUCI, Phiksuni: Phutthasavika khrang phutthakan, Chulalongkom University Press, Bangkok, 2539 [1996].

5 NYANAPONlKA Thera & Hellmuth HECKER, Great Disciples of the Buddha: Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy, Edited with an Introduction by Bhikkhu BODID, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1997, Chap. 7.

6 See Ranjini OBEYESEKERE, Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories from the Saddharmaratniivaliya, State University of New York Press, Albany, 2001.

7 G.A. SOMARATNE (ed.), The SaTflyuttanikiiya of the Suttapi{aka, Volume I, The Sagiithavagga, The Pali Text Society, Oxford, 1998, pp. 281-97; Bhikkhu BODID (tr.), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the SaTflyutta Nikiiya, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2000, Vol. I, pp. 221-30.

8 Les moniales bouddhistes: naissance et developpement du monachisme feminin, Les editions du Cerf, Paris, 1991.

9 Mohan WUAYARATNA, Buddhist monastic life according to the texts of the Theraviida tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 158-163.

10 William PRurrr (ed.), K.R. NORMAN (tr.), The Piitimokkha, The Pall Text.Society, Oxford, 2001.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MOLA-)SARVASTNADIN LITERATURE 137

the Society has also published a study of certain aspects of the nun's rulesll .

But much remains to be done. The Pilii Therf-apadiina, an important text in which forty senior nuns relate in verse the deeds of their past lives and the joy of their present freedom, has not yet been translated into any European language, or published in a reliable European edition12. The account of the thirteen nuns in the commentary and Etadagga-vagga, mentioned above, remains to be studied and translated in full from the Pili.

Outside of Pali, other useful materials are available. The "Buddhist Sanskrit" Bhik~u1J-f Vinaya of the Lokottaravadin-Mahasfurighikas is available in an edition by ROTH and an annotated French translation by NOLOT,

while the related but not identical Mahasfurighika Bhik~u1J-f Vinaya (available only in Fa-hsien's Chinese translation, done between CE 416 and 418) has been translated into English by HlRAKAWA13. Shih Pao-ch'ang's classical compilation of biographies of sixty-five Chinese nuns, compiled in 516, has been translated by Katherine Anne TSAI14. Articles on aspects

11 BhikkhunIluo-Hstieh SHIH, Controversies over Buddhist Nuns, The Pali Text Society, Oxford, 2000.

12 For Apadiina see Sally MELLICK CUlLER, "The Plili Apadana Collection", Journal of the Pali Text Society XX (1994), pp. 1-42. MELLICK CUlLER is preparing an edition and translation of the Therz-apadiina to be published by the Pali Text Society, Oxford. For the apadiina of Mabapajapau GotamI see for now Jonathan S. WALTERS, "GotamI's story", in Donald S. LOPEZ Jr. (ed.), Buddhism in Practice, Princeton Readings in Religions, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995, pp. 113-38.

13 Gustav ROTH (ed.), Bhik~W:lz-Vinaya: Manual of Discipline for Buddhist Nuns, K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute Patna, 1970 (Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series No. XII); Edith NOLOT (tr.), Regles de discipline des nonnes bouddhistes: Ie Bhik~u'.lzvinaya de !'ecole Mahiisii7J1ghika-Lokottaraviidin, College de France, Paris, 1991; AkiTa HlRAKAWA

(tr.), Monastic Disciplinefor the Buddhist Nuns: An English Translation of the Chinese Text of the Mahiisii7J1ghika Bhi~u'.lz-Vinaya, Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, Patna, 1982 (Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series No. XXI).

14 Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries, A translation of the Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan compiled by Shih Pao-ch'ang, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1994. For a translation into Thai see Chartsumarn KABILSINGH, Chiwaprawat khong phra phiksuni chin, Bangkok, 2535 [1992]. One of the biographies was translated earlier by Arthur F. WRIGHT, "Biography of the Nun An-ling-shou", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15, nos. 1, 2 (June 1952), pp. 193-196; repro in Robert M. SOMERS (ed.), Arthur F. WRIGHT, Studies in Chinese Buddhism, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1990, pp. 69-72. See also Susan WHllFIELD'S reconstruction of the life of Miaofu, 880-961, as "The Nun's Tale", in Life along the Silk Road, John Murray, London, 1999.

138 PETER SKILLING

of the nuns' rules - Vinaya, Priitimok~a, Karmaviikya - according to different sources and traditions appear regularly15.

With the exception· of the Chinese Lives of the Nuns, the works mentioned above belong to the Theravadin and (Lokottaravadin-)Mahasfup.ghika traditions. What about the literature of the (Mi1la-)Sarvastivadins, another of the great Indian schools?16 Does it not have anything to tell us about nuns? Certainly its Vinaya includes sections devoted to nuns - the Bhik~ulJfvibhanga, Bhik~ulJfpriitimok~a, and their commentaries. It may be that these texts are formally dependent on the corresponding literatures of the bhik~us, but that is the case with the corresponding sections of the Vinayas of the other schools, and does not mean that such texts are not worthy of our attention. As legal texts, daily guidelines for the order of nuns, they can only be rich in information1? Yet for the most part they have been ignored18•

15 Recent contributions include Ute HDsKEN, "Nonnen in der When buddhistischen Ordensgemeinschaft", in Ulrike ROESLER (ed.), Aspekte des Weiblichen in derindischen Kultur, Swisttal-Odendorf, 2000 (Indica et Tibetica 39), pp. 25-46; "The Legend of the Establishment of the Buddhist Order of Nuns", Journal of the Pali Text Society XXVI (2000), pp. 43-69 - with a useful bibliography, pp. 66-69. For an English translation of the "foundation story" from the Lokottaravadin Vinaya see John S. STRONG, The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California, 1995, pp. 52-56. Hobogirin and the Encyclopaedia of Buddhism both have entries on nuns: Hobogirin, Dictionnaire encycloptfdique du bouddhisme d'apres les sources chinoises et japonaises, fascicule I, Tokyo, 1929-30, pp. 73-74 ("Biknni"); G.P. MALALASEKERA (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Vol. III, fascicle 1, pp. 43-47 ("BhikkhunI"). For later periods in China and Japan see Ding-hwa E. HSIEH. "Images of Women in Ch'an Buddhist Literature of the Sung Period", in Peter N. GREGORY & Daniel A. GETZ, Jr., (ed.), Buddhism in the Sung, Kuroda Institute/University of Hawai'i Press. Honolulu, 1999 (Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 13), pp. 148-87, and Miriam LEVERING, "Miao-tao and Her Teacher Ta-hui", ibid., pp. 188-219; C. KLEINE, "Portraits of Pious Women in East Asian Buddhist Hagiography: A Study of Accounts of Women who Attained Birth in Amida's Pure Land", Bulletin de ['Ecole frant;aise d'Extreme-Orient 85 (1998), pp. 325 foIl.

16 For a compelling theory on the meaning of the name "Millasarvastivadin" see Fumio ENOMOTO, '''Millasarvastivadin' and 'Sarvastivadin''', in Christine CHOJNACKI, Jens-Uwe HARTMANN and Volker M. TSCHANNERL (ed.), Vividharatnakara/JCjaka, Festgabefiir Adelheid Mette, Swisttal-Odendorf, 2000 (Indica et Tibetica 37), pp. 239-50.

17 I do not wish to suggest even for a moment that only these sections contain information on nuns. On the contrary, nuns figure in many of the basic monk's rules, and nuns range freely through the entire Vinaya.

18 Exceptions include Ernst WALDSCHMIDT, Bruchstiicke des Bhik~u1Jf-Pratimok~a der Sarvastivadins mit einer Darstellung der Uberlieferung des Bhik~u1Jf-Pratimok;;a in den

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MULA-)SARVASTIVA"DIN LITERATURE 139

The (Ml1la-)Sarvastivadin Vinaya is a vast, sprawling, unmanageable compilation that has not been edited let alone indexed. But there is no need to despair, since material on nuns is readily accessible (and has long been so) in two digests of avadanas of the (Ml1la-)Sarvastivadin school, the Avadanasataka and Kannasataka. The first was translated into French by FEER in 1891 and edited in Sanskrit by SPEYER between 1906 and 190919 ; the second was studied and summarized by FEER in 19012°. But they have not received much attention, perhaps in part because they have been treated as fables, as moral tales devoid of historicity.

Avadanasataka and Karmasataka

The Avadanasataka is a collection of one hundred avadanas in ten chapters of ten avadanas each. The Sanskrit manuscripts used by FEER for his translation and by SPEYER for his edition came from Nepal. The Avadanasataka was translated into Chinese during the Wu dynasty (CE 223-53) by an important translator of the early period, the Indo-Scythian layman Chih Ch'ien21 , and into Tibetan by Jinamitra and Devacandra in

verschiedenen Schulen, Kleinere Sanskrit-Texte Heft ill [Leipzig, 1926], repr. in Monographien ZUT indischen Archaologie Kunst und Philologie, Band 2, Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1979; Bhik~Ul;ll IAMPA TSEDROEN, A Brief Survey of the Vznaya: Its origin, transmission and arrangement from the Tibetan point of view with comparisons to the Theraviida and Dharmagupta traditions, Dharma edition, Hamburg, 1992 (Foundation for Tibetan Buddhist Studies: Vinaya Research 1); KARMA LEKSHE TsoMo, Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women: A Comparative Analysis of the Chinese Dharmagupta and the Tibetan Millasarviistiviida Bhik~uI;ll Pratimok~a Sutras, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1996.

19 Leon FEER, Avadana-~ataka: Cent ligendes bouddhiques, [Annales du Musee Guimet XVIII, Paris, 1891] repro APA-Oriental Press, Amsterdam, 1979; I.S. SPEYER (ed.), Avadiina,ataka: A Century of Edifying Tales belonging to the Hfnayiina, St. Petersbourg, 1906-09 (Bibliotheca Buddhica ill); also P.L. V AIDYA (ed.), Avadiina-sataka, Darbhanga, 1958 (Buddhist Sanskrit Texts, No. 19). FEER'S translation was made from manuscripts. For the Tibetan see Avadiinasataka, Peking Kanjur (Otani Reprint) 1012, Vol. 40, mdo U.

20 L[eon] Feer, "Le Karma-~ataka", Journal Asiatique, neuvieme serie tome XVII (1901), pp. 53-100, 257-315, 410-86.

21 Lewis R. LANCASTER in collaboration with Sung-bae PARK, The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979, Cat. No. 981. For Chih Ch'ien see Etienne LAMOITE, La Concentration de la Marche Herolque (Silrarrzgamasamiidhisiltra), Brussels, 1975, pp. 74-79; Silrarrzgamasamiidhisiltra: The Concentration of Heroic Progress, An early Mahayana Buddhist Scripture translated and

140 . PETER SKILLING

about CE 800. The Karmasataka is a collection of "one hundred" (127 according to FEER'S count) tales of deeds. The only extant version is a Tibetan translation by MUlakosa and gNags JiUinakumara repOlted to date to the reign of Khri Ide gtsug brtan (first half of the 8th century)22. The Sanskrit does not survive - so far as I know not even any fragments have been found - and there is no Chinese translation23 .

Accounts of the suppression of monastic Buddhism in Tibet by King Glali dar rna, who took the throne in about 836 and was assassinated in 842, relate that the Karmasataka was one of the texts that was saved. The 14th-century historian Bu ston reports that dPal gyi rdo rje, after assassinating Glali dar rna, fled to Eastern Tibet (Khams) taking with him the Abhidharmasamuccaya, the Vinaya Prabhiivatf, and the Karmasataka24• The 15th-century scholar 'Gos lotsaba states that at the time of the persecution three monks of the retreat centre of dPal Chu bo ri fled to Western Tibet, "taking with them essential Vinaya and Abhidharma texts [such as] the Karmasataka, etc "25. If we accept these accounts at face value we can conclude that the Karmasataka was revered from the early period of Buddhism in Tibet. If we question their historicity - they are given only in sources compiled centuries after the event - we can conclude that by the 14th century the Karmasataka was considered an important

annotated by Etienne LAMOTIE, English translation by Sara BOIN-WEBB, Curzon Press in association with the Buddhist Society, Richmond, Surrey, 1998, pp. 66-72.

22 References in this article are to FEER'S summary (FEER 1901), a modem printed edition (of the first part only), Las brgya tham pa, mTsho snon mi rigs dpe skrun khan, Xining, 1995 (referred to as Las brgya tham pa 1995), and, for the story of Soma (see below), the Derge Kanjur 340, mdo sde a, 28b7-31a3 (referred to as Karmasataka, with reference to folio number, side, and line). In the Peking Kanjur (Otani Reprint) the Karmasataka is Cat. No. 1007, in mdo section, VoL suo

23 To be fair, I should mention that there is a Mongolian version, which I presume to be entirely dependent on the Tibetan.

24 For references see Peter SKILLING, "From bKa' bstan bcos to bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur", in Helmut EIMER (ed.), Transmission of the Tibetan Canon: Papers Presented at a Panel of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, Vienna, 1997 (= VoL III of Ernst STElNKELLNER [Gen. ed.], Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995: Beitrage zur Kulturund Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Nr. 22, Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften, 257. Band), p. 89.

25 For references see SKILLING, "From bKa' bstan bcos to bKa' , gyur and bsTan' gyur", p.95.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MOLA-)SARVA.STIV.ADIN UTERATURE 141

text. In either case the narrative may not be an historical fact (and I will not enter into the· question of whether or not such a creature exists) but may nonetheless be true, in that it expresses the cultural values of its age. The same may be said for the narratives of the Karmasataka itself.

The Karmasataka and Avadiinasataka are highly processed biographical texts26• They share many of the same tales (including some of those of the nuns) and use many of the same formulas, and there is no reason to believe that the Karmasataka is any younger than the Avadiinasataka. For purposes of this study I take them to be broadly contemporary, and to belong to the beginning of the Christian Era27. In any case, the Chinese Avadiinasataka, dating as it does to the second quarter of the third century, appears to be the oldest datable collection of Buddhist biographies. Thus the text certainly merits our attention.

One feature distinguishes the stories of the two Sataka collections from the Pili Therigiithii and the Theri Apadiina. In the latter two the Thetis speak for themselves in verse. The Sataka collections do not include any of the verses, and the ladies have no voices and very little existence beyond the stereotyped phraseology of highly processed narrative. (Supriya speaks a verse on diina from the time of birth. Otherwise, verses occur in the stories of K~ema and Viriipa, while the stock avadiina verse na pralJa§yanti karmiilJi, kalpakotisatair api ... occurs at the appropriate place in all the stories.)

In the Karmasataka the stories of the nuns are scattered throughout the work. In contrast, in the Avadiinasataka the ten accounts of nuns are grouped together in the eighth decade. As PEER remarks, "Tous les heros de la huitieme decade sont des femmes qui parviennent a l' etat d' Arhat" . PEER notes that with one exception (no. 8) the heroines are young women who are all, with one exception (no. 5), "filles de bonne maison". That

26 In contrast, the Divyiivadiina is a loose collection or anthology. Even its contents are not fixed.

27 Like most of the dates proposed for early Indian Buddhist literature, this date is precarious. The tales themselves might belong to the Asokan and early post-ASokan periods, some being certainly post-Asokan. The collections could have come into being by the Christian Era. LAMOITE places the avadiinas in the context of the Sanskritization of literature in the second century CE: Etienne LAMOITE, Histoire du bouddhisme indien des origines a ['ere Saka, Louvain, 1958, pp. 653-54.

142 PETER SKILLING

is, there are three daughters of kings, two daughters of merchants (sre,ythf), and one daughter each of a brahman, a rich Sakyan, and of the famous AnathapiI).<;lada. The young exception is a dancer, and the one who is not young is a decrepit slave28 •

FEER notes that all but one of the young ladies of good family share a common trait: an invincible opposition to marriage. Does this suggest that women were driven to the nunneries by unhappy marriages? Not so - in most case they are averse to marriage from the start, and are attracted to the spiritual life in its own right.

I do not propose that the stories be taken literally, as "historical biographies" or "true life stories". To do so we would have to believe that Suprabha (No.1) was born with a shining jewel attached to her throat, that SUkia (No.3) was born covered with a pure white cloth, and that Mukta (No.7) was born with a string of pearls wrapped about her head29• (These marvellous qualities are satisfactorily explained in due course: they were the results of acts of generosity in previous lives. Suprabha had offered jewels to the stiipa of the past Buddha Vipasyin; Sukla had offered kathina robes to the past Buddha Kasyapa and his following; Mukta had tossed a precious string of pearls onto the head of the Buddha Kasyapa.) The value of the accounts is that they embed contemporary social attitudes, that they express social identities, and that they reflect what was acceptable and possible for renunciant women.

Nuns and the transmission of scripture

Traditional accounts of the transmission of the Buddha's Dharma have little to say about the role of nuns, or of women. Were the scriptures transmitted entirely by monks and males in Indian Buddhism, or did nuns or females play any role? The question is not addressed in these terms in

28 See PEER 1891, p. 259. 29 The examples are from Avadanasataka. The story of Suklli is included in the medi

aeval Japanese anthology, Konjaku Monogatari: see Yoshiko K. DYKSTRA (tr.), The Konjaku Tales, Indian Section, Intercultural Research Institute, Kansai University of Foreign Studies, Osaka, I 177-80.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MULA-)SARVASTIVADIN LITERATURE 143

any· traditional sources that I know of, and we must therefore collect evidence scattered in inscriptions and early texts. I have presented and discussed some of the evidence in earlier articles30• In this paper I would like to examine the evidence of the avadilnas of the Avadilnasataka and Karmasataka.

According to tradition the Buddha praised individual disciples as foremost in particular abilities or qualities. In the Pali canon the locus classicus for this is the Etadagga-vagga of the "Book of Ones" of the Anguttaranikilya, which lists forty-three monks, thirteen nuns, ten laymen, and ten laywomen3!. The corresponding section of the (MUla-)Sarvastivada Ekottarikilgama - which surely existed - has not been preserved in the original or in translation, but references to foremost disciples are scattered throughout their literature. Of the ten nuns in the Avadilnasataka, four are described as foremost (e,yil agril) in their stories:

Supriya in having performed merit (11.2, krtapUlJyana/fl); Soma in having heard much and in retaining what she has heard

(22.4, bahusrutana/fl srutadharilJa/fl); KacangaIa in analysis of Siitranta (43.8, siitrantavibhagakartrllJa/fl); K~ema in great wisdom and great eloquence (50.9, mahaprajiiana/fl mahapratibhanana/fl) .

The last three excel in abilities related to learning and teaching. The same three nuns are known in the Theravadin tradition, but only one of them is described as foremost in the Etadagga-vagga32• This is Khema, equivalent to the K~ema of the Avadilnasataka, who in the Etadaggava,gga is declared foremost in having great wisdom (mahilpafifiilnarrt) , just as in the Avadilnasataka. The other two nuns are not listed in the

30 Peter SKILLING, "A Note on the History of the Bhikkhurn-saiJ.gha (II): The order of nuns after the Parinirvfu).a", w.F.E. Review XXXA/XXXI.l (Oct.-Dec. 2536/1993-JanuaryMarch 2537/1994), pp. 29-49; "A Note on the History of the BhikkhunI-saIi.gha (I): Nuns at the time of the Buddha", w.F.E. Review XXXI.2-3 (April-Sept., BE 2537 = 1994), pp. 47-55; "Nonnen, Laienanhiingerinnen, Spenderinnen, Giittinnen: Weibliche Rollen irn friihen indischen Buddhismus", in UIrike ROESLER (ed.), Aspekte des Weiblichen in der indischen Kuitur, Swisttal-Odendorf, 2000 (Indica et Tibetica 39), pp. 47-102, especially §IT.

31 Anguttaranikiiya I 23-26. The two laymen Tapassu-Bhallika are counted as one. 32 I leave out of consideration here Supriya. In Piili there is an upasikii Suppiya, fore

most of those who wait upon the sick: see MALALASEKERA, DPPN IT 1224-26.

144· PETER SKILLING

Etadagga-vagga, and the qualities in which they excel are not ascribed to nuns. (Two other Etadagga nuns possess skills related to the transmission of the Dharma: Patacara, foremost in mastering the Vinaya [vinayadharanarrz], and Dhammadinna, foremost in preaching [dhammakathikiinarrz]).

The Avadana of Soma

The (Milla-)Sarvastivadins dedicated an interesting aVCfdana to Soma, one of the nuns declared foremost in their texts but not in the Etadaggavagga or elsewhere in Piili. The avadana relates how Soma memorized the entire Pratimok,ya on a single hearing from the Buddha himself, causing him to declare her "foremost of the nuns who retain what they have heard". The story is told in the Karmasataka (No. 91), Avadanasataka (No. 74), and Ratna-avadana-mala (No. 19), which agree on the substance of the tale but differ on many details33 • For the most part they use the same formulas, formulas with close parallels in (Milla-)Sarvastivadin literature such as the Vinaya from Gilgit. I give here a summary of the Karmasataka version.

Soma was the daughter of a brahman of SravastI34. She had a healthy and pampered childhood. She quickly mastered the art of writing, and learned all of the brahmanical treatises from her father at home35 • Later she heard that SramaI?-a Gautama was staying in SravastI and, with her parents' permission, went to see him in Prince leta's Grove. Seeing the Buddha, the Blessed One, his body beautifully adorned with the thirty-two features of a Great Man, like a lamp set in a golden vessel, like a sacrificial post studded with different kinds of jewels - the Buddha, the Blessed One with a mind radiant, stainless, and perfectly pure - she was emaptured. The joy experienced by one who cultivates a mind of cahn (Samathacitta) for as long as

33 Karmasataka, Derge Kanjur 340, mda sde a, 28b7-31a3 (summary in Zhe chen 'gyur med Padma rnam rgyal, mDa las bYUli ba'i gtam rgyud sna tshags, Krun go'i bod kyi ses rig dpe skrun khan, Beijing, 1992, pp. 416-18); Feer (1901) 442-43; Avadanasataka No. 74, FEER pp. 275-79; SPEYER II 19-23; Peking Kanjur (Otani Reprint) 1012, Vol. 40, mda u 202a5-205a4. The reference to Ratna-avadana-mtila (not seen) is from FEER (1891) xxvi. (I am grateful to Matthieu RICARD, Kathmandu, for the copy of the Derge.)

34 Avadanasataka describes him (with a stock passage) as a wealthy brahman, a master of the three Vedas and ancillary literature, who taught the mantras to five hundred young brahmans. The Karmasataka gives him the name Zla ba bde ba = Somak~ema?

35 According to Avadanascltaka she was intelligent, bright, and clever, and learned whatever mantras her father taught his brahman students the instant she heard them.


twelve years cannot match the joy experienced when a person first sees a Buddha, a joy that arises by cause of his or her accumulated roots of merit. Emaptured, she approached the Blessed One, paid homage with her head at his feet, and sat in front of him in order to listen to the Dharma. The Blessed One understood her state of mind, intelligence, and character, and taught the Dharma tailored to suit her character. The girl Soma, in that very seat, realized the fruit of stream-entry, shattering with the diamond-mace of wisdom (jiWnavajra) the mountain of the personality-view with its twenty soaring peaks (viT(lsatisikharasamudgataT(l satkiiyadr~tisailam). Having seen the truth she rose from her seat, arranged her robe over one shoulder, raised her hands palms together toward the Blessed One, and spoke to him: "0 Sir, 0 Blessed One, if I am fit for the status of a nun who goes forth and fully ordains in the well-expounded DharmaVinaya, I wish to lead the exalted life (brahmacarya) under the Blessed One." The Blessed One entrusted her to Mahaprajapau GautamI, who performed the going forth and full ordination rites and gave her instruction. By dint of energy, practice, and perseverence Soma cast off all defilements and realized the state of a worthy one (arhatva). At one time, when the Blessed One had said to the monks, "Let the nuns perform the monastic rites in assembly separately", because MahaprajapatI GautamI was unable to recite the Pratimok~asutra, she went to the place where the Blessed One was; arriving, she paid homage with her head at his feet and sat to one side. Seated to one side Mahaprajapau GautamI said to the Blessed One: "The Blessed One has declared, 'Let the monks perform the monastic rites in assembly separately; let the nuns perform the monastic rites in assembly separately'. The Blessed One has expounded the Pratimok~asutra to the monks but has not expounded it to the nuns. I request the Blessed One to teach the Pratimoksasutra. I wish to learn it from the Blessed One." The Buddhas, the Blessed Ones do not teach the Dharma phrase by phrase36•

36 Karmasataka fol. 30a3: sans rgyas bcom Idan 'das rnams ni tshig re re nas zlos sin chos gsuns mi srid de, de'i skabs med do. Avadiinasataka II 21.14 has: "The Blessed One answered '0 nuns: The Tathagatas, the Worthy Ones, the truly and fully Awakened Ones do not teach the Dharma phrase by phrase'" (na hi bhi4W:1yas tathiigatii arhantaf:t samyaksambuddhiif:t padaSo dharmam uddisanti). The only other known usage of padaso dharmal'[l + verb is in a Priitim04a rule: Sarvastivadapatayantikii no. 6, yaf:t punar bhikeur anupasal'[lpannena pudgalena siirdhal'[l padaso dharmal'[l viicayet piitayantikii (Georg VON SIMSON, Priitimokeasiltra der Sarviistiviidins, Teil II, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Gottingen, 2000 (Sanskrittexte aus den Turfanfunden XI), p. 205, tr. p. "Wenn ein Monch mit einer nichtordinierten Person zusamrnen die Lehre Wort ror Wort rezitiert, dann ist es ein Patayantika-Vergehen". The rule is no. 6 in the Tibetan MUlasarvastivadin Priitim04a, yan dge slon gan, gan zag bsfien par ma rdzogs par pa dan tshig gis chos 'don na [hun byed do (Satis Chandra VIDYABHUSANA, So-sor-thar-pa (Khrims) or a code of Buddhist monastic laws, repr. R.N. Bhattacharya, Calcutta, 2000, p. 77). In the Theravadin Piitimokkha the rule is no. 4, yo pana bhikkhu anupasampannal'[l padaso dhammal'[l viiceyya, piicittiyal'[l,

146- PETER SKlLLING

The Blessed One then spoke to Mahaprajapan Gaut8mi:, "Well, GautamI, if you are able to remember it after a single recitation, I will expound iCm. Then, at that time, the nun Soma was seated there in that assembly. She arranged her robe over one shoulder, raised her hands with palms pr.essed together toward the Blessed One, and spoke to him: "I request the Blessed One to expound the Pratimolqasutra. I will remember it after a single recitation. "38

Then the Blessed One expounded the Pratimolqasutra to the nuns. When he had recited it a single time; the nun Soma learned it, and then went on to learn the Three Pitakas. Whatever verses there were, she learned them all, and so the Blessed One proclaimed her to be foremost of those who could remember what they heard39•

The nun Soma is not unknown in Theravadin tradition. In her famous Bhikkhuni-sarrzyutta verses, Soma rejects Mara's insinuation that a woman cannot attain the awakened state. Her verses are given in the Therigiithii, and her past life is told in .the commentaries40• But as noted above she is not among the thirteen nuns singled out for their outstanding achievements in the Etadagga-vagga41 • The story of the transmission of the

"If any bhikkhu should make someone who is not ordained recite the Dhamma word by word, there is an offence entailing expiation": William PRUTIT (ed.), K.R. NORMAN (tr.), The Piitimokkha, The Pali Text Society, Oxford, 2001, pp. 46-47. Although the translations as "word by word" or "line by line" seem adequate, the precise meaning and significance of the rule elude me, and the Theravadm vibhanga (Vinaya IV 14-15) is obscure. Cf. also AvadiinaSataka II 19.8 padaso vyiikara7;lal; or (from SPEYER'S n. 2) Divyiivadiina 619.24 padaso vaiyiikara7;lal;.

37 Karmasataka 30a4 kye gau ta mi gal te Ian cig smras pas 'dzin nus na ni bstan par bya'o; Avadiinasataka II 21 ult yadi yu~miikal'{l kiicid uccahate salq-d uktal'{l dhiirayitum evam aham uddiseyam.

38 Karmasataka 30a5 Ian cig bka' stsal pas, bdag gis gzun bar 'tsallo; Avadiinasataka II 22.3 ahal'{l salq-d uktal'{l dhiirayiD'e.

39 Avadiinasataka stops with the Priitimok~asii.tra, and does not mention the Three Pi!akas or "verses" (tshig su bya ba).

40 William PRUTIT, Therigiithii-a{!hakathii, pp. 64-65; ibid., The Commentary on the Verses of the Theris, pp. 87-90; G.P. MALALASEKERA, Dictionary of Pali Proper Names, [1937] repro Oriental Reprint, New Delhi, 1983, II 1310.

41 Aliguttara-nikiiya I 25. In the Pili version the Buddha praises thirteen nuns. In the Chinese Ekottariigama he extols fifty-one nuns (for references see Peter SKll.LING, "A Note on the History of the Bhikkhuni-sangha (II): The order of nuns after the ParinirviiQ.a", W.F.B. Review XXXA/XXXI.1 (Oct.-Dec. 2536/1993-Ianuary-March 2537/1994). In the corresponding section of the Chinese translation of an Ekottariigama of unknown school, a Soma is declared to show great compassion for people who do not want to choose the way indicated by the Dharma, which seems a bit obscure: see Bhikkhu PAsAnIKA (tr.), "Ekottaragama", Buddhist Studies Review 4.1 (1987), p. 50.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MOLA-)SARVASTIVA.DIN LITERATURE 147

Pratimok~a to the nuns, by the Buddha or anyone alse, is not, as far as I know, related in Theravadin literature. The *Var~avastu in the Chinese translation of the Sarvastivadin Vinaya, however, regards teaching the Pratimok~a to sik~adatta-sramalJerfs to be a duty of sufficient significance that a monk is authorized to break the rains-retreat for up to seven nights in order to travel to teach the two divisions of the Pratimok~a to a Si~adatta-sramalJerz42.

Nuns and the transmission of the Dharma

Soma is not the only nun to have taken part in the transmission of the Dharma, although she may have had the best memory, and ,have played a key role in the transfer of the Pratimok~a to the sisters. Another nun who transmitted the teaching is KasI-SundaiL In a past life, KasI-Sundan built a vihara perfect in every way and donated it to Kasyapa Buddha and the bhik~u-saf(lgha. She offered all requisites to the monks (bhik~u), requested permission from her parents, and went forth. Having studied the Tripitaka, she became a coherent and eloquent teacher of the Dharma43 •

Kacangaia, as seen above, was foremost in analysis of the siitras44•

Her story is told in the Karmasataka (No. 33), Avadanasataka (No. 73), Tsa-pao-tsang-ching (No. 6)45, and Ratnamalavadana (No. 17). The Theravadin Etadagga-vagga does not count Kajangala among the foremost nuns, but elsewhere in the Aftguttara-nikaya she is praised as intelligent

42 Shayne CLARKE, "The Existence of the Supposedly Non-existent Sik~adattasramalJerf: A New Perspective on Parajika Penance", Buddhist Studies (Bukkyo Kenkyil) XXIX (March, 2000), pp. 163-64.

43 Las brgya tham pa (1995), p. 76.1 de rab tu byun nas sde snad gsum bslabs te rig pa dan gral ba'i spabs pa dan ldan pa'i chas smra bar gyur ta. For the stock compound rig pa dan gral ba'i spabs pa dan ldan pa = yuktamuktapratibhana see Jens Braarvig, "DhiiralJf and Pratibhiina: Memory and Eloquence of the Bodhisattvas", in VoL 8.1 (1985) of this esteemed journal, pp. 17-29.

44 Las brgya tham pa (1995) 304.6 (FEER p. 262), na'i nan thas kyi mda rnam par 'byed pa rnams kyi mchag; Avadanasataka II 43.8 e~agra me bhik~avo bhik~ulJfna'!l mama sravikalJa'!l siltrantavibhagakartrflJa'!l yaduta kacangala bhik~ulJf. The Avadana spells the name Kacailgalii, the P~ili texts Kajailgalii (with variants). Las brgya tham pa (1995) has Ka tsan ka lao

45 Charles WILLEMEN (tl.), The Storehouse of Sundry Valuables, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley, 1994 (BDK English Tripi(aka 10-1), pp. 20-21. The text dates to Yen-hsing 2 = CE 472.

148. PETER SKILLING

and wise by the Buddha for the exposition she gives to the lay-followers of Kajailgala. When the lay-followers relate her talk to the Buddha, the Blessed One states that "if you, householders, came to me and asked about this matter, I would explain it just as it has been explained by the

-nun Kajailgala. Just that is its meaning: remember it thus"46. This, from a Buddha, is high praise indeed. The phrasing is stock, and at least one other nun - the eloquent Dharniadinna - is praised in similar fashion, as are a number of monks47. In the (Miila-)Sarvastivadin version the Buddha praises Dharmadinna to her face: "Excellent (siidhu), Dharmadinna, excellent! Had the lay-follower Saga questioned me about the very same points in the very same phrases and the very same words, I would have explained the very same points in the very same phrases and the very same words, just as [you have] explained"48.

Human nature being what it is, we should not expect all learned nuns to be model members of the sarrzgha. The (MUla-)Sarvastivadin Vznayavibhanga describes SthUliinanda, a nun known for her greed and inappropriate behaviour, as "one who has heard much [teaching] (bahuSrutii), one who has mastered the Tripitaka (*traipitikii), a coherent and eloquent teacher"49. She relates the life of the Bodhisattva from his descent from the Tu~ita Heaven up to his defeat of Mara, in detail and in full, just as

46 Anguttaranikaya V 58.21 satihu sadhu gahapatayo. par;uf.ita gahapatayo kaja/igala bhikkhuni, mahapafifia gahapatayo kajangala bhikkhuni. sace pi tumhe gahapatayo mafTI upasankamitva etam atthal'{l puccheyyatha, aham pi c' etafTI evam eva vyakareyyaT[!, yatha tal'{l kajangaliiya bhikkhuniya vyakatal'fl. eso c' eva tassa attho, evafi ca nal'{l dhareyyatha. This sutta is the only one listed by MALALASEKERA under Kajangala (DPPN I 482). AKANuMA (p. 333) does not list any Chinese counterpart.

47 For Dhamrnadinna see Majjhimanikiiya I 304.32. 48 Sarnathadeva, Abhidharmakosa-upiiyika-{i1ca, Peking Tanjur (Otani Reprint) 5595,

Vol. 118, mnon pa'i bstan bcos tu, 12a7 bcom Idan 'das kyis dge slon ma chos sbyin la 'di skad ces bka' stsalto. chos sbyin legs so legs so. na la yan dge bsfien sa ga don 'di fiid dan, tshig 'di fiid dan, yi ge 'di fiid kyi dri ba 'dri na na yOli don 'di fiid dan, tshig 'di fiid dan, yige 'di fiid kyis bstan pa Min du lun bstan par bya'o. There are significant differences between the three available versions: the (Miila-)Sarvastivadin Dharmadinnasutra preserved in full citation in Sarnathadeva' s anthology, the Chinese translation in the Madhyamagama, and the Pili counterpart, the Culavedalla-sutta (Majjhimanikaya 44).

49 Vinayavibhanga, Peking Kanjur 1032, Vol. 43, 'dul ba fie, 213b4 sbom dga' mo de man du thos pa, sde snod gsum dan Idan pa, rig pa dan grol ba'i spobs pa can; F. Anton VON SCHIEFNER, Tibetan Tales derived from Indian Sources, tr. from the German into English by W.R.S. RALSTON, repro Sri Satguru Publications, Delhi, 1988, p. 243.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MULA-)SARVASTIvADIN LITERATURE 149

taught in the Abhini~kramm}asutra5o. No matter that she does this for money, to an actor who wants to make a play on the life of the Buddha and who has already been turned away by the monks: the point is she can do it.

Aspiring to be foremost

To attain the position of a foreinost disciple, female or male, monastic or lay, is not a casual affair. It involves, first and foremost, an aspiration in the presence of a previous Buddha, followed by a few ::eons of dedicated practice. The initial aspiration arises when the individual sees a Buddha proclaim one of his disciples to be foremost in a certain quality. The individual then aspires, "Just as so-and-so has been proclaimed, may I in future be proclaimed". In the context of our study, the important point is that nuns foremost in teaching abilities were held to have been proclaimed foremost in teaching abilities not only under Buddha Sakyamuni, but also under past Buddhas such as Kasyapa. That is to say, it is a normal state of affairs. The aspiration of Soma is described as follows51 :

The monks asked the Buddha to explain Soma's past deeds, including why she was able to remember everything she heard and was proclaimed foremost of those who remember what they have heard. The Blessed One replied, "This has happened by power of aspiration (pralJidhtina)". The monks asked, "Sir, what aspiration did she make?" The Blessed One replied, "0 monks, fonnerly, in times gone by, in this very same Auspicious LEon (bhadrakaZpa), when the human life-span was 20,000 years, there arose in the world the Blessed One Kasyapa - a truly and fully Awakened One, perfect in knowledge and conduct, Well-farer, knower of the world, unsurpassed charioteer of people to be trained, teacher of gods and humankind, Awakened One - and in his teaching (the future Soma) went forth. The truly and fully Awakened One Kasyapa proclaimed the preceptress under whom she had gone forth to be foremost of those who remember what they have heard. At the point of death (the future Soma) made the following vow (pralJidhtina): "Here I have lived the exalted life

50 Vinayavibhmiga, 213b4-214a1, des de la ... mnon par byun ba'i mdo las rgya cher ji skad gsuns pa biin thams cad rgyas par bstan to; SCHIEFNER p. 243-44.

51 Karmasataka 30a7.

150 PETER SKll.-LING

under the truly and fully A wakened One Kasyapa, but I have not attained any special quality (gUl;agalJa). Kasyapa has predicted that the brahman youth Uttara will become a Buddha - may I serve him, may I not miss him, may I go forth in his dispensation! 52 May I cast off all defilements and realize the state of a worthy one (arhatva). And just as Kasyapa proclaimed my preceptress to be foremost of those who remember what they hear, so may the Sage of the Sakyas, the King of the Siikyas53, declare me to be foremost of those who remember what they hear54•

52 The story of Gautama's past life as the brahman youth Uttara is related in the Gharfkara-sutta (Majjhimanikiiya 81), Bhai:tajyavastu, and Sanghabhedavastu (Raniero GNOLI [ed.], The Gilgit Manuscript of the Sanghabhedavastu, Part II, Rome, 1978, II 22-30). The Buddha identifies himself with Uttara at the end of this ancient jataka (p. 30.14): kiT[l manyadhve bhik:tava~? yo 'say uttaro malJava~ aham eva sa tena kalena tena samayena. The Gi1git manuscript of the Sanskrit Bhai:tajyavastu refers the reader to a sutra version in the Madhyamagama. Ernst WALDSCHMIDT, "Central Asian Siltra Fragments" (in Heinz BECHERT, ed., The Language of the Earliest Buddhist Tradition, Gottingen, 1980, p. 143), gives a brief description of the Nandipala-siitra and its parallels. See also Marcel HOFINGER: Le Congres du Lac Anavatapta (Vies de Saints Bouddhiques), Extrait du Vinaya des Miilasarvastivadin Bhai:tajyavastu, II: Legendes du Bouddha (Buddhiivadana) (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 38), Louvain-Ia-Neuve, 1990, 102-115, "NandIpala et Uttara". For a Lokottaravadin version see E. SENART, Mahiivastu I (1882), pp. 317 foIl., translated J. J. JONES, The Mahiivastu, Vol. I, London, 1949 (repr. 1973), pp. 265-285. The Upiiyakausalya-siitra gives a detailed account from a Mahayana perspective,

53 sakyamuni~ sakyiidhiraja~: cpo the Sukhiivatfvyuha in Jerome DUCOR (ed., tr.), Le satra d'Amida precht par Ie Buddha, Peter Lang, Bern, 1998, § 18, p. 165.15, bhagavata sakyamunina sakyadhirajena; Tibetanp. 174.19, bcom ldan 'das Siikya thub pa siikya'i rgyal pos.

54 The whole passage is stock: cpo Sanghabhedavastu II 66.29 bhUtapurvaT[l bhik:tavo 'sminn eva bhadrake kalpe vimsativar:tasatayu:ti prajayaf!! kiiSyapo nama samyaksaT[lbuddho loka udapadi vidyacaralJasaT[lpanna~ yavad buddho bhagavan ... (67.1) tasyayaf!!

. pravacane pravrajita~; tatranelJa <na> kascid gUlJagalJo 'dhigata~; yasya sakase pravrajita~ sa bhagavata katyapena bahusrutanaT[l srutadharalJaT[l srutasannicayanam agro vyakrta~; sa maralJakalasamaye pralJidhiinaT[l karoti: yan maya bhagavati kasyape samyaksaT[lbuddhe anuttare dakeilJfye yavad ayur brahmacaryaT[l caritam, na ca kascid gUlJagalJo 'dhigata~, anenahaf!! kusalamiilena yo 'sau bhagavata kasyapena samyaksaf!!buddhena uttaro malJavo vyakrta~, bhavi:tyasi tvaT[l malJava var:tasatayu:ti prajayaf!! Siikyamunir nama tathiigato 'rhan samyaksaT[lbuddha iti tasyahaf!! pravacane pravrajya sarvakldaprahiilJad arhatvaf!! sak:tatkuryam; yathii ca me upadhyiiyo (see Gnoli's n. 2, p. 67) bhagavata kiiSyapena samyaksaf!!buddhena bahusrutanaT[l srutadharalJaT[l srutasannicayanam agro vyakrta~, evam mam api sa bhagavan Siikyamun* Siikyadhiraja(l bahusrutanaT[l srutadharalJaT[l srutasannicayanam agro vyakuryad iti; tat pralJidha<na>vaSiid etarhi maya bahusrutanaT[l srutadharalJa'll srutasannicayanam agro vyakrta~. See also Sanghabhedavastu II 3.23-31; 51.29-52.13.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MULA-)SARVASTNADIN LITERATURE 151

Similar tales of initial aspiration are told for other nuns (and, of course, monks). One of the most dramatic of the nun's tales is that of Krsa Gautami (sKem mo Gau ta mY), related in the (Miila-)Sarvastivadin Vinaya, the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, and elsewhere55. Under Kasyapa Buddha she vowed to be foremost of the nuns who master the Vinaya under the future Buddha Siikyamuni56.

Mundane details: teaching, viharas, and titles

Where and whom did the nuns teach? In some cases they were invited to the homes of lay-followers. Karmasataka No. 36 (Bag rna gton 2) relates that on one occasion Mahaprajapau GautamI went to the house of the householder Datta to teach the dharma57. When she saw her Bag ma gtoiJ. was inspired to become a nun herself. In some cases the people went to the nuns. Karmasataka No.8 (bDe byed rna), the story of K~ema, states that when K~ema grew up she went for refuge, took the precepts, gave alms, and went constantly to the nun's vihara at Sravasu to listen to the Dharma58• Kajailgala, in the discourse mentioned above, is approached by the lay-followers of Kajailgala, who ask her to explain her a brief teaching of the Buddha in detail. In the sutra named after her in the Chinese Madhyarnagarna the famous teacher Dharmadinna (Pali Dhammadinna)

55 For a summary of the Vznaya version see Jampa Losang PANGLUNG, Die Erzlihlstojfe . des Mulasarvastivada-Vinaya analysiert auf Grund der tibetischen Ubersetzung, The Reiyukai Library, Tokyo, 1981 (Studia Philologica Buddhica ill), pp. 194-96. . 56 Vznayakl!udrakavastu, Peking Kanjur (Otani Reprint) 1035, VoL 44, 'dul ba ne, 128a4 ji ltar bdag gi mkhan mo 'di la bcom ldan 'das 'od srun yan dag par rdzogs pa'i sans rgyas kyis 'dul ba 'dzin pa'i nan na mchog tu gsuns pa de biin du bdag kyan bcom ldan 'das sa kya thub pa sa kya'i rgyal po des 'dul ba 'dzin pa'i nan na mchog tu gsuns par sog sig. In the Theravadin Etadagga-vagga (Anguttaraniktiya I 25) it is Patacara who is declared to be the foremost vinayadhara. In fact the narratives of Kr~a GautamI, Pafacara, and other nuns are conflated in the different sources, and only a full-scale study could hope to disentangle them, or at least lay bare the degree of confusion.

5? In Karmasataka there are two stories named Bag rna gton, Nos. 35 and 36. The Sanskrit equivalent of "Bag rna gton" is not clear. FEER (1901) 266-67 reconstructs the title as "Pradeya-tyaga", but it may well be simply "Avaha", as given in Tshe riil dbail rgyal's lexicon: see Lokesh CHANDRA, Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, Supplementary Vol. 5, International Academy of Indian Culture, New Delhi, 1993, p. 1236a.

58 Las brgya tham pa (1995) 80.5 ... dge slon ma'i gtsug lag khan du yan rgyun mi 'chad par 'gro iin chos nan to.

152 PETER SKILLING

teaches the female lay-devotee Visakha at Anathapi.Jjqada's Pleasance in Prince Jeta's Grove in SravastI59. In the Pali counterpart, the Cii!avedallasutta, Dhammadinna teaches the layman Visakha in the Kalandakanivapa in the Ve~uvana at Rajagaha.

Anathapll;lqada's Pleasance and Kalandakanivapa were both sites of monastic institutions. It is not clear whether these institutions subsumed nunneries under the same overall name or whether nunneries had separate institutional status and names, except in one case, that of the bhik~ulJfvihiira named Rajakarama, near the Jetavana at SravastI, where Kannasataka No.5 (sGur bu 2, the second Kubjapatra story), opens60 • As far as I know this is the only early nunnery known by name61 , and as far as I know it has not been located, even provisionally. How big was it? How was it laid out, how was it endowed? When a nun's vihiira at SravastI is mentioned but not named, as for example in the Dhannadinniisiitra or the avadiina of K~ema, can we assume it was the Rajakarama? Or were there other nunneries at SravastI? Were at least some nuns' residences were independent? How were they administered? How were they financed or endowed?

The term for nunnery, not only in Kannasataka but elsewhere, is vihiira (gtsug lag khan)62. The use of this term to describe nunneries as well as the residences of male monastics seems natural enough, but it is not without significance. Another building met with is the dge sIan ma'i dbyar khan (= bhik~ulJf-hannikii?), to which Bhadra resorts in the Vinayavibhanga63 . I hope that further study of (Miila-)Sarvastivadin literature will lead to the compilation of a glossary of monastic terminology, not only of residences, buildings, and suchlike, but also of hierarchical terms, for, of course, monks, nuns, and all monastics. It is noteworthy that nuns are described as "great female auditor" (nan thas chen ma = mahiisriivikii), counterpart to "great male auditor" (mahiisriivaka), and "female elder"

59 Bik~u THIeR MINH CRAU, The Chinese Madhyama f1gama and the Piili Majjhima Nikiiya, A Comparative Study, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1991, p. 269.

60 Las brgya tham pa (1995) 51.6, dge slan ma'i gtsug lag khan rgyal pa'i kun dga' ra ba ies bya ba.

61 SKILLING, "A Note on the History of the Bhikkhuru-sangha (II)", p. 30. 62 dge sian ma'j gtsug lag khan, at e.g. Las brgya tham pa (1995) 179.7 (at Mathura?);

337.11 (at Sravastl); 346.9. 63 Op. cit., the 43a3.

IMAGES OF NUNS IN (MOLA-)SARV ASTN ADIN LITERATURE 153

(gnas brtan ma.= sthavirl), counterpart to "male elder (sthavira)64. Another technical title is· "preceptress" (rnkhan rna = upadhyayinf)65.

An insecure vocation

Whether or not nunneries were witlrin or adjacent to monasteries, the situation of nuns could be precarious. There are accounts of assaults on nunneries launched by bands of males, whether wantons or jilted husbands. In Karmasataka No. 35 (Bag rna gton 1) a young girl inclined towards renunciation flees to a nunnery at SravastI to avoid an arranged marriage. There she is initiated into the order and becomes an arhat!. The frustrated bridegroom sets out in hot pursuit with a troop of confederates to take her away. He searches the nunnery and then sees the young girl: head-shaven, red-robed, seated cross-legged in dhyana. He attempts to take her hand but she rises up into the air and performs such wonders (of the sort often performed by Pratyeka-buddhas) that she overawes the youth and his gang, who beg her pardon and become stream-winners and then arhats.

In Karrnasataka No. 36 (Bag rna gton 2) a young nun is so beautiful that young men try to abduct her from the nunnery. In the popular tale of Mahakasyapa and Bhadra, after Bhadra has ordained she is kidnapped by a wicked minister and handed over to King Ajatasatru, who violates her66. Clearly the security of nuns was not guaranteed .

. The use of formulas

As noted above, the texts under study are highly formulaic: again and again we meet the same phrases, passages, and paragraphs. When a

64 Las brgya tham pa (1995) 51.7-8, in the phrase nyan thos chen mo, gnas brtan ma gnas brtan ma rdzu 'phrul thob pa.

65 For terms related to nuns see further SKILLING, "A Note on the History of the BhikkhunI-saiJ.gha (IT)".

66 SCHIEFNER, op. cit., pp. 204-05; for the Pall version of the story see PRUITT, Therfgiithii-a{?hakathii, 66-74 on the verses of Bhadda Kapilaru (Therfgiithii 63-66). For the version of the Chinese "Abhiniskramanasiitra" see Samuel BEAL, The Romantic Legend of Siikya Buddha, [London, 1875j Motil~l Banarsidass, Delhi, 1985, p. 320. For the avadiina of Mahakasyapa see Avadana-kalpalatii of K!femendra (Buddhist Sanskrit Texts 23), Vol. II, Second edition edited by Dr. Sridhar ThIPATIll, Mithila Institute, Darbhanga, 1989, Chap. 63.

154 PETER SKlLLING

woman requests "going forth" (pravrajyii) the formula states that the Blessed One entrusts her to MahaprajapatI GautamI, who performs the ceremony and instructs her67 • Sometimes the instruction is given by an anonymous preceptress68 . In one case Mahakasyapa turns Bhadra over to MahaprajapatI GautamI who has her go forth and take ordination (upasampadii)69. It is noteworthy that this formula does not mention the participation of any monks (bhik~u) in the ceremony. This may be a case of abbreviation, as seen also in PaIi texts like the Therzgiithii-Cfnhakathii, or it may have a greater significance70• The Therzgiithii-atthakathii goes to great length to deny that the" ehz ordination" - direct ordination by the Buddha himself - was ever used for nuns, but there is tantalizing evidence to the contrary71.

Another formula used in the avadiinas describes the attainment of the state of arhat by a nun. It is no different than that used for a monk, and ends with the phrase:

... she became an object for the offerings, reverence, and respectful speech of the gods with Indra and Upendra72•

In the Ratnamiiliivadiina realized nuns are praised in similar terms 73 :

67 So for Soma, Karmasataka 30b6 de nas bcom ldan 'das kyis de skye dgu'i bdag mo chen mo gau ta mf la gtad nas, skye dgu'i bdag mo chen mo gau ta mfs der rab tu phyun nas, bsfien par rdzogs par byas nas de la lun phog go. See also Las brgya tham pa (1995) 73,82,303.

68 mkhan mo = upadhyayinf, Las brgya tham pa (1995) 337.12. 69 Bhi~U/Jfvinayavibhanga, P 1034, Vol. 43, 'dul ba the, 41b3, des de skye dgu'i bdag

mo chen mo la yons su gtad nas des de rab tu phyun bsfien par rdzogs par byas so; cf. SCHIEFNER, Tibetan Tales, p. 204.

70 Therigatha-arthakatha (PRUITT) 66.35 aparabhage Mahagotamiya santike pabbajjal'[l upasampadafi ca labhitva.

71 The relation between the rules and norms of Vinaya and the accounts of ordination in narrative literature - whether in Pili or Sanskrit, or in Tibetan or Chinese translation - needs to be investigated. For discrepancies in the Pili versions, see Liz Williams, "A Whisper in the Silence: Nuns before Mahapajapa1I? ", Buddhist Studies Review 17.2 (2000) 167-73.

72 See Las brgya tham pa (1995) 74.6, 82.16, 179.17,304.3,337.15: dban po dan fie dban daft bcas pa'i lha mams kyis mchod cin rjed pa dan gus par smra ba'i gnas su gyur to. Cf. Avadanasataka (PEER) 14; for the Sanskrit formula see (SPEYER) I 207.13 sendropendralJal'[l devanal'[l pujyo miinyo 'bhivadyas ca sal'[lvrttaJ:t.

73 Kanga TAKAHATA (ed.), Ratnamalavadana: A Garland of Precious Gems or A Collection of Edifying Tales, Told in a Metrical Form, Belonging to the Mahayana, The Toyo Bunko, Tokyo, 1954 (Oriental Library Series D. Volume 3), p. 115.4, of Sukla.

or:


sadeviisuralokiinii7!1 pftjyii miinyii samaniatalJ va7!1daniyii ciibhito~yii ca vabhUva brahmaciirilJf.

sa deviisuralokiinii7!1 va7!1dyii pftjyabhavat satf74.

Another common formula suggests that for the narrators, Qr perhaps for the society which produced the avadiinas, having a female child did not pose a problem. At least in the "good families", the daughter is cossetted from birth. According to the formula, birth and naming ceremonies (jiitimaha) are held for the baby girl, who is entrusted to the care of eight nurses made up of four pairs, each pair with a specific duty - two to feed her, two to wash her, and so on. Under this care the little dear flourishes, well-fed with the dairy products so popular in Indian lore, and "blossoms like a lotus in a pond" (vardhate hradastham iva paftkajarrt).

These are formulas, stock passages Do they have any significance? I believe they do. They have not fallen out of the sky, but were produced by society, by the Buddhist community. They embed and thereby transmit the idea that like a monk a nun can become an arhat, and then - just like a monk - deserve the offerings of gods and humans. The formulas are codes or metaphors that express female (and male) potentials.

Envoi

(MUla-)Sarvastivadin literature portrays nuns as teachers, some of whom . played a significant role in the transmission of the Dharma. I have given

only a few samples, collected at random, from a rich source, the avadiina literature. There is a great deal more to be learned from this literature not only about the role of nuns, good, bad, and neutral, but also about the process of education and training within the community as a whole. Instruction seems to begin with explanation of aggregates, elements, and bases . (skandha-dhiitu-iiyatana)75. This developed into exegetical traditions, complex Abhidharnma systems, and monastic educational institutions.

74 Ibid., 380.1, of Ksema. 75 See for example Perakopadesa 112.2 buddhiinarrz bhagavantiinarrz siisanarrz tividhena

saizgaharrz gacchati, khandhesu dhiitusu iiyatanesu ca.

156 PETER SKILLING

Several of the important stories, such as that of Soma, have no counterpart in the literature of the Theravadins of Sri Lanka. What are we to make of this? When we recall the role of Sarp.ghamitta Then in the establishment of Buddhism in the Isle of Tabropane, and the explicitly positive image of nuns as teachers presented in the Dlpavarrzsa, we cannot say that the role of nuns was ignored in Sri Lanka vis-a-vis North India. But society changes, and what we have, at any rate, are only fragments of history or narrative related to nuns, embedded in records, devoted to other SUbjects. We do not have a "Bhik~ur:Uvarp.sa" or any kind of history devoted to nuns. And I do not think that there ever was, at least after the earlist period, a single or linear history of the nun's order. The affairs of the sarrzghas, including the order of nuns, would have evolved differently in different societies and at different times over the vast regions in which the sarrzghas were established. For as soon as the sarrzgha spread we must speak of monastic communities, of sarrzghas, for in the postAsokan age there was no central authority. We know so little about the history of these sarrzghas that it seems audacious to form any general conclusions. We can suggest, on the basis of our fragmentary evidence, that some monastic centres, such as Vallabhl and Nalanda, evolved into great centres of education, and maintained this identity for centuries. In some areas the ascetic forest tradition may have been strong, but since even forest monastics depended on the town for support, they were certainly not uninfluenced by social evolution or upheaval. The sarrzghas in some areas may have become totally corrupt, with married monks and nuns tilling the soil and engaging in trade76• In some areas the sarrzgha ceased to exist as an institution, and caityas and viharas were abandoned. But insofar as monastic orders survived, nuns or female renunciants must have also survived, and our task is to reconstruct, from fragmentary and even contradictory records, at least an outline of a history.

76 I take the references in Mahayana sutras (for example the RiiiffrapiiZaparip!cchii) and other texts (RiijataraJigil}i) to this state of affairs to be more than rhetorical, and believe this happened at a very early date, let us say by the beginning of the Christian Era. It is one of the topics that must be addressed if we are to understand the social history of saf[lghas.

THE LIFE OF DGE SLONG MA DPAL MO: THE EXPERIENCES OF A LEPER, FOUNDER OF

A FASTING RITUAL AND TRANSMITTER OF BUDDIllST TEACIllNGS ON SUFFERING AND RENUNCIATION IN TIBETAN

RELIGIOUS IllSTORY*

!VETTE M. VARGAS-O'BRYAN

We humans are fragmented and divided beings, at odds with ourselves and OUT surrounding world. We suffer from OUT ongoing fragmentation and yearn for a wholeness whose presence we somehow sense as the driving force in OUT quest for its recovery.

Herbert Guentherl

One of the ways in which the Tibetan Buddhist tradition was able to project central Buddhist teachings on suffering and renunciation was through the lens of the profound and painful experiences of its influential practitioners. When these practitioners experienced devastating illness, for example, it was one of the most direct ways in which suffering became a central concern, values were called into question, healing was desperately sought for the immediate circumstances, and the ultimate achievement of Buddhahood sometimes became a goal. The overall Buddhist tradition's affinity with medicine on many different levels affects this view as well. As a doctrine and path of salvation, the eradication of disease becomes a metaphor for liberation from the endless cycle of rebirths2• But the connections go deeper, for the problem of suffering and the goal of renunciation were at the heart of Buddhist teachings from the start and were continued in the Tibetan tradition throughout many

* I would like to thank Professors Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, Charles Hallisey, and Kimberley Patton for their helpful comments on an early draft of this paper and my dissertation.

I H. Guenther, Ecstatic Spontaneity: Saraha's Three Cycles of Doha (Berkeley, California: Asian Humanities Press, 1993), p. 16.

2 K.G. Zysk, Kenneth, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery (New York: Oxford University Press. 1991); R. Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha (Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications. 1979).


158 IVETTE M. VARGAS-O'BRYAN

centuries. In the following case study focusing on the life of one individual, the Kashmiri Buddhist nun and former leper called dGe slong rna dPal m03 (Gelongma Palm04, "Nun Palmo"), certain questions emerge about Tibetan Buddhism's transmission of its central concern: How can one overcome the limitations of physicality? What is the relationship between illness and renunciation? What does this relationship stress in terms of central Buddhist concerns for suffering and its eradication through detachment? How can biographical literature reiIiforce fundamental Buddhist teachings in Tibetan Buddhist communities? This study will fill a gap in previous scholarship by examining written versions of the hagiographies of Gelongma Palmo: specifically, the teachings on the hermeneutics of sufferingS and renunciation through her illness experiences of leprosy. These texts have provided a powerful religious model for female and afflicted practitioners in Tibetan communities from the eleventh century to the present day,

The stories of Gelongma Palmo's life are diverse but there is a thread in both oral and written versions that holds them together, that is, the descriptions of a woman whose fortitude healed her from a devastating illness and propelled her to become the founder of a lineage of fasting (smyung gnas "nyungnay") revealed by her tutelary deity Avalokitesvara, As texts, the stories are part of a larger corpus according to the Gelongma Palmo system6, Western scholarship has, for the most part,

3 Also commonly known by the Sanskrit name Bhilqul)l Laks~mL 4 Hereafter spelled as Gelongma Palmo. 5 sdug bsngal, that is sdug pa "to be afflicted" and bsngal ba "to be faint, exhausted", 6 Although it is widely transmitted in oral and written form, no one has done a com-

prehensive study of the vast written corpus of texts that are found as individual works and in collections. This corpus of texts includes diverse genres such as th~ hagiographies (rnam thar, 10 rgyus) of Gelongma Palmo and that of her lineage descendants, "ritual prescriptions" or manuals (cho ga-s) for the fasting ritual itself, rituals of propitation or literally, means for the spiritual realization of a deity (sgrub thabs, Sanskrit. stidhana), as well as other genres like prayers (smon lam) and hymns of praise (bstod pa). The texts date approximately from the 11th century to the present day. The texts even contain information about Tibetan, Nepalese, and Indian teachers and practitioners. They are preserved and used by present day Tibetan and non-Tibetan Buddhist communities in Tibet, Nepal, and India. There also exist Nepali versions of the hagiographies and the ritual of propitiation used in Newar communities in Nepal, and translations of some of these genres in English and other Western languages. The Nepali version of the Gelongma Palmo hagiography was translated orally for me by a Tamang practitioner in the spring of 1998 during a research

TIm LIFE OF DGE SLONG MA. DPAL MO 159

taken notice of the impact of this corpus of material in Tibetan culture, focusing mostly on the significance of the fasting ritual and limited oral versions of Gelongma Palmo's life extracted from present-day Tibetan communities. This has generated useful sociological and religious insights? What is unique about this study is a focused attention on what

study of the fasting ritual in Kathmandu, Nepal. The Nepali version of a nyungnay text entitled: Srfmatf Bhik~unf Kamalako Upo~adha (nyyungne) Granntha used by Newars was sent to me from Patan, Nepal in the spring 2000 by Min Bahadur Shakya, the Director of the Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods.

The ritual of propitiation by Blo bzang bskal bzang rgya mtsho, the Dalai Lama VII (1708-1757), was translated by Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche and Churinoff 1995 and is readily available. On pages 193-96 is a short synopsis of Gelongma Palmo's life derived from Ye shes rgyal mtshan, written in 1760, in his commentary of the sadhana of the Great Compassionate One found in the Collected Works Tshe Mchog gling Yongs 'dzin Ye shes rgyal mtshan. Vol 9 (New Delhi: Tibet House, 1976).

7 Scholars in the fields of anthropology and religious studies and outside of academia from the late 1960s to the present have focused exclusively on the fasting ritual as a single study (apart from the story of its founder) or have focused on the link between the ritual in its performative context and oral versions of the life of Gelongma Palmo for their religious and ethnographic significance in terms of lay and monastic relations, the agency of nuns, and purification techniques. Perhaps one of the earliest mentions of the fasting ritual was Emil Schlagintweit's 1863 work, Buddhism in Tibet (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1863), pp. 95, 240-42. Other studies from the 1960s to the present include: C. von Fiirer-Haimendorf, The Sherpas of Nepal: Buddhist Highlanders (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 150, 153, 180-5,211,224; S. Mumford, Himalayan Dialogue: Tibetan Lamas and Gurung Shamans in Nepal (Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 4, 25, 57, 82, 111-13, 116; S. Ortner, Sherpas through their Rituals (Cambridge University Press, 1978), High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism (princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); R. Jackson, "A Fasting Ritual," in Religions of Tibet in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 271-292; R. Jackson and J. Makransky, Himalayan Dialogue: Tibetan Lamas and Gurung Shamans in Nepal (Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989); M. Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 126-130. Most recently, anthropoologist Kim Gutschow's research on nuns in Zangskar, Ladakh presented useful fmdings on nuns and celibacy. See K. Gutschow, "The Women Who Refuse to be Exchanged: Celibacy and Sexuality at a Nunnery in Zangskar, Northwest India," in Celibacy, Culture, and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 2000).

Along these lines of thought, my own research fmdings while engaging in participantobservation of the fasting ritual in nunneries and monasteries in Kathmandu, Nepal and in Lhasa, Tibet in 1998 led me to think that the fasting ritual according to the Gelongma Palmo system is very much a gendered ritual since women outnumbered men in this practice, was unusually performed in nunneries or primarily prepared by nuns, and often called a "woman's practice" by both genders.


has been neglected about the life of the figure behind such an influential fasting ritual: specifically, Gelongma Palmo's illness experience as a graphic example of Buddhist teachings on suffering and renunciation and how this contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of the fasting ritual in these texts8•

This study will mainly focus on select written hagiographies of Gelongma Palmo dating from the medieval and modem periods because of their comparative value and their diverse presentation· of Buddhist teachings representing a wide range of historical periods9 as well as some discussion of evidence from other historical sources. The three

8 This study presupposes that it is not an accident that the title of one of the rnam thars includes the term nges 'byung, which can be defmed as "giving rise to aversion," a close equivalent to renunciation.

9 Tibetan texts are translated by me in this study unless otherwis indicated. Perhaps one of the earliest extant hagiographies in this study is by Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po (1341-1433) entitled: Smyung gnas bla ma brgyud pa'i rnam thar. Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po, Smyung gnas bla ma brgyud pa'i rnam thar (Lhasa: Dpal ldan Par khang: 1997), 107 folios. This medieval version is contained in a collection of texts 107 folios long that includes the hagiography of Gelongma Palmo, a biography of the author by his student Bsod nams dar (1385-1444), a biography of Bsod nams dar by one Btsun pa chos kyi grags pa, and hagiographies of Gelongma Palmo lineage descendants, Tibetan and Nepali. Only the fIrst 60 folios are by Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po. The Gelongma Palmo hagiography itself is very brief, 7 folios long with a publisher's colophon on a separate folio. The author was a compiler of previous hagiographies on Gelongma Palmo with intriguing affiliations with the lineage of Sakyasnohadra (7- ?I225), a key fIgure in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist history. For more information on the possible identity of this author and his link with a strict ascetic practice, see L. van der Kuijp, "On the Lives of Sakyasnohadra (7-71225)," in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.4 (oct.-dec. 1994), pp. 599-616; D. Jackson, Two Biographies of Sakyasnohadra: The Eulogy by Khro phu 10 tsa ba and its Commentary by Bsod nams dpal bzang po (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990).

The second rnam thar in this study is by a Bhutanese individual, Bla rna Rab brtan, entitled: dOe slong ma dpal mo'i rnam thar nges 'byung rgyud la skye ba'i chos gtam. Bla rna Rab brtan, dOe slong ma dpal mo'i rnam thar nges 'byung rgyud la sky ba'i chos gtam (added English title: The Biography of Kamala Bhikshuni, Princess of King Dharma Pal, an Ancient King of Kashmir,India) (Kalimpong: Tibet Mirror Press, pp. 1-21; rpt. 1963[1953]), pp. 1-21. The text is 21 pages (not folios), long, including the publisher's colophon, describing detailed narrative accounts of Gelongma Palmo's religious development and that of her servant. Information on the identity of the author of this, perhaps the latest written version of the Gelongma Palmo story, is problematic since no outside sources are available except for what is provided by the publisher'S colophon. No author's colophon is included. The publisher's colophon, provided by G. Tharchin in Kalimpong, informs the reader that the text was published in 1953 to honor the bequest of a late

THE LIFE OF DGE SLONG MA DPAL MO 161

main texts are: Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po's (1341-1433) The Sacred Biography of the Lineage Gurus of the State of Fasting, 'Od dpag rdo rje's (?late 14th-?15th century), The Sacred Biography of Gelongma Palmo, and 'Brug pa Bla ma Rab brtan's modem text, The Liberation Story of Gelongma Palma: A Religious Discourse for Generating Renunciation in the Mind Stream (pub. 1953). These selections and other historical sources will highlight the historical value of Gelongma Palmo as a key figure in Tibetan religious history, the historiographic value of the Gelongma Palmo textual tradition, and the impact of this study for future scholarship.

Bhutanese Lama Rab brtan. This lama, while hospitalized in Kalimpong leprosy hospital, made a request to have this version of the life story of Gelongma Palmo published for future generations. Although ethnographic data is not available, we can speculate based on the urgency of this plea and the benefit the author hopes to bestow on others, that the author of this text was a leper perhaps seeking solace and who believed in the meritorious value of the printing of this text on himself and others. Publisher's colophon pages 21.4-.13: DE YANG PAR BSKRUN ZHUS MA THAG PA'j RNAM THAR 'DI BZHIN 'DI NAS

LO MANG SNGON KA SPUG MDZE NAD SMAN KHANG DU SMAN BCOS CHED DU PHEBS PA MKHAS

DBANG 'BRUG PA BLA MA RAB BRTAN DAM PA DE NYID SMAN KHANG DU BZHUGS SKABS DGE

cSLONG MA DPAL MO'j RNAM THAR MDOR BSDUS 'DI NYID PHYI RABS SKYE 'GRO RNAMS LA

SMAN SLAD DU GSAR 'GYUR BYED POR PAR BRKO ZHIG NGES PAR YOD PA ZHES PHEBS DON

LTAR I DA LAM BLA MA DAM PA DE NYID GYI DRAN GSO'! SLAD DU PAR BRKOS ZHUS ZIN PA

'DIS RNAM THAR KLOG MKHAN RNAMS LA PHAN PA'j RGYUR GYUR CIG I KA SPUG BOD YIG

ME LONG PAR KHANG DU RAB BYUNG BCU DRUG PA'j CHU SPRUL HOR ZLA BDUN PA'j TSHES

DRUG SPYI ZLA BRGYAD PA'j TSHES BCO LNGA STON PA YE SHU'j 'DAS LO 1953 NYIN PAR DU

BSKRUN PA'O II The third version of the Gelongma Palmo story in this study is by the rNying rna

scholar 'Od dpag rdo rje (?late 14th-?early 15th century) entitled: Thugs rje chen po bcu gciz zhal gyi bla ma brgyud pa'i rnam thar nor bu'j phreng ba. 'Od dpag fdo rje, Thugs rje chen po bcu gcig zhal gyi bla ma brgyud pa'i rnam thar no bu 'j phreng ba contained in Instructions for the Practice of the Gsa Sbyong and Smyung gnas Focussing Upon the Invocation of AvalokiteSvara in the Eleven-faced Form (Thimphu: Dorji Namgyal, 1985), folios 1-233, with the dGe slang ma dpal mo rnam thar contained in folios 20-50. The rnam thar is written in dbu med script and contained in folios 20-50. Although a more extended version, many passages in this text parallel what is contained in J 0

gdan Bsod nams bzang po's version. The dating and background information of this author is problematic: see D. Martin, Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography ofTibetan-Language Historical Works (London: SerindiaPublications, 1997), p. 66. His name appears in the Blue Annals as a chief abbot (maha upadhyaya) who advocated fasting as a lifepreserving ceremony. G.N. Roerich, The Blue Annals. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), p. 1016. He is also known as the author of 15 works in the Tibetan rNying rna tradition: L Bradburn, et al. Masters of the Nyingma Lineage (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1995), p. 441.

162 . IVE'ITE M. VARGAS-O'BRYAN

Background of Gelongma Palmo's Life and Past Scholarship on Texts About Her

Who was this Gelongma Palmo and why did so many practice her ritual? And even more poignant to this study, what is it about this woman's experiences that have held people's attention for so many centuries beyond the practice of self-denial? Often in modem-day Tibetan communities in Tibet and in diaspora, particularly during the holiest time of the year, Sa ga zla ba (Sagadawa), the holiday dedicated to the birth; nirvii1)a, and parinirvii1)a of the historical Buddha, one comes across women and groups from all Tibetan sects retelling the story of the former leper Gelongma Palmo and undertaking her fasting ritual, not fully knowing this nun's identity or understanding the full religious and historiographic value of her voluminous corpus of texts lO•

So far, it is unclear whether or not Gelongma Palmo was an historical person since no systematic study has been done on her life or on her extensive textual corpus. We have to therefore rely on the little information available from a variety of sources to extract the identity of this nun and the value of her teachings.

First, the only textual historical source that establishes the dates for Gelongma Palmo's possible historical existence in a particular time period is the Blue Annalsll (1476-1478) which links this nun with Avalokitesvara and with imparting a fasting lineage, and gives details about her impressive lineage of fasting descendents:

The Degree of propitiating Arya A valokitesvara by performing the rite of fasting was preached by the Nun Lak~rnI (dPal rno) personally blessed by Arya A valokitesvara. She taught it to the paI).q.Ita Ye shes bzang po (Jfianabhadra), blessed by her. He to Bal po (the Nepalese) Pefiaba, blessed by him. They were all saints (siddhas) ....

10 Although there are numerous extant fasting texts in the Tibetan tradition dedicated to various deities, the fasting ritual according to the Gelongma Palmo system is by far the most popular, based on the number of texts found at present and what was used in the practices of past (as described in texts) and present-day Tibetan practitioners.

11 See G.N. Roerich 1976, pp. 1007-8, 1044, and 1008-18 for information on her lineal descendents. For a discussion of the etymological significance of the title of this work, see L. van der Kuijp, "Tibetan Historiography," in Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre. Ithaca, New York, 1996}, p. 44 and D. Martin 1997, pp. 14-15.


\

. Also there eXisted a Lineage of the dmar-khrid (detailed exposition) of the Cycle of the Great Merciful One (Mahiilcann;lika). The Nun Lak:~mI (dGe-slong ma dPaI mo) imparted it to dPaI gyi bzang po (Snohadra). The latter to Rin chen bzang po who imparted it to Atisa.... .

The Chapter on the Lineage of the system of dPaI mo (Lak:~mI) of the Cycle of AvaIokitesvara12•

The text also notes that even teachers of the bKa' gdarns pa lineage ~fTibetan Buddhism surround Avalokitesvara in a vision13, showing that this early lineage dating back to the 11th century was closely associated with this deity and the Gelongma Palmo practice14• Therefore, because of her association with key figures in Tibetan Buddhist history like Atisa (?982-?1054), Rinchen bzang po (958-1055), and others, Gelongma Palmo is placed in the 10th to 11th century.

In addition, although relics do not finnly establish historical existence, they help to illuminate Gelongma Palmo as a figure of religious histori-

. cal importance. Documents in Zhwa lu monastery in Tibet record the existence of the relics of Gelongma Palmo on its premises, one of her liver (sku mchin) inside an image of a Thugs chen rgyal ba rgya mtsho and the other inside a medicine image (sman sku) of Avalokitesvara15• This latter detail of her relic found in a medicine image of this particular type of bodhisattva is relevant to this study because of Gelongma Palmo's life 'experiences of disease and healing . . . Besides these materials, the hagiographies (rnam thar "narnthar" and

10 rgyus "logyu") of Gelongma Palmo are the main sources relied upon in this study for joint historical and extra-historical value. While both terms imply a narrative account, the term namthar, meaning literally, "full liberation" [story] implies that the protagonist reached full

12 G.N. Roerich 1976, pp. 1007-8, 1044, 1018. 13 Ibid. 1976, p. 1015. 14 In addition to this text, the Tibetan canon also contains a Gelongma Palmo text

attributed to Atisa. IS KaI;! thog Si tu Chos kyi rgya mtsho, Gangs ljongs dbus gtsang gnas bskor lam yig

nor bu zla shel gyi se mo do (An Account of a Pilgrimage to Central Tibert During the Years 1918 to 1920 being the text of Gangs ljongs dbus gtsang gnas bskor lamyig nor bu zla shel gyi se mo do). Photographically reproduced from the original Tibetan xylograph by Khams sprul Don brgyud nyi rna. Sungrab Nyamso Gyunphel Parkhang, Tashijong (Palampur, India: Tibet Craft Community: 1972), pp. 407.1, 409.2.


liberation in the Buddhist sense, and that the story is didactic and polemicaI16. These accounts operate like Western hagiographies and are typical of the Tibetan and Indian Buddhist tantric tradition, written in a narrative framework including factual material and showing greaterthan-human figures overcoming limitations in very human ways. They also provide models and illustrate a doctrine throughout a long historical period. For example, the hagiographies link Gelongma Palmo with a King IndrabodhilIndrabhUti, (perhaps one of three figures mentioned in the historian Tiiranatha's The Seven Instruction Lineages17, and possibly one the Indian, Mahasiddhas), and a so-called King DharmapaIa. Gelongma Palmo, prior to her renunciation, is also referred to as L~mInikara, and after her healing experience as VajraviirabI, perhaps alluding to some conflation of her identity with one of the Indian Mahasiddhas or other figures. The Newars refer to her as Candrikanta and as S'rImatI B~unI, who is believed to have existed in the 10th century18. There may also have been two Gelongma Palmos/Bhik~unI Lak~mI-s, one of this tradition, and another who propagated higher anuttarayoga tantras19. Overall, these sources show that the corpus of materials provides models of ordinary beings undergoing and overcoming hardships in religious development and revealing their Buddhanature, and of enlightened beings reappearing as tulkus (sprul sku) figures, who

16 Logyu, on the other hand, although literally meaning, "news of the year(s)," implying an historical account, is in actuality, a narrative account or record with both historical and ahistorical material included in it. For more information, see L. van der Kuijp 1996, pp. 42-3 and D. Martiu 1997, pp. 14-5. For more information on biographies, see J. Willis,

; Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995) and J. Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

17 D. Templeman, The Seven Instruction Lineages. Translation of Tibetan text: Jo nan pa, Tiiraniitha, nKa' babs bdun ldan gyi brgyud pa'i rnam thar ngo mtshar rmad du byung ba rinpoche'i Ita bu'i rgyan (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1983).

18 This information was given to me during research in Nepal, spring 1998. A text entitled: Srimati Bhiko1uni Kamaltiko Upoo1tidha (nyungne) Grantha (1993) is also read in Newar communities. Dan Martiu also attributes the same identity of Gelongma PaImo in the Newar tradition to Candrikanta (corresponding to Tibetan Zla mdzes?). D. Martin 1997, p. 62.

19 I thank Dan Martiu for presenting this possibility. This study is not meant to resolve these questions but to highlight the rich identities of and possible conflation of Gelongma PaImo with other figures throughout Tibetan religious history.


come repeatedly to the world to impart a particular teaching to others throughout a long historical period.

Synopsis of Hagiographies: Their Common Ground

Overall, the hagiographies themselves vary in length and detail but offer a wide range of comparative possibilities. In order to appreciate the complexity of the individual works in this study, it is also helpful to find their common ground. Despite diversity in narrative detail and length, the hagiographies in this study share a frame story which includes Gelongrna Palmo's royal background, her contraction of leprosy and her struggles with it, her search for and devotion to a deity, her practice of the ascetic ritual, her final realization, and her reinclusion into ordinary life to help others. The present works describe Gelongma Palmo as a Kashmiri princess who was related to one of the King Indrabodhi-s and/or King Dharmapala. She was known as the most beautiful and noble of women in the region and according to the more extensive modem 1953 version and a medieval text (1400s) by 'ad dpag rdo rje, was desired by kings ranging from Tibet, China, India, and Tajikistan. She entered religious life as a Buddhist renunciant and was known as a "gelongma" or fully ordained nun.

The more extensive modem version describes her studying with a guru for a few years until she surpassed her teacher in knowledge and practice. Eventually she was asked to become the head of a temple despite her ambivalence about being a nun in charge of monastics and her lack of experience. All versions describe how her life took on a new dimension when she contracted leprosy. Her life as a Buddhist nun came to an end in all versions, while the modem version explicitly describes her being thrown out of her monastery by her fellow monastics. All versions also describe the painful journey of living as a despised leper in isolation with a deteriorating body. They also stress that after realizing that suffering this devastating illness was instrumental for her healing and future teaching, she was instructed, via divine intervention, to devote herself to the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, who revealed to her an ascetic fasting ritual. Despite the hardship of practicing this challenging ritual in her deteriorating condition, she was determined to attain a higher state of awareness


as promised by her protector deities. Then she revealed herself in three aspects typical of the tantric tradition (outer, inner, and secret) encompassing human and divine qualities. Thereafter, she was healed not just from leprosy, but also from sarrzsara, the cycle of suffering itself, and returned to transmit her teachings to others. The following sections will show in more detail how it is the stories themselves that are foundational to the understanding of Gelongma Palmo as a key figure for Tibetan practitioners and a transmitter of teachings in the Buddhist tradition through her experience of leprosy.

Falling to Pieces: Leprosy's Role in the Gelongma Palma Hagiographies

Then at the age of 15, after leprosy arose from the ripened sinful actions of previous [lives], her entire body appeared discolored and [as] dead flesh filled with abscesses. It was as if iron nails struck into her face. With the disease in her body, immeasurable suffering arose in her mind.

'Od dpag rdo rje20

The most striking and unique features of leprosy (Tibetan. mdze or mdze snyung) are almost immediately confronted by the reader of these texts and serve as graphic examples of the Buddhist tradition's focus on the teachings of impermanence, detachment, and suffering. It is not unusual that texts such as these associate Buddhist teachings on impermanence with an illness like leprosy. The Pali Canon abounds with examples of how the Buddha taught patients according to the severity of their disease. As Raoul Birnbaum notes in The Healing Buddha, the Buddha taught such that, "[t]hose with fatal diseases received lessons on impermanence, while those who could be cured were taught to meditate on the "seven limbs of enlightenment"21. What is different in the Gelongma Pahno hagiographies is that the experience of the disease leprosy (which is considered a fatal disease in the above Buddhist texts) is what is crucial here to trigger an awareness of the teaching of impermanence rather

20 'Od dpag rdo rje 1985, foL 21.4-.6: DE NAS SNGON GYI MI DGE' BA'I LAS NGAN SMIN

NAS BCO LNGA LO LA MDZE BYUNG NAS LUS TRAMS CAD SHA RO DANG SRAB GRA BYUNG CHU

BUR GYI GANG SHAL LA KHRO'I 'DZER BU BDAB PA LTA BUR GYUR / LUS LA NA TSHA DANG

SEMS LA SDUG BSNGAL DPAG TU MED PA BYUNG /

21 R. Birnbaum 1979, p. 10.


than the exercise of meditative techniques. In addition, leprosy proved not to be fatal since . Gelongma Palmo lasted for quite a while, sometimes years according to some texts, so leprosy proved to have a redemptive quality, giving her the hope for future healing. The deterioration and transformation of the physical and mental constitution of a person to the level of an animal and the subsequent social stigmatization created by leprosy reveals the texts' insistence upon this experience as a first step in Tibetan tantric religious development. Leprosy operates in the texts on two levels: the impact of the disease on the physical individual and on her relationship with society, and secondly, the impact of the illness on promoting understanding of basic Buddhist doctrine22.

Leprosy is a devastating disease caused by the microbacterium leprae with complex symptoms23 and manifests itself on the physical level in numerous ways24. In general, leprosy appears as a blister on the extremities of the body because the bacilli apparently like cooler surfaces. As

22 Following the distinction between disease and illness made by certain medical anthropologists and physicians like Arthur Kleinman from Harvard Medical School and Arthur Caplan from the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota, illness can be defmed as a phenomenological experience of disease, a subjective perception of the biological experience: W.F. Bynum and R. Porter, Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine. I (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 18-19,240,242.

23 It was sometimes, nevertheless, very difficult in various cultures to clearly identify the disease as leprosy especially since symptoms may have been secondary or tertiary infections due to lack of, or improper, treatment. Therefore, even though the Tibetan term mdze appears in texts, it may not always indicate "leprosy" in the strict sense but a disease that resembles it symptomatically, as small pox does in its early phases. The characteristics described in the passages in this study were most probably associated with leprosy in its various stages.

24 The evidence of lack of pain is based on thefmdings of the British surgeon Paul Brand who conducted work on leprosy in India. P. Brand and P. Yancey, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants: A Surgeon's Journey of Discovery (London: Marshall Pickering, 1993). The association of leprosy with nerve disorders. in the rgyud bzhi also makes it relevant to the western medical perspective of the disease. It was not until the Norwegian scientist Arrnauer Hansen (1841-1912) identified the agent responsible for the disease in 1872-4 as microbacterium leprae, (a bacillus closely resembling the tuberculosis bacillus), followed by others in the twentieth century like Paul Brand, Philip Yancey, and so forth that crucial objective discoveries about nerve damage and lack of pain in leprosy patients were made about the disease. This disease has proven to be one of the least communicable of all communicable diseases. See also T.I. Tsarong, Fundamentals of Tibetan Medicine According to the Rgyud-Bzhi (Four Tantras) (Dharamsala: Tibetan Medical Centre, 1981) for the rgyud bzhi's description of leprosy and the nerves.

168 !VETTE M. VARGAS-O'BRYAN

leprosy bacilli migrate to nerves in the cooler regions of the body, such as around the joints, th~ body's immune system dispatches masses of macrophages and lymphocytes which swarm in and swell inside the nerves' insulating sheath, choking off vital nourishment. The nerve swellings are the result of the body's own defense mechanism. After the extremities like the nasal passages, hands and feet, testicles, eyes, and ear lobes become deformed, they may also lose, in some cases, all sensation, including the sensation of pain, leaving the victim vulnerable to injury. One of many examples of the effects of leprosy on the extremities is evident in Lama Rab brtan's modern text, "Just about three months passed, the ten toes ofthe lama's feet fell off. Then five months later, the ten fingers of [her] hands fell off"25.

Although no systematic study has yet been conducted on the history of leprosy in Tibetan culture, a study of some of the basic Tibetan medical perspectives on leprosy from one medical text will aid in understanding the descriptive elements in the texts in this study, the physiological and psychological effects of the illness on Gelongma Palmo, and how Buddhism came to playa role in the healing process. Leprosy's association with demons and the psychological and physical nature of the illness are apparent in both genres.

Generally, the Tibetan medical perspective encompasses a broad range of literature and practices designed to improve and maintain mental and physical health. Although the purpose of medicine in the genre of literature called gsa ba rig pa (the science of medicine; gsa ba literally means "purification, healing") is for the treatment of disease and the maintenance

'of health through physical means, the practice of Tibetan medicine is fully integrated with Tibetan religious views and practices and can be related to other systems of medical knowledge like Indian (A.yurvedic), Chinese, and Greek which reflect Tibetan culture's cosmopolitan past26.

25' Lama Rab brtan 1953, 7.19-8.1: ZHABS TOG GANG CIR BYED KYANG MI PHAN PAR I ZLA

BA GSUM TSAM LON PA DANG BLA MA'! ZHABS KYI SOR MDZUB BCU CHAD I DE NAS ZLA LNGA

LONG PA DANG PHYAG MDZUB BCU CHAD I 26 These include a wide variety of religious, ritual, and yogic practices of divination,

amulet and talisman-making, astrology, the collection of merit, the power of the lama in addition to practices one associated with modern Western medicine detailed in canonical and post-canonical literature on physiological theory and pharmacology.


The best-known medical encyclopedic work revered in Tibetan medical training is a gter ina text, the rGyud bzhi, discovered in 103827 • The principal idea that emerges from this text is that of balance, balance within the body and between it and its corresponding aspects in the outside world. Imbalance is the cause of disease.

As the Tibetan medical tradition and the Gelongma Palmo stories both make clear, there are basically two causes of disease: one, the long term cause, karma from past lives; and two, the short term cause, factors in the present life, the latter including seasonal changes, evil spirits, poison, and habit and behavior. The third tantra of the rGyud bzhi specifically refers to different types of causes - a primary cause (rgyu) (distant causes such as, the three poisons, and near causes, with wind as the cause of all disorders because of its influence on both hot and cold) and promoting causes (rkyen), such as the influence of time, nutrition, behavior, and demons But surprisingly ironic is how the rGyud gzhi categorizes leprosy.

As with all diseases that could not be satisfactorily explained, Tibetan medical theory traditionally ascribed leprosy (as well as other ailments like possession by evil spirits, dementia, epilepsy, and so forth) to a large category of causes of what is typically translated as "demons"

27 'The Rgyud bzhi was based on or influenced by Sanskrit medical works like the A~tiifzgahrdaya. Corresponding to Indic Ayurvedic humoral theory (except for the fourth humor in one of the main texts and other factors to be discussed below), Tibetan medicine follows the line of thought that all metabolic function is ascribed to three humors: wind (rlung), bile (mkhris pa), and phlegm (bad kan). Disease in general results when one or more of these different types of humors becomes unbalanced because of a variety of mundane and supramundane sources. Unlike the Indian system, these humoral factors, with the addition of blood (khrag) are delineated in the Rgyud bzhi under two broader categories, hot and cold. For example, wind and phlegm are cold diseases, and blood and bile are hot. 'The causes of disease reflect the fact that humoral balance has to be maintained not just within the body, but also in accord with the psychological life of the individual and the natural environment. See Rgyud bzhi (Leh: Tashigangpa, 1975); A.C. de Koros, "Analysis of a Tibetan Work," in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Jan. 1835), pp. 1-20; R.E. Emmerick, "A Chapter from the Rgyud-bii," in Asia Major 19 (1975), pp. 141-62; "Sources of the Rgyud-bii," in ZeitschriJt der Deutschen Morganliindischen Gesellschaft. SuppL ill.2 (1977), pp. 1135-41; "Epilepsy According to the Rgyud-bii," in G. Jan Meulenbeld"and Dominik Wujastyk, eds., Studie on Indian Medical History. Groningen: Egbert Forsten (1987), pp. 63-90; J. Filliozat, "Un Chapitre du Rgyud-bii sur les bases de la sante et des maladies," in Laghu-prabandhiilJ: Choix d' articles d'indologie (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 233-42; and Y. Donden, The Ambrosia Heart Tantra, translated by Jhampa Kelsang (Alan Wallace), (Dharamsala: Librairy of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1976).


(gdon)28 who cause certain diseases when they get offended by an action. Demons are perceived not merely as physical entities (for example, demons are transformed into dharma protectors) but also as psychological entities associated with a multitude of mental and emotional obscurations afflictions (nyon mongs) that cause individual humans to commit karmic acts29• The following passage in Jo gdan Bsod nam bzang po's medieval version of Gelongma Palmo' s life describes demons transformed into protectors of Gelongma Palmo's tutelary deity, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara:

When external demons and so forth began to create obstacles, since [she] meditated a little [on] each [with] kindness and compassion, all [the demons] became endowed with bodhicitta. When the ten directional protectors and so forth also arose to do a little harm, [she] remained steadily in the generation stage of the Great Compassionate One, and [having] summoned [them] before [her], by having bound [them] to an oath, [they] pledged to be the Dharma Protectors of the practice of the Great Compassionate One and in particular, the eight great Nagas pledged to be the Dharma Protectors of the Eleven-faced One30•

It was not until these demonic forces were under the control of Gelongma Palmo after she was healed, that the suffering of the world can be fully overcome.

Therefore, from the Tibetan point of view, it is actually not ironic at all that a disease that seems on the surface to be merely a "skin afflic-

28 gdon or gdon bgegs is the general category used for one of the causes of disease, although in the Tibetan religious system, there are many so-called "demon-like" entities

. called bgegs pa, literally meaning "obstacles," klu (Sanskrit naga), bdud, and so forth. 29 One explicit example of so-called" demons" symbolically being identified with men

tal affliction~ (nyon mongs) including all negative emotions is found throughout the biographies of the eleventh century cJiikinf, Ma gcig Lab sgron rna, the founder of geod practice, the practice that cuts through these demons. The demons are conquered and annihilated with meditational and other ritual practices - translation by J. Edou, Machig Labdran and the Foundations of Chad (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1976), p. 19.

30 Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po 199?, folios 6a.l-.6: TING NGE 'DZIN BZANG po RGYUD

LA SKYES / PHYI ROL GYI BDUD LA SOGS PAS BAR CHAD RTSOM DU BYUNG BA LA / BYAMS SNY

ING RJE CUNG ZAD RE BSGOMS PAS TIIAMS CAD BYANG CHUB KYI SEMS DANG LDAN PAR GYUR

/ PHYOGS SKYONG BCU LA SOGS PA YANG CUNG ZAD GLAGS BLTAR BYUNG BA LA / TIillGS RJE

CHEN PO'l BSKYED RIM LA BRTAN PAR BZHUGS TE MDUN DU BKUG NAS DAM LA BTAGS PAS

THUGS RJE CHEN PO'! SGRUB PA BYED PA,l CROS SKYONG DU KHAS BLANGS SHING / KHYAD PAR

DU KLU CHEN BRGYAD KYIS ZHAL BCU GCIG PA'l SGOS KYI CROS SKYONG DU KHAS BLANGS /


tion" is more than what meets the eye and is also a psychological phenomenon based on bad action committed in the past that is now manifested physically. Gelongma Palmo's therapeutic remedy is thus both physical and psychological. Leprosy is perhaps the most symbolic mirror of psychological sickness; unable to hide inner spiritual deformity, the victim is eaten away internally, and a mental and physical disease is created.

Leprosy, Suffering and .the Purpose of Gelongma Palmo

[Indrabodhi said],

After having turned [literally, "made"] this virulent disease of yours into an opportunity ... 31.

Gelongma Palmo offered the following petition: 'Lord in Refuge, Rinpoche, since I can no longer bear it, the suffering of saf!lsiira is not to be tolerated any longer in this life and I request you to teach the good path of liberation, the dharmadhiitu. I am a girl, of low intellect and little insight- please give me a profound instruction in few words and great meaning with a heart of loving-kindness'32.

Gelongma Palmo said, '[I] am sick for the sake of sentient beings who are as vast as the sky'33.

As noted earlier, on the level of disease, leprosy is a biological pathological condition with complex symptoms destroying nerve tissue and leading to physical deformities. Leprosy creates a barrier of physicality impacting on the individual and her relationship with society. The

31 Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po 199?, folio 3b.2: KHYOD KYI NAD DRAG po 'DIS RKYEN

BYAS NAS in the 81st chapter of the third tantra, the Rgyud bzhi describes demons (klu, niiga), leprosy, and the degeneration of the human race. Gyu thog yon tan mgon po, bDud rtsi snying po yan lag brgyad pa gsang ba man ngag gi rgyud (Lhasa: Bod ljongs mi dmans dpe skrun khang, 1993); E. Finckh, Foundations o/Tibetan Medicine According to the book Rgyud bzhi. 2 (Dorset: Element Books, 1985), p. 22. Tibetan text from Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po 1953: folios 3b.2.

32 Lama Rab brtan 1997,5.14-: BU MOS ZHU BA 'DI LTAR PHUL BA I SKYABS RJE RIN po

CRE LA ZHU BA LA I MI TSHE 'DI BAS PHYI MA SHUL TRAG RING II 'KHOR BA'J SDUG BSNGAL

BZOD RLAGS MI 'DUG PAS II CROS DBYINGS THAR PA'r LAM BZANG STON PAR ZHU I BU MO BDAG

NI BLO DMAN SHES RAB CHUNG II TSHIG NYUNG DON CHE GDAMS NGAG ZAB MO ZHIG I BTSE

BA'r THUGS KYIS BDAG LA GNANG BAR ZHU / ZHES ZHUS PA DANG I 33 Lama Rab brtan 199?, 7.12-.13: NAM MKHA' DANG MNYAM PA'j SEMS CAN GYI DON

LA NA BA YIN GSUNGS /


Gelongma Palmo hagiographies, in addition to Tibetan medical texts like the rGyud bzhi, confnm that leprosy cannot be understood simply as a biological condition but also as an experience. Leprosy is said to be caused by demons in the Tibetan context that, although believed to be external forces, may also be defIned as negative propensities experienced by human beings. Therefore leprosy as an illness experience has instrumental value in terms of Buddhist religious development. In her hardship Gelongma Palmo realizes the purpose of suffering and its eradication. The illness experience of leprosy is an essential part of Gelongma Palmo's path, a via dolorosa (literally, path of pain). Leprosy was a catalyst, triggering Gelongma Palmo to undergo spiritual work in order to develop and reveal herself as a model and as a teacher for others.

The suffering caused by leprosy in the Gelongma Palmo hagiographies is due to two factors: a disruption of identity and a loss of human agency. As the texts constantly describe bodily decay and dismemberment in graphic detail, the initial message is the impermanence of physical existence and the suffering response when facing that awareness. These texts reflect the basic Buddhist dictum that whatever is impermanent causes suffering. Lama Rab brtan's modern text describes the effects of leprosy on the physical body and its impact on the sufferer and on others:

Then at a certain time, reaching the age of 25, a mere itch arose on one big toe of her feet and a small boil arose. Then it became as a bursting blister that filled the bottom of her feet to the crown of her head. Then Gelongma Palmo kept it a secret from the preceptors ... 34.

While she remained in the temple, Gelongma Palmo was consumed with severe leprosy. Because of this, suffering arose like an arrow struck into the mind of that very servant Sampelma .. Although she offered whatever services were possible [to Gelongma Palmo], it had no effect. Just about three months passed, the ten toes of the lama's feet fell off. Then five months later, the ten fingers of her hands fell off. At that time, severe suffering arose in the minds of both the mistress and the servant. Sampelma enclosed the lama with a curtain. During this time, it was as if her body was not seen by

34 Lama Rab brtan 1953,7.8-.12: DE NAS DGUNG LO NYER LNGA LON PA'r DUS NAM ZmG

GI TSHE! ZHABS KYI THE BONG GCIG GYA' BA TSAM BYUNG BAS BRUM CUNG ZmG BYUNG! DE

NAS SRIN THOR GcrG TU SONG BAS / DE'r RKYEN BYAS ZHABS KYI MTHIL DANG SPYI Bo'r GTSUG

RNAMS GANG BAS! DENAS BLON MDZAD RNAMS LA GSANG BAS !


. anyone. At this time, after all in the temple noticed the pus and blood, Gelongma Palmo and Sampelma were thrown out after the end of the year35•

In this passage, the extreme deterioration of the physical body is clear. Scenes of Gelongma Palmo's body literally breaking awayfrom her into little pieces are reminiscent of scenes in Buddhist literature of deteriorating corpses in cremation grounds and the graphic metaphors used about the body exemplifying physical impermanence. Each severed limb and aesthetic imperfection on the body has symbolic impact. The Anguttara Nikaya (4:386-87) in the Indian Buddhist tradition compares the body to a festering pustule, like a boil with nine openings:

hnagine, monks, a boil that has been collecting for many years which might have nine open wounds, nine natural openings, and whatever might ooze out of it, foulness would ... squeeze out of it. .. This boil, monks, is a ... metaphor for the body which is made up of the four great elements, begotten of mother and father, ... subject to impermanence, ... dissolution, and disintegration ... 36.

An example of Gelongma Palmo being stripped of her identity and of life itself is evident in Lama Rab brtan' s text when Gelongma Palmo discourages her servant Sampelma from remaining with her and orders her to return to Kashmir:

I have exhausted benefiting you. This marsh valley is my burial site ... I am not a person, I am a leprous corpse. Girl, detach yourself from this leprous corpse. It is better that you go to a happier place37•

From these stigmatizing experiences, Gelongma Palmo faced a crucial lesson: Illness cuts the barriers between social distinctions and therefore,

35 Lama Rab brtan 1953, 7.16-8.4: DGE SLONG MA MDZE SNYUNG DRAG PO ZillG GIS ZIN

TE BZHUG PA'r TSHE I GYOG MO BSAM 'PHEL MA DE NYID SEMS LA MDA' PHOG PA LTA Bu'r

SDUGBSNGAL BYUNG BAS I ZHABS TOG GANG CIR BYED KYANG MI PHAN PAR I ZLA BA GSUM

TSAM LON PA DANG BLA MA'r ZHABS KTI SOR MDZURB BCU CHAD I DE NAS ZLA LNGA LONG

PA DANG PHYAG MDZUB BCU CHAD I DE TSHE DPON GYOG GNTIS PO THUGS LA SDUG BSSN

GAL DRAG PO BYUNG BAS I BSAM 'PHEL MAS BLA MA LA YUL BAS SKOR TE I SKU LUS GZHAN

GTIS MI MJAL BA LTAR BZHUGS PA'r DUS 'DIR I KUN GTIS RNAG KHRAG TSHOR NAS SKABS 'DIR

LO RDZOGS PA DANG PHYI LA STON BYUNG I 36 Anguttara Nikiiya. Translated by Rev. Richard Morris (London: Pali Text Society,

1883), pp. 386-7. 37 Lama Rab brtan 1953, 11.15-.18: JL LTAR BYAS KYANG PHAN PA MJ SRID PAS II NGA

Nr MI MIN MDZE MA'r RO YIN NO II MDZE MA'r RO LA ZHEN CHAGS MA BYED PAR II BU MO GANG

DGA'r, YUL DU 'GRO BA LEGS II


despite her social standing, she as a human being contracted the disease - illness does not discriminate.

In addition, the deteriorating and transformative effects of leprosy also reduces a human being to a lower level of existence, much like that of an animal or preta in the Buddhist perspective, losing all human agency and control, This loss of human agency and control is reflected, for example, on the grammatical level in the use of the non-intentional verb form 'chad meaning "to be cut" where scenes of leprosy are described in these texts, rather than the use of the intentional form of the verb, gcod, meaning "to cut"; the latter is used when describing Gelongma Palmo' s transformed healed state. Notice the transformative deterioration of Gelongma Palmo's physical constitution, and particularly, the loss of her right hand, in a scene from Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po's medieval version:

Despite [the] fact that this nun was knowledgeable in the five domains of science, and instructions and vows were present [in her] in a very noble way, leprosy arose due to the force of previous karma. Her right hand was severed from the wrist, even the front of her face looked as if it had been pounded with bronze nails, her complexion was like an autumn flower struck [by] frost, [her] taking of food and drink was like an animal eating grass not knowing how to feed [herself] with [her left] hand. Even though knowledgeable in the five domains of science, by being afflicted with a virulent illness, there arose immeasurable suffering settling in [her] mind as if without recourse. When attendants carried [her] into an isolated thatched hut, she stayed there crying38.

In a South Asian context, the loss of her right hand has great significance. Gelongma Palmo has only two options, to eat with her left hand

0" (an impure act) or simply to eat as an animal. In her initial response to leprosy, Gelongma Palmo feels compelled to lose her human agency

38 Jo gdan Bsod nams hzang po 199?, 2h.3-3a.S: DGE SLONG MA 'm NI RIG PA'r GNAS LNGA

LA MKHAS SHING / BSLAB SDOM RNAMS KYANG SHIN W BTSUN PAR BZHUGS PA LAS / SNGON

GYI LAS DBANG GIS MDZE BYUNG STE / PHYAG G YAS PA'r 'KHRIGS MA NAS CHAD / ZHAL GYI

GDONG LA YANG KHRO GZER BTAB PA BZHIN DU GYUR / SHA MDOG NI STON KA'r ME TOG LA

BA MOS PHOG PA BZHIN DU GYUR / BZA' BTUNG BYED PA YANG PHYAG GIS BSNYOD MI SHES

PAR DUD 'GRO RTSA ZA BA BZHIN DU GYUR / RIG PA'I GNAS LNGA LA MKHAS KYANG / NAD

DRAG POS BTAB PAS SDUG BSNGAL SEMS LA BZHAG THABS MED PA LTA BU DPAG W MED PA

" BYUNG STE / 'KHOR RNAMS KYIS LOGS SHIG W RTSA'r SPYIL BU CIG W BSKYAL NAS DER BSHUM

GYIN BZHUGS PA NA / the line: PHYAG G YAS PA'I 'KHRIGS MA NAS CHAD literally, "severed from the wrist of her right hand" was changed in the translation to make sense of it.


because of the moral and social implications of the act of eating with her left hand, the defiled hand used to clean oneself.

In addition, as with any devastating illness, the impact does not stop on the personal level, but affects the individual's relationship with society, in this case the monastic community. She is forced to leave her monastic community because of the contraction of leprosy.

Another example of the social stigma created by this illness reminds readers of leprosy's 'association with sexual transgressions, the weak gender described as "woman" (Tibetan: skye dman "low birth" or bud med, may etymologically mean "negation of masculinity")39, and issues of purity40. 'Od dpag rdo rje's medieval version associates gender, leprosy, and purity: "The custodian [of the temple] said, 'On top of being of low birth [i.e. a woman], you are a leper woman. Stay behind the door and make your request41 • ,,, This passage comes out of a scene that describes the fury felt by the custodian. Lama Rab brtan' s modern text describes the scene in this way:

'You, female leper beggar, have come inside my temple. I myself cannot do offerings of incense to the deities and purification by water in the temple. If the crops fail, hail strikes and so forth, it is certain that [all] will come to my head42.'

With the key handle, he beat her from the crown of [her] head to the soles of her feet. Having pulled the nun from [her] feet, he brought her

39 I thank Professor L. van der Kuijp for this etymology, 40 Western scholarship also points out the relationship of serious illnesses with sexual

potency (or the lack thereof) and purity issues, In other cultures, see S. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York and London: Doubleday, 1990); S.N. Brody, The Disease o/the Soul: Leprosy in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univerity, 1974); and H.M. de Bruin, Leprosy in South India: Stigma and Strategies o/Coping, Pondy Papers in Social Sciences 22 (France: Institut Fran<rais de PondicMry, 1998).

41 'Od dpag rdo rje 1985,23.1-.2: DKON GNYER NA RE KHYOD SKYE BA DMAN PA'r THOG

DU MDZE MOR 'DUG PA SGO RGYAB TU 'DUG LA GSOL BA mOB crG GSVNGS /

42 Lama Rab brtan 1953,16.16-17.3: MDZE SBRANG GI SBRANG MO KHYOD NGED GY! LHA

KHANG NANG 'ONGS PA DANG / NGED RANG NI LHA KHANG NANG LHA BSANGS KHRUS GSOL

BYAS MI TSHUGS PAS fLO mOG NYES PA DANG SER BAS RDVNG PA LA SOGS PA BYVNG NA NGED

RANG GI MGOR 'ONG NGES YIN ZER NAS / LDE MIG GI THAG PA DES SPY! GTSUGS NAS RKANG

THIL YAN CHAD DU BRDVNGS SHlNG / DGE SLONG MA'r SHABS NAS 'THEN IE LHA KHANG Gr

RGYAB LA BSKAL BAS / DGE SLONG MA'r THUGS DGONGS LA SEMS CAN GY! BLO MA RIG PAS

SGRIB PA YIN SNYAM BYANG CHUB TU THUGS BSKYED DE f

176 . IVETTE M. VARGAS-O'BRYAN

[to the] back of the temple. In Gelongma Palmo's rriind, she generated bodhicitta [by thinking]? 'Sentient beings' minds are obscured by ignorance.'

The custodian of the temple was convinced that Gelongnia Palmo's presence was going to defile the sacred space of the temple and cause harm even on the level of harming the environment and since he was in charge of maintaining purity, he would be blamed by the locals. It is clear here that women and lepers, who do not fit into society, defile - a theme common throughout diverse religions and cultures.

From these examples, the message of the texts is that as the body breaks down, all marks of identity on the physical level also break down and take on new meaning, while concerns on the psychological level become more prominent. As described in the previous chapter, leprosy destroys the microscopic fibers that produce pain in the extremities of the body therefore making individuals with leprosy prone to injury such as severed limbs. Nevertheless, the leprous individual experiences suffering that is painful, a pain not altogether related to a specific location on the body or to the nervous system. Rather than the sensation of the prick of a needle on the skin, it is a pain that becomes more existential, a philosophical concern about the pain experience that goes beyond the immediate experience to the wider concerns of suffering in the world. Lama Rab brtan's passage reiterates Gelongma Palmo' s awareness of the futility of attachment to the body:

Since those who assembled asked Gelongma Palmo to leave, Sampelma said, 'There is no reason for us to leave.' The lama [Gelongma Palmo] replied, 'Sampelma, I myself [am] a lie, even ifI do not lie, my own body is a lie' .... Then going away, Sampelma carried her. The toes of [Gelongma Palmo' s] feet hit the ground. Her very body appeared like a discarded load. [There] arose hardships three times and [Gelongma Palmo] was the height of filth. Then the samgha was happy43.

43 Lama Rab brtan 1953, 8.4-.7: TSHOGS PA RNAMS KYIS DGE SLONG MA THON ZHUS PAS

/ BSAM 'PHEL MA ZHU BAS THON RGYU MED ZER BAS I BLA MA'j GSUNGS NAS / BSAM 'PHEL

MA NGA RANG RDZUN NGED KYANG MI RDZUN RANG GI LUS PO DE RDZUN GSUNGS / BSAM

'PHEL MAS BLA MA KHUR BAS / PHYAG ZHABS MED PA'j STABS KYIS DAR STON NAS 'KHUR ZHIG

GSUNGS / DE NAS BSAM 'PHEL MAS 'KHUR NAS BYON PAS ZHABS MDZUB SA LA GTUG PAS / SKU

LUS DE NYID 'KHUR BOR BA LTAR BYUNG BAS / '0 RGYAL LAN GSuM BYUNG ZHING 'BAG PA'J

TOG TU GYUR TO / DE NAS NANG GI MI RNAMS DGA' BAS /


The simile, "her body appeared like a discarded load," and the phrase " [she] was the height of fIlth" are very pertinent here. Gelongma Palmo became detached from her physical existence because she could no longer be rigidly defined by her body in terms of categories established by. the ordinary world, that is, by her gender, social status as daughter and princess, religious status as nun, and even as human being. This is also in accord with the Tibetan Buddhist tantric idea that the level of renunciation that Gelongma Palmo made was not a full one; further religious development needed to be attained in order to achieve the goals of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition such as the aspiration for bodhicitta, the final realization of emptiness of phenomena, and the attainment of enlightenment. She had to overcome the limitations of physicality. These categories are fluid and impermanent as everything else in ordinary existence. Physical decay shook the very foundation of Gelongma Palmo's preconceived notions of reality, triggering a sense of loss and despair; and an urgent need for direction.

As the next example will show, it is often the case that suffering has a way of shaking a person's sensibilities and forcing her to concentrate on what is most important, survival. Lama Rab brtan's text offers an example of the determination displayed by Gelongma Palmo despite her horrific circumstances when Avalokitesvara appeared to her to offer consolation:

Then in order to practice, she accepted the austerities of the Holy One [i.e. Avalokitesvara] and left. One day went by. Because her leprosy, she could not ·walk with her feet Then she crawled on her stumps .... She accepted the suffering and remained there44•

These examples of awareness of impermanence, disruption of identity, and loss of human agency make clear that the path of suffering, la via dolorosa, can be translated to mean in Buddhist terms that the path· of hardship within religious development is the crucial message of these texts. The survival instinct made Gelongma Palmo open to religious

44 Lama Rab brtan 1953, 14.11-.12: DE NAS DGE SLONG MA DPAL MO 'PRAGS PA'r BKA'

SGRUB PHYIR DKA' SPYAD DANG DU LONG TE BYON PAS / NYIN eIG BYON PA DANG SKU 'r GZID

SNYUNG MDZE Y1N PA'r STABS KYIS ZHABS KYIS BYON MA TSHUGS / DE NAS SPYI SHUD RGYAB

CING BYON PAS / C ... ) 14.17-.18: SDUG BSNGAL DANG DU BLANG STE BZHUGS PA


experience in a fuller sense, she became receptive to the teachings that appeared to her via divine intervention. It was now up to her to take initiative and regain her control over the situation by re-acting and transforming this illness experience, la via dolorosa, into a hard lesson on value of renunciation and as a foundation for others' future growth.

Emerging Whole: Fasting as Reconstruction and Transforma~ion in the Process of Renunciation

With a greater appreciation of the illness experience, a new perspective is gained into the profound role played by fasting ritual in these stories. Bodily deterioration and transformation of the individual caused by leprosy complement aspects of the fasting ritual that Gelongma Palmo practices and transmits to others. Leprosy and fasting in these stories operate on opposing and complementary planes, each offering unique affiliations to Tibetan Buddhism's focus on religious development and transformation: leprosy, with its notion of bodily deterioration and destruction, and fasting, with its focus on reconstruction and renewal. Therefore, after falling apart, Gelongma Palmo will emerge whole. Fasting is the next step in the reassembling process. As leprosy can be an example of a breakdown of the attachment to previous ways of thinking and being, fasting is an example of reconstruction and transformation of this state through human agency and divine intervention that will ultimately put an end to the cause of the cycle of suffering in the first place. A brief analysis of the term "fasting" and examination of its role in relation to leprosy as presented in the hagiographies and one ritual of propitiation (sgrub thabs) will reveal teachings on the role of suffering and renunciation45.

Literally, the term smyung gnas means "a fasting state, abiding in fasting, enduring the fast" and so the fIrst impression after reading the descriptions in the texts is a practice of self-denial of food and sometimes water,

45 The sgrub thabs text used in this study is by the Sa skya scholar Zhu chen Tshul khrims rin chen, dGe slang rna dpal rna lugs kyi thugs rje chen po bcu gcig zhal gyi sgrub thabs srnyung gnas dang bcas pa'i cho ga sdig sgrib rnarn sbyong. In Collected Writings on Buddhist Philosophy, Liturgy, and Ritual of Zhu chen Tshul Khrirns rin chen, Vol. 2 (New Delhi: Ngawang Gelek Demo, 1972), folios 275-315.

THE LIFE OF DGE SLONG IvIA DPAL MO 179

a practice common to most religious traditions, meant to purify the practitioner of past transgressions or in preparation for union with the divine. Beyond the literal meaning of the word "fast," the term can be extended to include other practices in an ascetic program. The Tibetan equivalent the word asceticism is dka' thub meaning "capable of [enduring] difficulties" which is what Gelongma Palmo's experiences represent. Walter O. Kaelber in the Encyclopedia of Religion proposes a useful working definition of the term "asceticism":

[AJ voluntary, sustained, and at least partially systematic program of selfdiscipline and self-denial in which immediate, sensual or profane gratifications are renounced in order to attain ahigher spiritual state or a more thorough absorption in the sacred46•

The ascetic aspects of the fasting ritual consist of challenging exercises of discipline and self-denial meant to assist the practitioner in achieving a trans formative state47• The fasting text according to the Sa skya scholar Zhu chen Tshul khrims rin chen divides the ritual into three stages: a preliminary practice (sngon 'gro, the actual ceremony (dngos gzhi) and the concluding ceremony (rjes). Overall, the ceremony may last two and a half days to several months, sometimes being continued for many years. There are vows of purification (gso sbyong), refuge vows to the four jewels, prostrations and visualization practices; offerings to the deities; a complete fast of food, drink and even one's saliva on alternate days, and a vow of silence. The ritual is meant to be performed on an annual basis on new and/or full moon days in Tibetan areas with the longest performance during the most auspicious period, Sa ga zla ba, or as needed.

As the next passage will show, the hagiographies are connected with devotion to a deity. Gelongma Palmo was specifically directed by divine

46 W. Kaelber In: The Encyclopedia a/Religions, p. 441. As the Jewish scholar Steven Fraade states in his essay in reference to the Greek and later connotations of asceticism, "as athletic and military training require both the positive strengthening of one's physical faculties and the negative abstention from weakening habits, so too philosophical and spiritual training require both affirmation and renunciation." S. Fraade, "Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism," in Jewish Spirituality from the Bible through the Middle Ages (New York: Crossroad, 1986), p. 256.

47 These practices include prescriptions and injunctions on worship, speech and silence, sleep, clothing, sexual activity, food, offering, story-telling, singing, and pilgrimage. It also incorporates bhakti-like activities (devotionalistic) toward a particular deity.

. :;;

180 . IVETrn M. VARGAS-O'BRYAN

intervention to devote herself fully to a certain bodhisattva, Avalokitesvara, who has historical associations with asceticism and healing and a cultic status as the patron deity of the Tibetan people. Under this bodhisattva's watchful eye, Gelongma Palmo enacts a fasting regimen that triggers a bodily reconstruction and complete mental and physical transformation:

Then from having remained before the Eleven-faced One, she made an oath not to go elsewhere until she attained the highest realization, not paying attention to eating or drinking. Having meditated on the Elevenfaced One day and night, when one year passed, the entire disease of her body shed like the skin of a snake and disappeared. Her right hand was restored and her body became even more beautiful than it had heen before the leprosy arose. Sound samadhi was generated in her [mind] stream48•

Gelongma Palmo is restored to an even more beautiful woman than before, while the restoration of her right hand symbolizes her pure state. This reconstruction is another crucial step in a series of steps on the physical and mental level in a long purification process that varies from text to text. According to the modem version of the story, the restoration of Gelongma Palmo' s agency is exemplified by the intentional use of the word for cutting, gcod. She is able to take control over her healing process by actively engaging in the act of detachment:

She practiced enduring the fast. One day, she [cut off] food. One day, she [cut off] speech. In meditation, she said the praises of the Holy One with intense fortitude and diligence like this ..... Due to the compassion of the Holy One, Gelongma Palmo, having accomplished her aggregates [as] a rainbow body in this life, went to the sky rea1m49 •

48 10 gdan Bsod nams bzang po 19991, 5b.2-6a.1: DE NAS ZHAL BCU GCIG PA'r DRUNG

DU BZIIDGS NAS MCHOG GI GNGOS GRUB MA THOB BAR DU 'm NAS GZHAN DU MI 'GRO BA 'r DBU SNYUNG BEHES TE BZA' BA DANG BTUNG BA YID LA MI BYED PAR NYIN MTSHAN KHOR YUG

TU ZHAL BCU GCIG PA LA THUGS DAM DU MDZAD NAS LO GCIG LON PA'r TSHE LUS KYI NAD

THAMS CAD SBRUL GYI SHUN PA BUD PA BZHIN DU SONG I PHYAG G YAS PA YANG SOR CHUD

CING SKU LUS NI MDZE MA BYUNG BA'r DUS LAS KYANG MTSHAR BAR GYUR I TING NGE 'oZIN

BZANG po RGYUD LA SKYES I 49 LamaRab brtan 1953,17.4-.6: SMYUNG GNAS GNANG NAS INYIMA GcrG ZAMA/NYI

MA GcrG NGAG BYED NAS I THuGS DAM LA 'PHAGS PA'r BSTOD PA SNYING STOBS BRTSON

'GRUS DRAG po'r SGO NAS 'm LTAR GSUNGS PA I ( ... ) 18.1-.2: 'PHAGS PA'r THUGS RJES DGE

SLONG MA DPAL MO PHUNG PO 'JA' LUS GRUB NAS TSHE 'm LA MKHA' SPYOD DU GSHEGS PA

YIN NO II


This extra-hum!lll transfonnation is prevaient throughout these versions of the hagiographies. In Lama Rabten's modem text, Gelongma Palmo appears flying above her servant-companion Sampelma like "a sparkling dew drop more brilliant than before50". The fmal process for Gelongma Palmo is to reveal herself as a divine being, an emanation who entered the world for the sake of others.

As mentioned earlier in the case of leprosy, transfonnation is enacted beyond the individual and society to the universe-at-Iarge. As Gelongma Palmo regained control over herself and was literally "reassembled," she now had control over her environment and became a better vehicle for the Buddhist teachings than in her fonner state. The demons that were the cause of leprosy, her instrumental illness, and a hindrance to the Buddhadharma, were subdued and transfonned as she herself was.

Ultimately, fasting is the necessary act to reassemble Gelongma Palmo into a purified, yet unattached being. This ritual is instrumental to the journey of suffering in the fonn of leprosy in that it healed and reinforced a sense of control over the self and the environment through ritual structure and the devotional and tantric transfonnational process. Textual descriptions and modem-day practitioners' report suggest that fasting creates a sense of control over the self in society and often differentiates women's religiosity and experience from men's. Not only dowomen in modem-day communities outnumber men in this practice and the retelling of the frame story, but lamas often call this a "woman's practice." The body, speech, and mind of Gelongma Palmo are not just physically purified but ontologically purified in the ultimate sense of achievement or Buddhahood. Gelongma Palmo herself becomes the embodiment of the Buddhist concept of renunciation.

In the conclusion of Jo gdan Bsod nams bzang po's medieval version Gelongma Palmo gains full control and reveals herself as a divine figure, appearing as a rjiikinf dancing and wielding a knife. Here she is enacting the healing process of others. She is transfonned from a patient-leper to the level of physician and teacher to a community. The metaphorical value of this knife is not missed: this ritual implement and meditation tool

so Lama Rab brtan 1953,20.3: DE 1 DBUS SU DGE SLONG MA MO RANG SNGAR BAS KYANG

GZI MDANGS CHE BA BZHIN ZIL CHU KHROL LE BZIflJGS PAS /


is used intentionally to symbolize the cutting off of human beings' attachments to preconceived notions of reality.

Conclusion

This study offers a glimpse of the diverse purposes for the continual transmission of these texts by individual authors and of a common theme of the hermeneutics of suffering via illness and renunciation through a female embodiment. In addition, because of the consistent prolific written and oral transmission of these stories from the eleventh century to the present-day, these teachings have proven to have been a foundational strand of Tibetan religious history.

Uncertainty about the identity and historical existence of Gelongma Palmo has not detracted from her historical relevance as a symbol since her stories have provided a model and illustrated a doctrine throughout a long historical period. Examples of this are explicitly seen in present-day Buddhist female renunciants' tendency in Tibetan Buddhist communities to be the holders of her ritual tradition. Their nunneries are places for the retelling of her stories. And as the compiler of the modem text and contemparary evidence from Nepal and Tibet show, sufferers of severe illnesses like leprosy have sought solace through the printing and transmission of her story, practicing her ritual, or visiting a temple associated with Gelongma Palmo.

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WHAT MAKES A NUN? APPRENTICESHIP AND RITUAL PASSAGE IN ZANGSKAR, NORTH INDIA.

KIM GUTSCHOW*

TIris essay examines how and why ordained nuns serve both the Buddha and their families in Kashmir today. The rites of passage by which a nun comes to the nunnery contrive to make her part and parcel of the mundane village sphere in a different sense than monks. It begins by exploring how the erasure of nuns in Buddhist studies was due to the rnisrecognition and confusion over ordained nuns and elderly renunciants.

The Erasure of Nuns From Buddhist Scholarship

Scholars like Don Lopez who follow in the wake of Said have deconstructed the field of Buddhist studies by showing how the curators of the Buddha constructed their object of study, Buddhisml. Due to a number of reasons including research methods and materials available, Buddhist studies has privileged doctrine over practice, text over local informant, classical sources over the vernacular, and monks over nuns. When Buddhist studies first began in 18th century Europe, it relied heavily on texts brought back from Asia as colonial booty. The antiquarians who first attempted a systematic study of Buddhist sources consistently privileged ancient texts over modern ones because they thought that earlier scriptures would offer a more pristine and original form of Buddhism, untainted by historical decay and decline. By the same arguments, they privileged doctrinal explanations and accounts over those offered by modern informants, who were generally held to be unreliable if not ignorant of their own classicalliterature. Paraphrasing Lopez (1995: 13), the Orientalist took charge

* Brandeis University, Dept. of Anthropology, Mail stop 006, Waltham, MA 02454-9110, [email protected].

1 Lopez (1995, 1998) provides marvelously detailed accounts of the birth of Buddhist and Tibetan studies.

Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies Volume 24. Number 2.2001

188 KIM GUTS CHOW

of representing the Orient because he believed the Orient to be incapable of representing itself.

Interestingly, modem Tibetan studies has also privileged both text and doctrine, albeit for rather different reasons. For much of the 20th century, Tibet remained an elusive object of study, which only few foreigners were able to penetrate. When the Chinese occupation and attacks forced an entire religious elite into exile in 1959, scholars were left in the awkward position of studying Tibetan Buddhism without Tibet. They overcame this difficulty by translating the texts which had been smuggled out of Tibet, and focussing on doctrinal, philosophical, and historical issues rather than lived religious experience or ritual context in which these texts may have been used. Even those scholars who explored the religion in exile or the politics of displacement tended to privilege Tibet as the source of authentic religious culture. By the same token, the practices of Tibetan Buddhism along the Indo-Tibetan borderlands were often compared to an ideal, but vanished template of Buddhism inside Tibet. Thus, the Tibetan Buddhism found in Kashmir since thelOth century was held to be a derivative or corrupt form of the Buddhism found in Tibet itself.

My approach turns over these tendency by focussing on the local, the vernacular, and female aspects of Buddhist renunciation in a Kashmir. I will focus on the practice of Buddhism in eastern Kashmir within the region of Zangskar. A formerly Buddhist kingdom once ruled by a direct descendant of the last king in Tibet's early dynasty which has been Buddhist almost as long as Tibet has, Zangskar today forms the southern and safer half of Kargil district - the site of the recent military clashes between India and Pakistan in 1999. Roughly 95% of the local population is Buddhist, while the remaining 5% are Sunni Muslims. Although Zangskar covers an area twice the size of Rhode Island, its extreme aridity and elevation at the edge of the Tibetan plateau make it one of the least populated regions in India. Monks and nuns, who make up about 4% of the total popUlation, live in nine nunneries and seven monasteries which follow the Gelug and Kagyud schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Nuns make up roughly one fourth of the entire monastic population. This percentage may be one of the highest in the entire Himalayan realm. It is more than twice as high as the ratio of nuns

WHAT MAKES A NUN? 189

to monks in Tibet and the Himalayan borderlands before 1959, and over four times as high as the ratio in Tibetan refugee monasteries by the late 1980's2.

The classical Tibetan sources which describe the origin and development of Buddhism in Zangskar have been dominated by metaphors of conquest and penetration, as well as a wholesale erasure of nuns. Local histories and legends celebrate the activities of saints, monks, and kings in subduing Cdul bay or taming a landscape conceived as demonic and female3• The erasure of nuns in the historical record is due more to the way in which monks and kings dominated the Buddhist economy of merit than in any real absence of nuns or female renunciants, which are alluded to in both written and oral sources. The 19th and early 20th century European scholarship on Buddhism in Kashmir, including both colonial Gazeteers and extensive travel literature by the participants in the Great Game over Central Asia, failed to see nuns in the territory they catalogued and mapped so carefully in other ways. Yet even modern scholarship on Buddhism in Kashmir has ignored nuns which comprise one fIfth of Zangskar's monastic population4. The erasure of nunneries lies in the local as well as the foreign imagination. When an eminent Zangskari monk once told me, "there is no gonpa in Zangla village," I was surprised. I knew that Zangla did in fact house a nunnery and that gonpa (dgon pa) -literally solitary place - is a gender neutral term which can refer to either a monastery and nunnery. Yet just as the generic term man leaves

2 Shakabpa (1967) notes that there was one nun for every nine monks in Tibet before 1959. Havnevik (1992: 85) states that there were 653 nuns and 6337 monks in India, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan before 1959, and 340 nuns and 6278 monks in Tibetan refugee monasteries by the late 1980's. Gutschow (1998: 97) reports that Zangskar's nine nunneries housed 116 nuns while its seven monasteries housed 297 monks in 1997.

3 The myth of the demoness is found in many parts of the Tibetan cultural realm. See Aris (1979), Gyatso (1987), and Gutschow (l997a). Aggarwal (1994, 1997) and Beek (1996, 1997) critique the Tibetan studies approach to Ladakh.

4 Western scholars who largely ignore or misrecognize nuns in their accounts of Buddhism in Kashmir include Crook and Osmaston (1994: 804,674), Dendaletche (1985), Dargyay (1980, 1987, 1988), Dollfus (1989), Friedl (1983), Kaplanian (1981), Petech (1977, 1998), Schuh (1976, 1983), Snellgrove and Skorupski (1980). Local historians who ignore nunneries include: Gergan (1976), Tsering (1979), Paldan (1982), Shakspo (1988a, 1988b, 1993), Zodpa and Skakspo (1979). Scholars who detail the situation of nuns in Kashmir include Green (1997), Grimshaw (1983a, 1983b, 1992), Gutschow (1998, 1997a, 2000a, 2000b, 2001), and Reis (1983).

190 KIM GUTS CHOW

out half of humanity, gonpa overlooks a substantial portion of Zangskar' s monastic institutions, namely nunneries.

The remarkable absence of nuns in the literature on Buddhism in Kashmir is due to what one might call a category failure. The scholars who ignored and misrecognized nuns, did so out of oversight as much as oblivion. Some failed to see nuns right in front of their eyes because they held a narrow doctrinal image of what a nun ought to resemble. Scholars were perplexed by nuns, often not in robes, who worked side by side with laywomen in the fields. Those scholars who do mention nuns· often described them in degraded terms as widows, divorcees, single mothers, or unhappy woman who could not find a husband, probably because they had been speaking to female renunciants not nuns5.

Much of the misrecognition of nuns was due to the confusion between ordained nuns and female renunciants, due to their misunderstanding of the local vernacular. In local idiom, ordained novices and female renunciants are referred to by the same name: jo rno, although the latter are also referred to more specifically as household nuns' (grong pa'i jo rno)6. Urban elites rarely use the honorific Tibetan term for female novices, Getsulma (dge tshul rna), although male novices are usually called by the honorific term, Getsul. Yet the distinction between the two roles is clear in local ritual and religious terms. Female renunciants may take up five precepts - not to kill, steal, lie, commit sexual misconduct, or take intoxicants - and shave their head, but they have no formal ritual roles in village life. By contrast, ordained nuns undergo a lengthy ritual apprenticeship and several rites of passage which prepare them to be members of the monastic assembly (dge bdun, samgha) and train them in the rituals required at household and village wide events.

5 Lopez's (1998:211) critical deconstruction of Tibetan Buddhism repeats the common tropes about nuns when it notes, "Unmarried daughters often became nuns (sometimes remaining at home). Other women became nuns to escape a bad marriage, to avoid pregnancy, or after the death of a spouse." In contrast to this stereotype, not one of the 120 nuns I have interviewed in Kashmir over the last decade was divorced or a single mother, and only one was a widow.

6 Compare Klein's (1985) description of unordained and unmarried women ineastem Tibet known as ka rna, who dressed like Buddhist nuns and could join the circle of monks' tents in order to concentrate on religious practices. Ortner (1989, 1996: 119) also describes unordained women ('khor ba) or 'peripheral ones', who are afffiliated with Sherpa nunneries in N epa!.


While ordained novices exemplify the intellectual and spiritual elite of their society. By contrast, female renunciants may be the object of derogatory epithets like 'self-willed woman' (mo rang mo) and proverbs like, "a woman without a husband is like a stable without a door" (bang ra sgo med, bu mo mag med).

Residential and labor arrangements also contributed to the confusion between ordained nuns, renunciants, and laywomen. All of these women perform domestic and agricultural chores on their family estates. While ordained nuns have a room of their own at their monastic compound, they may live temporarily in the village during busy agricultural seasons or caring for their aged parents. Monks, on the other hand, forgo many of their parental obligations when they join a monastic community, especially as they are sent throughout the monastery domain as village level ritual officiants. Institutional poverty and lack of ritual earnings forces nuns to work on their family farms in exchange for their daily subsistence. Monks earn their living from vast landed endowments and daily earnings performing rituals and religious services at the household and village level. Let us consider tum to how nuns reach the nunnery in the first place.

The Ritual Passage to the Nunnery

The life of an individual in any society is a series of passages from one age to another and from one occupation to another. .. For every one of these events there are ceremonies whose essential purpose is to enable the individual to pass from one defmed position to another which is equally well defined7•

The three critical rites along the path to full nunhood - tonsure, ordination, and taking a seat at the nunnery - neatly parallel Arnold Van Gennep's and Victor Turner's classic schema of separation, transition, and reintegration. Tonsure separates a young girl from a licentious and libidinous adolescence. Ordination emphasizes the transition from fertility to celibacy, and from worldliness to asceticism. Finally membership in the nunnery marks a certain reintegration as a nun moves into

7 Van Gennep (1960: 2-3).

192 KllvI GUTS CHOW

a formal monastic fellowshipS. The order of the second and third stages can be reversed as a nun joins the nunnery before ordination, as a probationer. In this case, her probationary status substitutes for ordination and indicates her acceptance of celibacy and asceticism. Each of these three rites of passage moves a woman irrevocably from one state or stage of life to another. Shaving one's head, adopting robes and vows, and finally joining a religious community for ritual work and study move a woman from one recognized social status to the next The rites which make a woman into a nun are not simply ceremonial rites which affirm a certain status, but are deeply transformative rites. Although a woman may abandon her vows and robes, she cannot return to her original status as a laywoman and is ineligible to rejoin the monastic order in this lifetime.

Apprenticeship and Tonsure

Although first tonsure marks a ritual moment when a young girl first takes vows of celibacy, she will have been marked for the nun's life years before. When and if a set of parents decide that their daughter is to· become a nun, she begins to dress and wear her hair more like a boy than a girl. They will request a distant relative who lives at a nunnery or monastery to accept their daughter as a servant for a winter or two. Most nuns recall these apprenticeships as times of nurturing and care, as kindly old nuns taught them their first letters and textual recitations, stanza by stanza. The teacher and apprentice relation at the nunnery is meant for the most basic literacy requirements, while philosophical explanation is given mainly by monks. Most apprentices spend little time studying, but more time working as servant for their teachers. They may spend several dreary winters performing menial tasks such as fetching water from the streambed, washing dishes, and cleaning their teacher's monastic cell. They begin to participate in the most quotidian aspects of monastic life - attending daily assemblies, hauling water and firewood, and other collective works.

8 Compare Lynn Denton's (1991) description of Indian renunciates (Sannyiisinf) in Banaras who go through three stages - rejection of householder life, commitment to a particular path of salvation, and entry into a community of aspirants.


While their teachers go to the village and work, they may be required to remain reading aIid memorizing texts from dawn to dusk. They will be pampered by their tutors at the nunnery whose maternal energies belie an eagerness for new recruits.

The youthful initiate who takes tonsure may be known as arab 'byung rna (S. anagiirikii) literally, "one who has gone forth fully."9 This term harkens back to the original meaning of renunciation as going forth into homelessness. More colloquially, she is called a Genyen, (dge bsnyen ma, upiisikii) or "virtuous devotee." Both tonsured initiates and laypeopIe may take up the same five precepts - avoiding killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, and intoxicants - albeit in rather different ritual contexts. When Iaypeople fake up these five precepts, usually in the context of a Tantric empowerment (dbang)., they neither shave their heads nor adopt celibacy, as tonsured initiates do. While both laypeople and tonsured initiates repeat the same words, when they vow to "cast off impure actions" (mi tshang spyod spong ba), these words have different meanings depending on the ritual context. In general, laypeople are not renouncing the world in the same way that future monastics are. While laypeople easily commit themselves to the five precepts, they break them just as quickly - in many cases as soon as the empowerment. is over and the drinking parties begin. For Iaypeople, taking five precepts signals an intention to be virtuous rather than virtue itself. Indeed, lay precept holders are classed into six types (dge bsnyen drug) depending on how many and how strictly the five precepts are held. Strictly speaking, the tonsured candidate should be called tshangs spyod dge bsnyen, or chaste devotee. Yet Genyen is also a shorthand for laypeople who observe a ritual abstention (bsnyen gnas) that involves taking eight vows for a single day 10.

Such ritual vows, which can be held by either Iaypeople or monastics

9 Rab 'byung rna is a condensation of rab tu 'byung ba which derives from rab tu (thoroughly, fully) and 'byung ba (go forth, set out). While dge bsnyen rna has been defuied by Das (1902: 270,511) as "Buddhist devotee"; the term derives from dge ba (virtue) and bsnyen ba (to receive, admit, worship, or approach).

10 While the two terms, bsnyen gnas and srnyung gnas, sound similar and are often mistaken, Gutschow (1998, ms) has clarified the entire ritual process of the fasting rite. The eight precepts held during bsnyen gnas include: (1) not killing, (2) not lying, (3) not stealing, (4) not commiting sexual misconduct, (5) not taking intoxicants, (6) not singing and dancing, (7) not eating after noon, and (8) not using a high or luxurious seat or bed.

194 KIM GUTS CHOW

may be held on alternate days during a popular Tibetan fasting rite known as Nyungnas (smyung gnas).

Girls with strong religious inclinations may undergo tonsure without their parents' permission or much formal training. Because most questions asked at the tonsure ceremony are asked in the negative, the candidate is asked to speak up if she knows anyone who objects to her taking tonsure. If she has not told her parents, she does not know if they have any objections, strictly speaking. While it is possible to take tonsure without the explicit blessing of one's parents, the initiate requires the tacit acceptance and instruction of at least one monastic in their community. Only monks perform the tonsure rite in Zangskar, although high ranking nuns once performed it in Tibet before 195911 . A quorum of monks is not required, but the officiant must be a fully ordained monk (dge slong) who can transmute the rite's latent sexual imagery into a purified Buddhist offering (mchod pa). When an initiate requests the monk to shave her head, she may offer him a blessing scarf, some money, or simply some butter for the lamps honoring the local guardian deities. She then undergoes a ritual cleansing ceremony (khrus) in which she is cleansed of the mental defilements (sgrib) that may have accumulated through her inadvertent actions or ignorance. She will make merit simply by offering her body to the path of renunciation which was the Buddha's main legacy.

The Symbolic Significance of Hair

To cut the hair is to separate oneself from the previous world; to dedicate the hair is to bend oneself to the sacred world ... 12•

Although the ritual moment of tonsure happens quickly, its consequences and significance are deep and lasting. Tonsure signals a lifelong intention to remain celibate and reject the call of sexual desire. The initiate is transformed from a potentially fertile and sexual woman into a voluntarily infertile and somewhat asexual woman. At the same time it is a form of disciplinary control by which the apprentice is brought under the

11 Havnevik (1998) reports that nuns may administer hair-cutting rites in Tibet. 12 Van Gennep, 1960: 166.


monastic gaze. Over the next few years, the initiate comes under probation as her parents and her tutors at the nunnery consider whether if she has sufficient inclination for the spiritual life.

Hair is a potent symbol of sexuality; its removal signifies a turning away from feminity and fecundity. When a young woman shaves off her braids whose length and glossiness are considered to index her fertility, their absence is mourned inwardly but not publicly. Braiding the hair is one of those events that bond young agemates. Yet unlike brides, who cry hysterically for up to three days before their wedding night, nuns have pointedly told me that they do not cry when their heads are first shaven. The recognition that monasticism will free them from marriage makes tonsure a liberating if not joyful experience for most nuns I interviewed. The actual cutting of hair (skra phud phuT) has· both symbolic and pedagogic import in Zangskar as elsewhere in the Buddhist world. As a sacred substance associated with one of the most sacred parts of the body, the head, shorn hair is also associated with a person's luck (spar kha). In order to avoid anyone stepping on the shorn hair and thereby destroying one's luck, a nun shoves the shorn hair into the chinks of her cell or hides it under a rock13•

Unlike in Sri Lanka, where hair is used as vehicle for meditation upon impermanence, in Zangskar, tonsure is a means to reflect upon the renunciation of desire. There have been many interpretations of the symbolic significance of shaving the head. While some scholars have placed tonsure under the rubric of "ceremonial mutilation," along with circumcision, blood-letting, and cutting off finger joints, others have seen a link between tonsure and castration14• The Freudian analysis is somewhat reductionist and does not account for the Buddhist emphasis on

13 The Sherpas in Nepal toss hair, old clothes, and amulets into trees, so that nobody steps over them, as Adams (1999) notes. The concept that one's luck (spar kha) resides in physical substances like hair or clothes is related to the Indian notion of bodily substances which are transacted between individuals as Marriot (1989, 1991) notes. Van Gennep (1960: 166) describes that in most tonsure rites, the shorn hair may be "buried, burned, saved in a sachet, or placed in a relative's keeping," because it is associated with aspects of personality.

14 Scholars who discuss the symbolic import of hair include Ty10r (1873), Berg (1951), Leach (1958), Hershman (1974), Obeyesekere (1981), Lang (1995), and Elberg-Schwartz and Doniger (1995).

196 KIM GUTS CHOW

liberation rather than castration. Hallpike (1969) has analyzed tonsure as a form of disciplinary control by which individuals are brought under institutional control, noting that monks, soldiers, and convicts all wear shorn hair. Yet the cultural significance of hair and its removal may vary considerably. In the Indian context alone, tonsure signifies mourning for Rajput Hindus, unacceptable renunciation for Punjabi Sikhs, and lifelong monasticism for Zangskari Buddhists. For both Buddhist and Catholic nuns, hair expresses a dangerous female sexuality. Yet the Buddhist aims to sever desire at the root while the Catholic tradition attempts to repress it into oblivion. While tonsure signals total severance from the worldly life in the Theravadin context, there is much more fluidity between the householder and ascetic realms in Zangskar.

Tonsure and Androgyny

The liminal is neither this nor that and yet it is both ... Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between15•

In Zangskar, tonsured girls who have not yet taken ordination remain at home working on the family estate. These apprentice nuns participate fully in village life and owe their primary obligations to their household, even as they begin to apprentice themselves to the nunnery and apply themselves to the study of Buddhist texts. While such apprentices may continue to slip in and out of their obligations to the village and the nunnery, they know they are pledged to a life of renunciation. Even if their parents delay their ordination in order to keep them at home for chores, further renunciation awaits inevitably.

They cannot wear monastic robes but begin to abandon certain markers of femininity. They may wear the upper shawl (gzan gas) which all nuns must wear at monastic functions even though they cannot wear full robes until ordination. Rather than the plump and pleated dresses with the embroidered triangles of red and green and the swishing tie-dye shawl (ling zed) which every Zangskari girl owns, they don a boyish coat (gon ehe). Their ears and necks no longer drip with corrals,

15 V. Turner (1967: 99, 1969: 95) describes the ambiguity of the liminal state.


turquoises, and pearls which mother's give to their daughters at an early age. Their boyish clothes and close cropped hair signal a liminal status betwixt and between genders. They are both girls and not girls. They may perform the same chores as their girlfriends, but they are no longer marked for marriage and maternity. They may still go to the water pipe to fetch water for her mother, but they may no longer flirt and gossip. Although their five precepts do not prevent them from attending the biannual parties (chang dud) of their village agemates, they must keep a restrained etiquette. They may serve but not drink the barley beer; they may play the drum but not sing or dance the romatic songs which they have memorized since youth. They may stay at these parties for days and nights, but cannot sneak off for a secret tryst in the village fields as the other girls do. They will watch as romances are kindled and then quickly smothered by parents busily negotiating marriages on behalf of their daughters. Over the next years, they learn to be nuns by unlearning the feminine graces they have culti~ated up to this point. They must maintain an inward purity (gtsang rna) in the midst of the worldly dramas which unfold around her and in which they can play little part.

The initiate is separated from her agemates intellectually, as she begins to study classical Tibetan and the initial ritual texts that every nun must learn. She must show special aptitude for mastering the grammar and syntax of an archaic language she neither speaks nor understands, as the West Tibetan dialect spoken in Zangskar differs markedly from the classical Tibetan of religious texts. She begins to memorize texts whose esoteric meanings may only become clear after many years of practice and study16. By the time she takes novice ordination, she will have begun to study many of the prayers she will have to recite or read every day after she joins the monastic assembly (i.e. rGyaZ sras [hag

16 Such texts may include the Diamond Sutra (rDo rje rnchod pa), Heart Sutra (Shes rab snying po), and Offering to the Lama (bLa rna rnchod pa) as well as a local text known as The Jewel of Essential Teachings [in] Zangskar (Zangs dkar bslab bya snying gi nor bu which was authored by Gra sgom Rin po che (1992). It includes prayers for the long life of the Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, Ngari Rinpoche, and other venerated Zangskari teachers. The other texts are famous examples of Buddhist literature, translated by Lopez (1996, 1997), Conze (1954), Dalai Lama (1998), and Berzin (1979).

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len, 'Dus 'khor smon lam, Phyag drug pa'i stod pa, Phul 'byung ma, Tshe med yon tan). More importantly, she begins"to imitate her teacher's daily devotions and religious meditations. Every night and morning, she goes to her teacher's chapel, where she will learn to light a butter lamp, ftll and empty the seven offering bowls with water from left to right, and perform a perfunctory set of three prostrations. These habitual practices will become involuntary by the time she learns to dedicate the merit earned thereby towards all sentient beings with the- 'mind of enlightenment or 'Bodhicitta'.

The apprentice nun will also take a more active role in the communal chores at the nunnery, helping the cook prepare the daily service of butter tea and going to the roof to bring down huge bushels of prickly thorn that serve as fuel in the monastic hearth. She may be sent to the mountainside to collect dung and thistles for fuel or to limestone deposits high up the scree slopes above the village where chalk is gathered before whitewashing the nunnery compound and religious reliquaries (mchod rten) each year. She will be asked to lug huge cans of water from the frozen streambed after chopping a hole in the ice all winter and to attend the springtime work parties where the monastic grounds are repaired after the rigors of winter. In short, she will learn the multitude of chores which attend a communal living arrangement of twenty women. By the time she joins the nunnery, the seasonal cycle of mundane duties will be all too familiar, leaving her free to focus on more esoteric knowledges.

Novice Ordination: A Ritual and its Aftermath

Ordination as a novice (dge tshul ma) is the moment when a woman dedicates her life to the monastic discipline she has been learning to embody. The ordination ceremony prepares her to take up full membership at the nunnery as it severs her from her lay friends in the village. Until this moment her vows have been temporary, yet through ordination they become permanent. Unlike in the Theravadin tradition where young men come and go from the monastery, in the Tibetan tradition ordination is an irreversible rite which cannot be undone in this lifetime. Even if when novices abandons their vows, they can never rejoin the


monastic order in this lifetime I? Although the Vinaya dictates that nuns be ordained twice, first by monks and then by nuns, there is no quorum of fully ordained nuns in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition qualified to act as officiants. As a result, most nuns in the Tibetan tradition are ordained in generic ceremonies open to nuns and monks. While nuns have begun taking ordination from Taiwanese and Korean nuns, the validity of these ordinations is not yet clear. 18 Because it is difficult to find senior monks willing and able to perform such ordinations, nuns may wait years or have to travel on lengthy pilgrimages to find a place in an ordination ceremony. There have been few frrst hand accounts of an ordination ritual in Tibetan Buddhism, because lay observers are excluded from this rite unlike in the Theravada tradition. The translations and comparisons of the precepts held by fully ordained nuns have added philological depth to our understanding of how the Vinaya varies across sects but little in the way of thick description of the ordination rituaP9. My account relies on several first person accounts of novice ordination ceremonies held in Kashmir.

17 A liturgy for the full ordination rite from the Dharmagupta lineage notes that a monastic who commits one of the Four Root Downfalls (S. Parajika) is like "a man who having his head cut off cannot come to life; a tree with dead root cannot be alive again; a needle cannot be used without a head; nor a broken rock can come back to its original shape anymore." Thanks to Sarah Levine for supplying this m.s ..

18 The debate about re-establishing the full ordination tradition in South Asia is discussed in Bartholomeusz (1992, 1994), Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1,988), Tsomo (1988, 1996). Tsomo (1996) reports that there are over one hundred western women who have taken ordination from Dharmagupta lineage holders in the last decade.

19 Gutschow (1998, 2000a) relies on interviews with nuns for the only fIrst hand descriptions of novice ordination for nuns in the Tibetan tradition. Li (2000) describes Thurman (1995: 128-14) has translates Tibetan ordination manuals, Dagpa, Tsering, and Chophel (1975) describe the vows and discipline held by male novices in the Tibetan tradition, and Tsering and Russell (1986) describe the vows held by female precept holders, novices, and probationers. Heirman (1997) translates the novice, probationary, and full ordination vows held by nuns in the Dharmagupta tradition from a Chinese text. Hirakawa (1982), Roth (1970), Kabilsingh (1985, 1998), and Tsomo (1998) translate the Bhiksuni Pratimoksha using Sanskrit, . Chinese, and Pali sources. For the Theravadin tradition, compare Bartholomeusz' (1994) illustration of an ordination ceremony for female renunciates (dasa sil mata) and Salgado's (1996) description of the education of renunciates in Sri Lanka. Tambiah (1968, 1985) and Spiro (1982: 234-54) have sketched Theravadin ordination rites for monks, which lay observers are invited to attend, unlike the Mahayana ceremonies which are closed to laypeople.

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On the day of the ordination, a nun washes her body 'and has her head freshly ShOID. She may wear the robes and carry the monastic seating rug (gding ba) which she may have borrowed from relatives at the monastery. In border regions such as Tibet, a quorum of six fully ordained monks including the preceptor (mnga' ba) is required to officiated an ordination. After a ritual purification (khrus) using blessed saffron water stored inside a sacred vessel (bum pa), candidates receive a brief teaching on the novice precepts. The candidates are asked to repent the innumerable transgressions they have committed in this and previous lifetimes. The preceptor then asks the initiates a series of questions to determine their qualifications for ordination2o• The questions are read out and· silence indicated assent. The candidates were required to be beholden to neither spouse nor king, to be neither slave nor concubine, neither demon nor deity, but free and fully human. Interestingly, they are not questioned about their motivation, education, previous occupation, or family background. The Buddha allowed lower caste women, dissatisfied wives, and even ex-prostitutes to join the order. Yet even today, women from the lowest caste (rigs ngan) are excluded from ordination in Zangskar. As one nun put it pithily, "If the blacksmith sits at the head of the row as chantmaster, where will we sit?" In other words, it was impossible for her to imagine a blacksmith sitting in a monastic assembly because they would be ignoring the seating orders which obtain in Kashmir and elswhere in the Indian and Nepalese Himalaya.

Before the close of the ritual, the candidates for ordination are called up in front of the officiant and preceptor to answer the last two

20 An ordination manual from the Dharmagupta lineage lists the following 13 major obstacles: (1) having cornmitted one of the Four Root Downfalls, (2) having defiled a nun, (3) having received precepts through deceit, (4) apostasy, (5) being not fully female, (6) having committed patricide, (7) having committed matricide, (8) having killed an Arhat, (9) having caused a schism in the Sangha, (10) having shed the blood of the Buddha, (11) being non-human, (12) being an animal, and (13) not having proper male and female characteristics. The ten minor hindrances are: (1) not knowing one's name, (2) not knowing the name of one's proposer, (3) being under the age of 20, (4) not having the three robes and an almsbowl, (5) the disapproval of ones mother or father, (6) being in debt, (7) being a slave, (8) holding a government post, (9) having neither male nor female characteristics, (10) having one of the five sicknesses (leprosy, epilepsy, retardation, exzema, and manic depression). Compare Homer's (1930: 140-51) list of ten minor obstructions for the Pali canon and Wijayaratna (1990: 120-21).


questions - their name and the name of their preceptor. The candidates offer their blessing scarves on the officiant's throne and placed a small handful of sweetened barley dough and sweet rice ('bras siT) into the replica of the Buddha's begging bowl. The candidates then placed one hand on top of the begging bowl and one below the begging bowl, around the shaft of the ritual staff (mkhar gsil) to consecrate the initiates21 . He gave each candidate his blessing (byin labs) by pinching the three types of sacred robes they were wearing - the gzan gos, sham thabs, and chos gos - between his fingers and reciting a brief prayer22. As one monk explained, when the officiant pinches or may even tie his own robes to the new novice's robes, he is symbolizing the unbroken lineage of the Buddha's teachings which the monastic disciplirIe represents. The ceremony is concluded when the candidate return to their seats and recite the vows that all novices are bound to observe, after the officiant23 .

Ordination, Liminality, and Discipline

It is as though [initiates] are being reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew and endowed with additional powers to cope with their new station in life24.

The ordination exemplifies both ritualliminality and bodily discipline as described by both Turner (1969: 106) and Asad (1993). Ritual obedience is expected, as are other key traits and practices: acceptance of pain and suffering, simplicity, sacred instruction, silence, unselfishness, total obedience (to the required sacred formula), sexlessness, anonymity,

21 Das (1902: 143) relates this ritual staff which is used by priests during the dedication of merit (sngo ba) during alms gathering with a close cognate, khar gsel, "the trident carried by mendicants of the sngags kyi theg pa Tantrik school." The trident is a symbol of Vishnu, one of whose epithets is khar sa pa ni in Tibetan. Waddell (1895: 211) shows a drawing of this ritual staff.

22 Tsomo (1996: 163-4) describes the necessity of blessing of the robes. 23 In the Miilasarvastiva:din canon, novice vows are listed in an abbreviated version of

ten vows or the full list of 36 vows. The abbreviated list is similar to the ten precepts held by female renunciates (Dasa sil mata) in Sri Lanka and the eight or ten precepts held by renunciates (Thila shin) in Burma. In the Dharmagupta tradition, novices also take the Boddhisattva vow during their ordination ceremony, while Tibetan novices take this vow in the course of Tantric initiations.

24 Turner, 1969: 95.

202 KTh1 GUTS CHOW

homogeneity, equality, uniform clothing, disregard for personal appearance and wealth, suspension of kinship rights, and mystical powers. Initiates must remain silent as the questions concerning disqualification are read out, for silence indicates assent and thereby qualification for the monastic vocation. They are accepting pain and suffering as they take vows to fast, maintain lifelong celibacy, and eschew any romantic or sentimental attachments to members of the opposite sex. Total obedience is enjoined, as the officiant explains the vows and their meaning. To break anyone of the vows even in thought is equivalent to a breach of contract, while breaking one of the four root vows (rtsa [hung bzhi) involves immediate expulsion from the monastic order. Anonymity and sexlessness are expressed by the uniform maroon robes. The initiates are enjoined to disregard personal vanity and wealth as several of their 36 novice vows expressly forbid adornments, makeup, body-paint, perfume, saffron, and flowers, as well as gold and silver.

When the head officiant calls the novices in front of him to bless the robes, he reminds them of the ritual sanctity and significance of the vows they are about to take. The act of repeating the vows after him is a performative act, in which saying is doing, as Tambiah (1985) calling on Austin (1962) notes. During the rite, the novices receive sacred instruction and sacra - vows and robes - which have been forbidden up until this moment. Although a novice receives instructions about the form and flow of the rite, ordination may the first time she recites the 36 novice vows. In the heightened state of ordination, their reading cannot but have a lasting effect. As Leach (1966) suggests, ritual is an information storage system, in which highly condensed forms of knowledge are transmitted to the next generation of practitioners. In Tibetan Buddhism, ritual operates as a condensed information storage system par excellence, as the most esoteric and secret forms of knowledge are only transmitted orally from teacher to pupil. This method allows the teacher to evaluate if the student is ready to receive the ritual information, in short, if they have completed the necessary meditations and other austerities. Students of Tantra may only be permitted to study advanced texts or visualization techniques after having received the oral explanation (lung bstan) of the text or practice from a qualified teacher. This practice ensured that male teachers controlled the most esoteric ritual practices and knowledges,


while disciplining the student's bodies and minds in the period of apprenticeship.

Joining the Monastic Assembly

Ordination ushers in a monastic discipline which demands perseverance and precocity. Most nuns try to join the assembly of nunS as soon as possible after becoming ordained, although they may also reverse these two stages of the ritual process and ordain later due to a lack of ordination ceremonies being held in remote Zangskar. The process of joining the nunnery, or in colloquial idiom, 'dwelling on the cliff' (ri la bzhugs byes) involves petitioning the abbot with a thermos of butter tea and a blessing scarf, a procedural formality. Although the parents and prospective nun are nervous, the community of nuns and their abbot usually welcomes new members. Although any nun who objects to a petitioner's entrance to the monastic community may register her doubts, objections are rare. There is no entrance examination nor even a set of ritual practices which must be mastered by this time. Yet the years of apprenticeship at the nunnery have given the other nuns enough opportunities to judge a prospective nun's dedication and potential. On a day specified in advance, the prospective nun and her parents come to the nunnery bearing butter, salt, a basket of breads for the assembly of nuns, and enough money to make a small donation to the assembly. The prospective nun will help the cook make the tea before she is ushered into the assembly hall with her parents.

After prostrating three times to the altar, the prospective nun places offers blessing scarves before taking her place at the end of the seating order of nuns, in her new role as the junior most member of the assembly. Her parents, as lay people, are accommodated on separate cushions laid out against the rear wall of the hall. When tea and breads are served to each nun, the parents must refuse vociferously, although they may drink a single cup of tea out of politeness. This initial "Vinaya tea" (' dul ja) symbolizes the new nun's formal entrance into the assembly of nuns. The play of exchange continues to unfold. After removing a wad of small notes, the parents ask one of the nuns serving the tea to distribute a small monetary donation ('gyed) to each nun. The abbot replies with a short

204 KIM GUTS CHOW

speech of thanks. The parents then receive blessing scarves and a blessing cord from the head nun on behalf of the entire assembly. As thanks for receiving a new member, the parents are given a small payment called stong deb of 14 RS25. The sum is a symbolic replacement for the daughter they have lost. When the parents feel it is appropriate, they leave the hall and retire to the guest room where they can drink: more tea in comfort. They may move to the private rooms of an elderly nun who was their daughter's tutor or instructor, where they host a small party for friends and relatives. Until they build a cell for their daugher, she may continue to live with her tutor, while learning the rules of life at the nunnery.

After she joins the monastic assembly, a nun is expected to complete the memorization of all essential texts which are recited during the monthly and annual ritual sessions or festivals. Villagers occasionally request nuns to perfonn incidental rituals such as prayers for the deceased, the ill, blessings for ajoumey, and the removal of obstacles. Unlike monks who make a living perfonning expiatory and propitiatory rituals, nuns are usually only called into local households for two life cycle rites, weddings and funerals. Yet even at these two rituals, monks dominate the ritual process. While both assemblies (sarhghas) of nuns and monks are invited to chant at funerals, only monks are permitted to perform the ritual transfer of the body from this world to the next (cho ga) until the cremation, which again is only officiated by monks. At weddings, only monks may conduct the bride's ritual transference (gyang 'gugs) from her natal clan to her husband's clan as well as the ritual destruction of the effigy (zor) which prevents demons (rgyab 'dre) and malicious gossip (gnod pa, mi kha) from following her to her new husband's home. Nuns also attend several village festivals like the springtime ancestor ritual (rgyas tsha) and the circumambulation of the fields ('bum skor). At the fIrst rite, while both assemblies make merit for the deceased, only monks officiate the construction and consecration of tiny votive chorten (tsha tsha) which symbolize the bodies of the deceased. At the springtime circumambulation ('bum skor), both assemblies are called to read the Prajnaparamita,.

25 French (1995: 110-14) offers a fascinating discussion of the concept of death payments, also known as stong, which are compensation payments to the family or relatives of a person who has been murdered. French (m.s.) presents a more detailed discussion of the sixth section of the dGa' ldan Pho brang Law Code.


but monks perform the ritual ablutions (khrus) which cleanse the crops and village space:

Once she joins the assembly, a nun is expected to take up a number of ritual offices which rotate among the member nuns according to seniority. Each nun serves as conch blower (dung rna), ritual assistant (chos g.yog), sacristan (dkon gnyer), assistant chant master (dbu chung), and chant master (dbu mdzad) which doubles as head nun. Each of these positions involve a three-year tenure, except that of sacristan. The office of ritual assistant carries the responsibility for making all of the dough and butter sculptures, as well as offering cakes, and other aspects of the ritual altar for any and all rites performed in the nunnery. During her tenure she cannot stray far from the nunnery, although there are two nuns who fill this post and substitute for each other when one is busy with village work. The main ingredients of these sculptures (butter, roasted barley flour, milk, beer, buttermilk, yogurt, saffron and other ritual spices) are provided by the sponsoring villager. While the food items are provided by the sponsor, the ritual assistant herself must procure the powders or special spices (such as bzang drug) necessary for esoteric rites. She also serves as caretaker for all of the nunnery's ritual items: the colored powders for dying butter sculptures, the wooden relief block and orangepowder used to create a Mandala dedicated to the nunnery's protective deity, plates for tossing gtor ma, butter lamps and offering bowls, and other assorted tools necessary for setting up the ritual altars. The sacristan or door-keeper must go at dawn and dusk to the assembly hall to light and later refill butter lamps, to fill and empty offering bowls, and to offer a litany of sounds and smells to the protective spirits - juniper incense, a ritual shake of the bell (dril buy, the hand drum (cang te'u), and a quick crescendo of beats on large drum (rnga).

The most important post at Karsha nunnery is that of chant master (dbu mdzad) or head nun. Every nun must take her turn in this position, after she has completed all the other positions at the nunnery. For three years prior to being head nun, she apprentices herself as assistant chant master (dbu chung) as she memorizes the chants and other rules of nunnery life. By the time the three years are up, she will have memorized nearly 20 hours worth of ritual texts which she can recite on call. In Zangskar, the head nun does more than lead the assembly rituals, she is a CEO,

206 KIM GUTS CHOW

principal shareholder, and office manager of the nuns' corporation26.

She is in charge of the nunnery's finances, resources, works andprojects, ritual calendar, and annual investments and expenditures. She must keep track of every Rupee that goes in or out of the monastic coffers as well as record the manner in which it was spent. When necessary, she .even cooks the tea and prepares the meal requested by a donor sponsoring a rite, before leading the necessary chants at the same rite. She is the unofficial arbitrator of all internal politics and complaints registered by her fellow nuns. However, at most nunneries, the ultimate adjudication of disputes as well as any disciplinary measures are decided by the abbot or a unanimous vote of the nunnery assembly (dge 'dun).

Every nun who is a member of the assembly owes a certain amount of labor as well as material resources to the collective, which cover the operating costs of the nunnery as institution. At Karsha nunnery in Zangskar for instance, every nun under 60 years of age must bring four to five loads of thistle wood and firewood, and two loads of dung. Every nun is also required to attend between 20 and 30 collective work days, announced by the head nun for maintenance chores. There is much work, even at such a small institution. The nunnery path is repaired after winter snowfall and avalanches. The nunnery buildings, walls, chorten, and compound are repaired and whitewashed each spring. The willow grove and gardens are weeded, watered, and tilled. The water pipe is disassembled each fall before the first heavy frost and reinstalled each spring, and the snow must be shoveled off the roofs of all the nunnery buildings, to prevent leaking and collapsed roofs. The nunnery compost toilet is emptied and the manure (mixed with ashes and earth) is carried to the nunnery garden and fields. Until 1998 when the fields were sharecropped to local villagers, the nuns were expected to provide a certain amount of work on the nunnery's two fields, sowing the seeds, performing the "first watering", weeding, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, carrying the grain and chaff to the nunnery, and finally washing, drying, and roasting the grain. Three nuns known as "field managers"

26 Tibetan nunneries in Dharmsala may have more variegated offices, including treasurers, stewards, and other positions for handling the business side of the nunnery. At most Zangskari nunneries, there are one or two stewards (gnyer pa) who handle the foreign donations; however, the head nun must manage the local, Zangskari donations.


(zhing gi gnyer pa) were responsible for coordinating the agricultural tasks throughout the summer.

Despite the drudgery of monastic work, monasticism still represent modernity for many Zangskari women. The monastic vocation IS one avenue of escape from lifelong drudgery as a housewife or mother in a non-mechanized rural economy. The religious life remains a vocational opportunity which offers women relative freedom to pursue study and contemplation. Most Zangskari nuns have little access to secular or religious education, unlike Sri Lanka where a nuns enroll in state-sponsored education before becoming school teachers or meditation trainers27• Until now, no single Zangskari nuns have become public teachers although most senior nuns offer religious instruction through to their apprentices or disciples. Foreign initiatives in the last decade established senior monks (dge bshes) at two of Zangskar's nine nunneries, who were supposed to· teach dialectics following the Tibetan monastic curriculum. While the foreign sponsors provided monthly stipends for these two venerable monks without fail, the educational outcome was less than favorable. These wellintentioned schemes simply did not take into account the tremendous pressure the nuns face from their families and relatives to work at home. There is also some local backlash as some nuns have privately sugp;ested that these feminist initiatives expect too much too fast. Local villagers have voiced incredulity at these efforts, and have mocked the nuns for studying abstract philosophy. They have said that they will no longer need to call nuns for funerals because what kind of soul would want to be guided through the bardo by the cacaphony of dialectics? Yet for many young women, the nunnery and its religious education remains the best opportunity for a career as well as the freedom to make merit single mindedly in hopes of a better rebirth the next time around.

Aknowledgements

I would like to thank the nuns of Karsha and other nuns in Zangskar for their infInite patience and boundless compassion, as well as more cups

27 According to Salgado (1996), 6% of Sri Lanka's 3000 female renunciates were registered in state-sponsored religious training. Bartholomeusz (1994) describes the Buddhist schools for girls established during the Buddhist revival in the late 19th century.

208 KIM GUTSCHOW

of tea than I can ever hope to repay in this lifetime. Deep thanks to Michael Aris, to whom this article is dedicated, and also to Manduhai Buyandelgeriyn, Erika Evas-Dottier, Arthur Kleinman, Sarah Levine, Ashok Rai, Stanley Tambiah, Nur Yalman, and Jan Willis for helpful conversations. Funding for research in Zangskar between 1991 and 1997 came from the Jacob Javitz Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and Harvard's Department of Anthropology. Italics refer to Tibetan, using the Wylie system of transliteration.

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THE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY BUDDIDST MISSION:

Building Support for the Theraviida Nuns' Order of Nepal

SARAH LEVINE*

The giving and receiving of donations (dana) is a reciprocal exchange between the lay and monastic communities by which both stand to profit. In return for their donations, by which they demonstrate and cultivate attitudes of nonattachment to material goods and interest in the welfare of others, Buddhist lay people look to generate spiritual merit to earn them health and prosperity in this life and a good rebirth. Since ancient times dana has provided Buddhist monks and nuns with food, clothing, and shelter in return for which they have been charged, with serving the world as exemplars of renunciation, practitioners of meditation, and performers of ritual 1. Nuns however, who, by virtue of their gender, are viewed by donors as a "lesser field of merit", now, as in the past, are at a significant economic 4isadvantage relative to monks2• This is especially the case for Theravada Buddhist nuns in Nepal where the Theravada tradition is rather recently established. Although there is inscriptional evidence for the existence of Buddhist nuns in Kathmandu and Patan from the fifth through the eleventh century, the likelihood is that they belonged to the Miilasarvastivadin school3• In any event, there is no record of the existence of Theravada nuns in the Kathmandu Valley, "Nepal" of pre-modern times, before 1931. This paper looks at how, over seven decades (1931-2000), Nepalese nuns have struggled to create a viable economic base.

Introduction

Theraviida Buddhism in its "modernist" or "Protestant" form reached Nepal in the 1920s when a handful of Newar men brought the "good

* Harvard University 1 T. Lewis, 2000: 8. 2 See, T. Bartholomeusz, 1994: 191-194; M. L. Falk, 2000: 37-57; N. Falk, 1980:

207-224; H. Havnevik, 1989: 121-124; H. Kawanami, 1990, 1(1): 17-40; 2000: 159-171. 3 P. Ski.\fuIg, 1993/94, 29-49.

Journal of the International Association of Buddhi~t Studies Volume 24 • Number 2 • 2001

218 SARAH LEVINE

news" back from India to the Kathmandu Valley4. Strongly critical of the traditionallaicised form of Vajrayana Buddhism which they perceived as elitest, esoteric, overly ritualistic, and largely irrelevant to the lives of ordinary Buddhists, these young people had gone in search of an alternative. The Valley had provided a conduit for the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet5 and many Nepalese painters and image makers had followed in the footsteps of the early missionary and translator monks to work on Tibetan monasteries6• Since the Second Conversion; Tibetan lamas had maintained a continuous presence at Valley stiipas and other sacred sites; meanwhile, by gradual increments Newar Buddhist merchants had come to dominate the trans-Himalayan trade and thus had had significant exposure to Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet itself as well as in the Valley? Not surprisingly, a few of these young Newar "seekers", after receiving teachings from Tibetan lamas at the great stiipa of Svayambhu, went north to Tibet, took ordination and spent time in monasteries in Lhasa and Shigatse8• But then, dissatisfied with the teaching and practices to which they were exposed there, they travelled south again to India where, at Kushinagar, Sarnath and Bodh Gaya, they encountered Maha Bodhi Society missionaries9• They were convinced that their approach, with its egalitarian emphasis and focus on teaching, preaching, and textual study, was what they had been searching for and, together with others who had come directly to India from Nepal, they took Theravada ordination and came home to reform Newar BuddhismlD. What they had in mind was to cleanse it of certain features such as castism and blood sacrifice, absorbed over the centuries from Hinduism; to focus on the figure of ' the Buddha as Teacher in place of the complex Hindu-Buddhist pantheon; to re-introduce monasticism which had vanished from Newar

4 The concept of Buddhist "modernism" was first formulated by H. Bechert (1967), who described the ideological and organizational origins of the Buddhist revival movement in Sri Lanka. G. Obeyesekere (1970) coined the term "Protestant Buddhism" to describe the same movement.

5 See A. Chattopadhayay, 1967; E. Obermiller, 1931; D. Snellgrove, 1957. 6 A. W. Macdonald and A. V. Stahl, 1979: 35. 7 T. Lewis, 1989 (38)31-57. 8 Mahapragya, 1983. 9 H. Bechert and I.-U. Hartmann, 1988(8)1-28.

10 R. Kloppenborg, 1977(4)301-322.

THE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY BUDDIDST MISSION 219

Buddhist monasteries in the middle ages wpen monks had married and, following the Hindu model, metamorphosed into householder priests; and to bring buddhadharma to every man and woman in their community. Although they received ordination and some instruction from Maha Bodhi missionaries who would continue to advise them from a distance for decades, they brought their. mission to Kathmandu with nothing but their robes, begging bowls and a few religious anthologies composed of selections from Pali texts translated into the Newari language. Unlike the Vajrayana priests with whom they would soon be competing for lay support, they had no temples, no endowment lands, and no tradition of paiicadiin (alms of husked and unhusked grain) behind them 11. Economically, they were on their own.

Background to the Mission

Inscriptions indicate that Hindus and Buddhists have lived side-by-side in the Kathmandu Valley at least since the period of the Licchavi kings (400-900 CE.)12. As late as the mid-nineteenth century more than half the N ewar population, the dominant ethnic group of the Valley, identified themselves as Buddhists13 • Although their kings almost always declared themselves sivamiirgis or Hindus, they were also patrons of Buddhist institutions and festivals. Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Nepalispeaking Hindu king of the small hill state of Gorkha who conquered the Kathmandu Valley and drove out the last Newar king in 1769, continued in the role of patron, as did his immediate successors. But in 1846 Jung Bahadur, seized power and, he and his successors, known as the Rana family, keeping four successive monarchs under virtual house arrest, ruled Nepal as their private fiefdom for 105 years, a era which, for Newar Buddhist institutions, was one of precipitous decline. By the end of the Rana period the great majority of Newars identified themselves - if only for political and economic purposes - as Hindus. In the 1920s, when the

11 The Vajrayana monastic community - male members of the Vajracarya and Sakya castes - may receive dana four times a year from the laity. On these occasions, the main gift is a mixture of husked and unhusked rice. See, D. Gellner, 1992: 180-181.

12 M. Slusser, 1982: 171-181. 13 D. Wright, ed. 1972.

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first Theravada missionaries appeared in Kathmandu, almost the only Newars who still called themselves Buddhists were those whose casteaffiliation gave them no alternative, notably members of the two priestly castes, Vajracarya (household priest: Nep:purohit; New:gubhaju) and Sakya (temple priest: Nep:piijari; New: btipha), and the nine Dray mercantile and artisan subcastes14•

The Drays included merchants (sahUj!) who were active in the IndiaTibetan trade which for centuries had passed from Patna on the .Gangetic Plain through the Kathmandu Valley and thence by one of several routes to Shigatse and on to Lhasa. When, following the Younghusband expedition of 1904, trade was re-routed through Kalimpong and thence by a newly constructed road to Gangtok, over the Nathan La pass into Tibet and on, via Gyantse to Lhasa, Dray merchants re-located their operations from Kathmandu to Kalimpong andCa1cutta. It was a handful of these wealthy traders who financially supported the fIrst Nepalese converts to Theravada Buddhism both during their spiritual explorations in India and later, after receiving monastic ordination, on their return, as missionaries, in the Kathmandu Valley. Dray interest in the Theravada "message" was in part fueled by a conflict with their Vajracarya household priests which flared in the early 1920s and continued for almost thirty years until it was finally resolved in the law COurtS 15. By that time many in the Dray community had become alienated from Vajrayana Buddhism and, other than for traditional life-cycle rites whose signifIcance was more social than religious, had turned to the Theravadins.

For the first twenty years the missionaries encountered strong opposition from the government. Fearful of any challenge to their control, the Ranas did their utmost to keep the country isolated from anything that might threaten the status quo, most particularly democratic and equalitarian ideas which, in the first decades of the twentieth century, were spurring on India's march towards freedom 16. The Theravadins, by their own account, were reformers not revolutionaries - their objective was to purify their tradition not to destroy it. Nevertheless the Ranas

14 'Ibis included nine inter-marrying subcastes: Tuladhar, Kamsakar, Tarnrakar, Baniya, Rajkarnikar, Silpakar, Silrikar, Sindurakar and Sthapit. T. Lewis, 1995: 38-79.

15 C. Rosser, 1966: 68-139. 16 See, M. Hoftun, W. Roper and J. Whelpton, 1999: 2-13.

THE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY B1JDDHIST MISSION 221

were suspicious of them right away and, for twenty years from 1930 when the first newly-minted monks appeared in Kathmandu until the regime was overthrown and the monarchy restored in 1951, harassed, imprisoned and even exiled them. Orthodox Hindus, the Ranas were fiercely protective of the rigid caste system which, by the Mulukhi Ain (Law Code) of 1854, they had imposed upon the population of the entire country, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and tribals alike, and which they believed certain Theravadin activities undermined 17. Most especially, they objected to the alms round because in their view begging for cooked food - rice cooked in water, the staple of the Nepalese diet - violated brahmanical rules of commensality. (Paiicadan, which Vajracaryas and Sakyas received as alms four times each year from the lay community, was composed of uncooked grain and rice cooked in milk (khir) which was purer and less likely to transmit pollution than rice cooked in water.) As noted above, initially Theravada Buddhism appealed in large part to Sakyas and Urays, and in the early years all recruits to the monks' order were from these upper castes l8 . Although according to Buddhist doctrine, monastics should accept dana from everyone regardless of caste affiliation, according to the Nepalese Law Code, monastics who accepted alms from people of lower caste status than themselves, incurred pollution by which they lost caste (recovery required ritual cleansing); infringements were also regarded as criminal acts as those who broke the law could be heavily fined and even branded with a red-hot iron. Thus the monks faced a perilous situation: First, the laity were unfamiliar with giving cooked rice as alms and, when introduced to the

17 See, A. Hofer, 1979. The caste system imposed by the Mulukhi Ain was an amalgamation of three different sytems: first, the Parbatiyas', which included only two "clean" castes, Brahmans (Bahuns) and Kshatriyas (Chetris) and a small number of untouchable occupational castes; second, the more elaborated system of the lowland Terai people on the Indian border, and third, the infInitely more complex Newar system. By the middle ages, after many centuries of contact with Indo-Aryan culture, the Newars had developed an elaborate caste system of their own which included both Hindus and Buddhists. In the late fourteenth century Jaya Sthiti Malla, a Maithil noble from an area now located within the modem Indian state of Bihar, married a Newar princess, became king of Nepal and, among many innovations and reforms, regulated caste relations within his kingdom. He is credited with distinguishing 36 castes and classifying them within the four vamas. See, D. Gellner et aI., 1995: 1- 37.

18 The one exception, Mahapragya, was a Shrestha, and thus also upper caste.

222 SARAH LEVINE

practice, most refused to participate 19. Second, by accepting alms from those few devotees who overcame their reluctance, the Theravadins themselves risked harsh disciplining by the police.

Nevertheless, between run-ins with government officials they preached in private homes and Kimdol Baha, an ancient Vajrayana Buddhist monastery near the Svayambhu stiipa that some Kalirnpong merchants had renovated for the use of Tibetan pilgrim lamas who permitted the Theravadins to live there too. Among their devotees were three Dray widows who in 1931 took the road down to Kushinagar, seeking ordination2o. But, given that the Theravada nuns' ordination lineage had died out in India almost one thousand years earlier and - according to traditional interpretation of the Vinaya - once dead could never be revived, Candramani, the Burmese abbot of the monastery at Kushinagar, could not ordain them as nuns (bhikkhuni) or even as novices (samm:zeri) since both rituals required the participation of fully ordained nuns of whom none existed in the Theravada Buddhist world21 . In Sri Lanka, women who left the householder life were known as dasasilmata; they took ten precepts and after ordination lived celibate lives in a monastic setting or in meditation huts in the forest. In Thailand female renunciants took only eight precepts; known as maechi meaning "female ascetic", most lived in temples where they performed domestic chores for the monks22. Candramani proposed giving the Nepalese women the rite with which he had been familiar in his Burmese homeland where female renunciants took eight or ten precepts; but whereas in Burma ordained lay women were known as thilashin "one who owns sila or virtue"23, he called the Nepalese renunciants anagarikii, the feminized form of the designation which the Venerable Dharmapala, the founder of the Maha Bodhi Society, had adopted and which means "homeless one" in Sanskrit.

19 A nun recalled that although her father, a Sakya, would pennit monks to enter his house and he would give them alms, he believed that, because they accepted food from lower-caste people, they were vectors of pollution. Thus on their departure he would summon a Vajraclirya priest to ritually cleanse his house.

20 Dhammapali, Sangapali and Ratnapali were all from Dray merchant families. 21 There is no evidence that the Therava bhikkhunf ordination lineage existed outside

of India and Sri Lanka. See P. Skilling, 1993: 29-49. 22 M. L. Falk, 2000: 133-155. 23 See 1. Jordt. 1988, 13 (1): 17-40.

THE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY BUDDIDST MISSION 223

The Nepalese took ten precepts at ordIDation but, given the realities of their lives, after three days they gave up the precept prohibiting the handling of money and in its place took a vow to send metta to all sentient beings. With shaven heads and in pink and orange thilashin dresses, the three anagarikas returned to Kathmandu where the local people took to addressing them as guruma, meaning mother-teacher, the term by which Buddhist Newars addressed the wives of Vajracarya priests. Lacking any alternative, the gummas settled in Kimdol Baha. Living there also was an eclectic group of Theravada monks and Tibetan lamas, together with a Vajrayana tantric priest and his two shakti consorts.

Marginal as the monks' situation may have been, that of the nuns' was even more so. As women, they were regarded as socially and legally inferior to men, and as nuns, like their female renunciant contemporaries elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia, as spiritually inferior to monks and hence less worthy of dana.

The Nepalese Nuns' Order: Out From Under

Over the next fourteen years these three gurumas, along with about a dozen other women, most of them widows or abandoned wives who, because religious "conversion" was prohibited, had had to take pabbajja in India, continued to share their living quarters with monks. Leadership ofthe group was assumed by a nun named Dharmacari. Literate in several languages in an era when only two per cent of the Nepalese population - mostly upper-caste males - could read, Dharmacari had taken teachings from Tibetan pilgrim lamas who had preached in Kathmandu in the 1920s; in tum she had taught buddhadharma to a circle of her friends. A charismatic Dray woman, Laxminani Tuladhar, as she was originally called, was converted to Theravi'ida Buddhism by a Dray Tibet trader-turned monk named Dhammaloka, one of the first monks to arrive back in Kathmandu from India24• In 1934, accompanied by five followers (cell), Laxminani went down to Kushinagar to request ordination from the abbot Candramani. When he refused to give her and her group the precepts as in his view they weren't yet ready for

24 K. Lall, 2001: 49.

224 SARAH LEVINE

monastic life, they traveled on to Arakan in Burma where they lived in with thilasin in a nunnery for several months. They studied buddhadharma, went on the alms round - although they were still wearing lay dress - and acquainted themselves with the realities of the "homeless" life and, when finally pronounced "ready", took the precepts and returned to Kathmandu.

Once she was established at Kimdol, Dharmacari, as Laxminani had become at ordination, was soon sought out by laypeople and ,by women in particular, a few of whom followed her "into homelessness". On lunar days they would tell Jataka stories by which they taught Buddhist ethics, teach devotees to chant sutras, and sing devotional songs that Dhammacari composed herself; in return they received dana consisting of uncooked rice and a few paisa with which to buy vegetables. All the nuns, like the monks, were from upper caste backgrounds, and some of their families were well-to-do. Although few had resources of their own, at times they could call on relatives for food and clothing which they shared with their poorer companions. Nevertheless they led a hand-tomouth existence25• When the storeroom was bare their only option was to risk arrest and go for alms to houses where they thought might be well received. Outside the monastery Dharmacari and her group suffered periodic harassment from the police while within it they were pressed into service as cooks and laundresses by the monks wh026, perhaps jealous of Dharnmacari's popularity as a teacher, also tried to curtail their activities in the community. Technically, given that they were not fully ordained, the nuns were not subject to the Eight Chief Rules (garudhamma), subordinating all nuns to all monks, which the Buddha had imposed upon women when he admitted them to the order; indeed they were not even members of the Nepal Sangha. Nevertheless, at every juncture the bhantes asserted their right to control the gurumas.

In 1944, after the police apprehended a monk as he was giving the precepts to a woman (which was against the law), the Ranas expelled all the monks and novices who were living in Kathmandu; the following year they expelled the nuns from the city as well. But whereas the monks were

25 S. M. Tuladhar, 1994. 26 This is still a common practice in Thailand. See M. L. Falk, 2000a: 61-71.

THE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY BUDDHIST MISSION 225

exiled to India, the nuns were only sent to Trisuli, one day's journey away from the capitaL The year they spent away from Kathmandu gave them a taste of freedom however, and when, after the intervention of the eminent Sri Lankan monk Narada Mahathera of Vajirarama temple, Colombo, the government permitted the monastics to return to Kathmandu, Dharmacari was determined to establish separate living quarters. With personal funds, she purchased a plot of land a hundred meters from Kimdol Baha and started to raise funds with which to construct a nunnery. She received donations not only from her female devotees and some of their husbands, but from King Tribhuvan himself who, perhaps in reaction to the orthodoxy of his Rana "keepers", had developed a strong interest in Buddhism. In 1952, just one year after the ousting of the Rana government, the new nunnery, whose puja hall housed a great statue of the Buddha at his parinirviilJa, a source of wonder throughout the Valley, was consecrated. Kimdol Vihara, as Dhammacari called it27, became a focal point for lay women. Confined to a marginal role in traditional Buddhism which even excluded them from instruction in the meaning and significance of the mantras that, as wives, they received in tantric initiations, upper-caste women came in large numbers to attend the abbess's teachings which she continued to give until she was well into old age28•

The Road to Financial Security

Owing to King Tribhuvan's interest in Buddhism and his close friendship with Amritananda Bhikkhu, who was founder and secretary of the Dharmodaya Sabha, the all-Nepal Buddhist Society29, president of the Bhikkhu Mahasangha, and for four decades until his death in 1990, the most prominent monk in Nepal, the Theravadins were hopeful that they would receive royal patronage just as their Vajrayana ancestors had done in pre-Rana times. And indeed, for a few years following the restoration of the monarchy this was the case30• But King Mahendra, who ascended

27 A Vajrayana Buddhist monastery is known as a biihti and a Theravada monastery as a vihara.

28 Dhamrnacari died in 1978 at age 80. 29 Candramani was the first president; he was succeeded at his death in 1972 by Amri

tananda. 30 Dr. Bhikkhu Amritananda, 1986.

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the throne on the death of his father in 1955, had little interest in Buddhism and state support, however briefly it had been offered, soon dwindled away. The Theravada monks, almost all of whom had studied in India, Burma and Sri Lanka in the 1930s and 40s, turned to CUltivating their foreign networks. Their objectives were fIrst, to secure places for their novices in Buddhist training institutions abroad; and second, to attract funds from foreign donors for the construction of monastic facilities. Over time their efforts were rewarded: Nepalese novices continued to be accepted for training in Sri Lanka and, the political situation permitting, in Burma; in the 1970s young monks started studying in Thailand, and by the late 1980s a few were going to Japan, Taiwan and even Britain and the US. The Nepalese Sangha received occasional visits from eminent foreign monks and often donations from devotees in their home countries would follow. In the early years these were used to extend already existing viharas; in recent decades however the monks have received much more substantial sums with which they have built elaborate new facilites31•

By contrast, the nuns had no foreign networks to cultivate. In the 1940s they too had been exiled from Kathmandu but unlike the monks, who had spent more than two years in India strengthening ties with Maha Bodhi Society monks, they had been dispatched to a provincial Nepalese town. Aside from Dharmacari and her group who had spent a few months in Burma, the only foreign exposure the fIrst generation of nuns had had was on brief pilgrimages to the sacred Buddhist sites of north India. In the late1940s, two Nepalese missionary monks, Pragyananda and Buddhaghosa, recently returned from training in Burma, began to hold

(iharma classes for women, a few of whom brought daughters and nieces, students in the first girls' schools to open in Kathmandu and Patan, along to the temple. Fast approaching marriageable age but determined not to marry, they jumped at their gurus' suggestion that they study further and, after many adventures, managed to reach nunneries in Burma32.

31 Monasteries built with foreign funds include: in the 1980s, Buddha Vihara, Kathmandu, built with Japanese funds and Srikirti Vihara, Kirtipur, built with Thai funds. In the 1990s, Sakyasinha Vihara, Lalitpur was rebuilt with Thai funds; the construction costs of Visvasanti Vihara, Kathmandu, inaugurated in October, 1997, were reported to be $200,000 which were donated by Chinese Malaysians.

32 After the military takeover by Ne Win in 1962 the government 'ceased to give visas to foreign dharma students and did not issue them again until the 1980s.


New Leadership.

In the autumn of 1963, one of Buddhagosa's students, a young nun named Dhammavati, returned from Burma. Born Ganesh Kumari Sakya in Patan, at age fifteen she had run away from home and made her way to Burma. Mter receiving the precepts in Rangoon, she studied for 12 years in Khemarama Nunnery, Moulmein and attained the Dharmacarya, the highest educational qualification in the Burmese monastic system. She was the first Nepalese monastic, as well as the first Nepalese nun, to do so. Her abbess invited her to remain in Burma where she was already earning a reputation as a scholar and preacher and where accomplished nuns, albeit as "eight precept lay women", were highly respected by monks and laity alike; but she decided to return to her native land in order to spread the dharma and raise the status of women generally and of nuns in particular. She invited her friend, a Burmese nun named Daw Gunavati, who also had received the Dharmacarya, to go with her33.

Once home however, she was immediately confronted by her "opposition": As she put it years later, "Nepalese monks suffered very badly from the' Asian disease''', by which she meant that they looked down on women, whatever their age and accomplishments34• But she was determined to evade the restrictions that the senior monks, none of whom were as formally well-prepared as she, tried to impose on her. The most outrageous of these, in her view, was that they banned her from preaching in their temples.

The first step, she decided, towards winning the autonomy and respect that her Burmese mentors had enjoyed was to live as independently as possible not only of the monks but of the "old guard" in the nuns' order. In Burma there were two categories of nuns: ngebyu (" one who is young and pure" i.e., unmarried) who focused on scholarship, and tawdwet ("one who left for the forest") who had previously been married and whose focus was meditation35 • She herself had spent her time in Burma with scholarly ngebyu nuns and now, following the Burmese model, she decided against living in Kirndol Vihara, where the nuns, like their abbess

33 Daw Gunavati remained in Nepal for thirty years. She returned to Burma to head her own nunnery in Rangoon in 1995.

34 S. Le Vine, 2000: 13-29. 35 H. Kawanami, 2000: 159-171.

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Dharmacari, had all been married at one time and had'little if any formal education. Rather, she would build her own temple for "those who are young and pure" and invite a handful of Burma-trained nuns to live there with her. The bhantes might bar her from preaching in their temples but they couldn't stop her from preaching in her own!

Like Dharmacari, she was able to draw on personal resources. Her goldsmith father had recently died and even though, under Nepalese law, she had no right to his property, her brothers, who were among her greatest admirers, allowed her a share which they agreed to exchange for cash36• With this she bought a small plot of land bordering the courtyard of Srigha, an ancient smpa in the heart of Kathmandu, in which some Theravada monks were occupying a renovated biihd. She had known Aswaghos, the abbot of Srigha Vihara, since childhood as their mothers were close friends; indeed, from her return from Burma until today Aswaghos has been one of very few monks in the community to support her efforts and those of her colleagues to improve the status of nuns.

Already, within a year of her return to Nepal, Dhammavati was becoming known as a dynamic teacher and attracting devotees from among a circle of women whose merchant husbands supported the monks. It was to these women that she turned for funds with which to build her nunnery. But unsure of their spouses' response should they ask for money on behalf of such a young and untried woman, they secretly sold some of their gold jewelry and gave the proceeds to Dhammavati37• The new nunnery, which Dhammavati called "DharmakIrti Vihara", meaning "a place built for the propagation of the dharma", was consecrated in May 1965. Instructed by Amritananda to register it in the name of the Nepal Sangha, Dhammavati refused to do so on the grounds that since she was an andgdrikii not a bhikkhuni, she was not a member of the Sangha and thus

36 See, K. Gilbert, 1992: 1975 legislation which provides that if a woman remains unmarried beyond age 35 she has a right to a share - equal to that of her brothers - of her father's property, is rarely complied with.

37 Newar brides receive saris, household utensils and furnishings, and gold jewelry from their natal families, after which they have no legal claim on the paternal property. Although in principle their wedding jewelry, which in the case of brides from merchant families, and may be worth a great deal of money, is capital and theirs to do what they want with, they are expected to keep it for their children; to sell it and use the proceeds for some extra-familial project, is strongly discouraged.


not subject to its regulations. To the disgust of the senior monks she registered DharmakIrti Vihlira in her own name.

Paying Their Way

To accomodate their ambitious program of teaching, publishing, and social service that Dhammavati and her companions started putting in place, as well as to house new recruits, DharmakIrti's original singlestoried structure, measuring only 42 by 21 feet, was gradually expanded over time. It acquired a second story, bathrooms and storerooms; a puja hall was constructed in what had once been the garden; a sliver of land was donated on which a kitchen and library were built. Each new addition had a sponsor or a group of sponsors whose contribution was acknowledged in nunnery publications and whose names, following ancient tradition, were engraved on Sflapatras and installed above the door of the rooms built with their donations38 . Dhammavati's mother, Hera Thanku, fInanced the construction of several rooms on the second floor39•

The nuns of Dharmaldrti had a place of their own and a considerable degree of independence40 ; but for years securing funds - even, at times, their daily needs - remained a struggle. In Burma, they had been accustomed to going on the alms round twice a month. Following the restoration of the monarchy, the old Nepal Law Code was repealed in 1959 and the commensality rules abolished. Thus, without risk of police harassment, they tried going for alms in Kathmandu. But the change in the law had not changed people's attitudes towards almsgiving. Encountering apathy and suspicion and sometimes overt hostility, they soon abandoned it. ("People would shout at us, 'Why are strong young women like you begging?''') On lunar days they conducted Buddha Puja in the vihiira and afterwards received dana; from time to time they were invited to chant paritta and take their midday meal in homes of the laity after which they would be given small sums of money; but they took most of their meals

38 See, N. J. Barnes, 2000: 17-36. 39 S. R. Tuladhar and R. Tuladhar eds. 1999. 40 Originally there were only five nuns: Dhammavati, Gunavati, Ratnamanjeri, Kamala

and Dhammadina. By 2000 there were 20 resident nuns and about one dozen more who were being trained abroad but returned periodically.

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in the nunnery from supplies donated by devotees or relatives. Although by the 1990s the five paisa coins they received as dana in the 1960s had risen to one or even two rupees, these sums, with inflation, were still inconsequential (monks, however recent their ordination, routinely received five times as much as even the most senior nun), and were consumed by personal expenditures - bus fares, and toiletries, pens, notebooks, and the like, as well as, on occasion, food.

The Sahujls

Dhammavati's objective on her return to Nepal had been to spread the True Dharma in her native land, and to reach women in particular and in Dharmaklrti, just as in other Buddhist temples, whether Theravada or Vajrayana, the majority of worshippers were women. As noted above, in traditional Newar Buddhism women play marginal roles. A Vajracarya or Sakya man must be married in order to perform daily worship (nityapuja) in his ancestral biiM; he must also be married in order to take tantric initiation enabling him to participate in esoteric rites and mediation practices, and to become a temple elder in due course. Likewise, a Uray man must be married in order to take the tantric initiation which brings with it a substantial increment in social status. But although wives also take initiation, thereby committing themselves to the performance of certain rituals every morning for the rest of their lives, and the wives of Vajracarya priests are responsible for preparing ritual requisites when their husbands perform rites in their jajmans' homes, they themselves are peripheral to these ritual events. Regardless of caste, the religious life of Newar women takes place in the domestic sphere. It consists of making daily offerings at household, baM and neighborhood shrines, performing special rituals on lunar days, undertaking vows and fasts to propitiate the gods on their families' and their own behalf, and seeing that their children go through the various life-cycle rituals up to marriage.

From the first, rejecting traditional attitudes and practice, Dhammavati encouraged women to take positions of responsibility in Dharmaklrti Vihara, and many did so. At the same time she was obliged to seek male participation. The upper-caste men whose support she solicited were accustomed to taking leadership roles in the religious as in the economic


sphere and they expected to occupy important positions in DhannakIrti too. As she pointed out many years later, "Nepal isn't like Burma where I studied. There, a man often goes to his wife's house at marriage. A Burmese woman can run her own household and at the same time go out and have her own business. But Newar men want their wives to stay at home. They want to keep all the power and all the money for themselves .... " Her female devotees might sell their gold bangles and donate the proceeds for a specific purpose but few had substantial personal resources; for long-term financial support she realized she had to look to men. In sum, her freedom and the freedom of her colleagues to make their own decisions and to act as agents promoting social as well as spiritual transformation depended on their success in earning the respect and attracting donations from a group of businessmen many of whom were the sons and grandsons of those Calcutta and Kalimpong sahUjfs who had supported the earliest Theravadin missionaries.

The long list of male donors who regularly attended their sermons and buddhadharma classes and who went on the pilgrimages they led to sacred places abroad testifies to the nuns' success in this regard. Admiration for Dhammavati in particular was aroused by her talents as a preacher and teacher, her scholarship, her achievements as a community leader and her personal accessability. In discussing the revival of the nuns' order in Sri Lanka, Elizabeth Nissan has noted the importance of the social status of its leader: the fact that Catharine de Alwis in particular was highly educated and came from a prominent Sinhala family was crucial to her fundraising success, and to the survival of her movement41 . Again, Gustav Houtman has observed that in turn-of-the-century Burma the "nunnery" movement was initiated by young, educated women from well-todo families who, with family and community support, began to establish separate living quarters and to insist on being given access to Buddhist learning which hitherto female renouncers had been denied42. Similarly, as the highly-educated - albeit in a nunnery rather than a western-style institution - daughter and sister of upper-caste parents and brothers, Dhammavati won the confidence of some of the most influencial

41 E. Nissan, 1984,4, (1): 32-49. 42 G. Houtman, 1984,4, (1): 51-76.

232 SARAH LEVINE

members of the Buddhist community. In the early years', the most generous among them was Maniharsha Jyoti Kansakar whose own father, Baju .. Ratna Jyoti Kansakar, had been known as "Dan Blr" , meaning "hero of generosity", to the Theravadins. Maniharsa, who was treasurer of the AllNepal Buddhist Association, became involved with DharmakIrti through his wife and sister, both of whom were devotees of Dhammavati. Men competed for positions on temple committees; they contributed to temple construction projects in Kathmandu and later, in Lumbini; the birthplace of the Buddha, in the Terai, they underwrote the publication of dozens of canonical translations and commentaries that Dhammavati and her colleagues produced, to the educational expenses of the younger nuns, and to an endowment fund to provide for routine nunnery expenses43 •

The Current Situation

Both the monks' and the nuns' orders have continued to attract recruits; however over the past thirty years, the monks' order has become progressively less appealing to young men from upper-caste families who, as the society modernizes, have taken up more attractive options44•

Today's novice monks are drawn exclusively from farming and occupational caste families who look to the Sangha to provide their sons with the education they cannot afford to provide themselves. By contrast, a number of recruits from poor rural backgrounds notwithstanding, the nuns' order continues to attract urban women from relatively affluent families, most of whom are college-educated. Although their well-to-do parents would actively discourage their sons from "going into home"lessness" , in contrast with parents thirty or forty years ago, they are likely to "offer" their daughters with enthUSIasm since, given the esteem in which the nuns' order is held today, a guruma earns her parents social prestige as well as spiritual merit. Some of these women head nunneries that their families have built for them and into which they have brought

43 A distinction is made between funds donated to the nunnery as an institution and to individual nuns. For the first, receipts are supposed to be provided, and nunnery accounts are audited annually; but no receipts are required for personal donations and upi'isakas are much more likely to give to an individual than to an institution.

44 For figures on caste-composition of the monks' order for 1978-1989, see D. Gellner, 1992: 322.

THE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY BUDDIDST :MISSION 233

younger nuns whose expenses the absorb. Kimdol Vihara, which under its founder Dharmacari was for decades the most important center for Theravada Buddhist women in Nepal, is one of the few nunneries which still houses widows and divorced women who, in the eyes of the' laity, appear less worthy of donations than never-married nuns. They are protected from real want however by the fact that Kimdol has been divided in two for administrative purposes. Thus some of the nuns are affiliated with a monastery, Anandakuti Vihara, and the rest look to DharmakIrti for support.

Although some nuns undoubtedly "go into homelessness" in order to have more time to meditate and to study buddhadharma, all are motivated by the urgent desire to escape marriage and motherhood, which, despite the fact that women are entering the professions in considerable numbers, is still regarded as the only legitimate adult female role. Once a woman has "shaved her head", she rarely disrobes. By contrast, the monks' order has great difficulty in retaining recruits. The majority of young monks find celibacy intolerable and once they have acquired credentials - most attend university either in Kathmandu or abroad - they return to their homes and get married. While the nuns' order has many fewer recruits, given a much lower drop-out rate, nuns still outnumber monks five to four. Almost twice as many novices as young nuns are studying in foreign countries45 where their expenses are covered by local sponsors and the monasteries in which they are housed. Again, the thirtyodd novices who are being trained in Nepal in Visvasanti Vihara, the seminary in Kathmandu, are supported by their abbot's Chinese-Malaysian devotees. Thus, nuns who need fmancial backing out-number monks twoto-one. As the scope of their work has widened, securing the resources needed to support a multi-faceted community program in addition to paying the day-to-day expenses of about one hundred nuns, has become increasingly time-consuming. One upasika who remembers that when she was a child in the 1970s, the DharmakIrti nuns would corne to chant in her home whenever a member of her large family celebrated a birthday,

45 Although the nuns took much longer than monks to secure places in foreign training institutions, today young nuns are studying in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan as well as Burma. However whereas most novice monks attend universities most nuns study in nunneries.

234 SARAH LEVINE

observes that these days you're lucky if you can "book" one of them for a visit even once a year. In an era when Nepal is being drawn into the global economy and technological innovations, including cable TV and the Internet, have invaded many urban homes, Buddhists of all ages, pressured by societal change and heightened economic competition, are looking to the gurumas for emotional support and spiritual guidance. In addition to long-scheduled appointments, they may be called out to the homes of devotees two or three times in one twenty-four hour period.

Anoja, who like her guru, Dhammavati, is a compelling preacher, outgoing in character and seemingly tireless, is developing an economic base for her new nunnery, Sulaksmanakirti Vihara at Chobar on the outskirts of Kathmandu, which promises to be on a par with DharmakIrti46• She comes from a devout, loyal and relatively affluent family which has given generously to her projects. But since her relatives, generous as they are, cannot [mance them alone, like her mentor, she spends a great deal of time and energy developing and maintaining her "donor network". Although a few dayakas are members of the old upper-caste sahiijf families, most are businessmen belonging to farming and occupational castes. "They like to drop in at the vihiira and talk to me whenever they feel like it," she remarks. Officially, they come to discuss difficulties they encounter in their meditation practice, questions they have about the dharma, and so on. But in reality, says Anoja with a shrug, "mostly they're here to gossip. Though I always have work waiting for me I can never send them away because if I did, they'd be offended. Until the construction of this temple is finished I'll have to sit and gossip and wait for them to take themselves away of their own accord." She adds with a wry smile, that >even when the construction is finished, she'll have to sit and gossip because then she'll need more donations to maintain what their earlier donations helped build! In sum, "development" is a continuous process ...

Conclusions

Since 1988, thirty-three Nepalese nuns - more than one third of those who are of age (20) to do so - have taken full ordination (upasampada)

46 In 1998 she received her PhD in Philosophy from the Sanskrit University, Varanasi.

TIIE FINANCES OF A TWENTIETII CENTURY BUDDmST MISSION 235

in the Chinese tradition in various foreign countries. The senior monks, who consider up~sampadti for Theravada nuns invalid, have refused to acknowledge their new status; they still refer to them as antigtirikti and have not invited them into the Nepal Sangha. For their part, the laity, still address the nuns as gurumti; and, while some admire their courage and determination, most are confused about just why, given the esteem in which many are held by the community, they regard full ordination as necessary. Dhammavati, Burmese-trained and doctrinally conservative, had never thought abouttaking upasampadti until she was exposed to western feminist ideas of gender and institutional equality at the Conference on Buddhist Women at Bodh Gaya in 198747• An abrupt shift in her thinking occurred in this regard and the following year, she and two of her colleagues took full ordination according to Dharmaguptaka rites from Chinese monks and nuns at Xilai Monastery in Hacienda Heights, California.

Thus far however, even though full ordination may have increased the nuns' self-confidence, the international feminist movement has not done much to help the nuns financially. The Nepalese Theravada community is small and little-known outside Nepal. Most westerners who wish to study Theravada Buddhism or to practice vipassanti meditation go to Southeast Asia or Sri Lanka, not Nepal. Unlike the Tibetan Buddhist nunneries at Svayambhu and Bauddha, the Theravada nunneries of Kathmandu and Patan receive few foreign visitors. Whereas the Tibetan nuns have begun to get attention and substantial donations from foreigners48,

to date the Theravada nuns have attracted only small sums from Asian Buddhists and even less from westerners. Although many, including most of the senior nuns, have traveled to the US, mainland China, Taiwan and India to take full ordination, few speak English or Mandarin effectively. Thus communication remains a much greater problem for them than for their male counterparts, most of whom have spent many years abroad in university settings and speak at least one international language well.

47 See, K. L. Tsomo, ed. 1988. 48 A group of Tibetan nuns from Svayambhu visited the US in 1998 to demonstrate their

skills in mandala painting on college campuses, where they raised funds for their home nunnery. See, M. Kerin, 2000: 319-337. In 2000, a school for young Tibetan tradition nuns was established at Svayambhu with funds from a Chinese-Singaporean donor; the director is Italian and some American and European volunteer teachers are on its staff.

236 SARAH LEVINE

Unlike the monks who are old hands at the game, the nuns are only just beginning to explore fore~gn sources of funding49. Now, as in the past, they continue to look to people in their own community whose support they must work hard to retain. Their success in this regard is due to dynamic leadership, to the persistence of merchant families in supporting their daughters and sisters, and in the latters' willingness to share their resources with their companions. Giving dana is centrally important to monks and nuns as well as to lay people since they, too, earn merit by sharing what they receive with other monastics, including with novices and young nuns whose ordinations ceremonies they sponsor, whose food and clothing they provide, and whose educational costs they underwrite. Another important factor in the nuns' successful fundraising is their ability to develop and maintain relationships with individual devotees and to engage their interest in nunnery programs. Furthermore, in the long run their localized fundraising efforts may be to their advantage. Out of necessity they have cultivated their own garden and because the laity see them as responsive to their needs and opinions they have rewarded them with both trust and money. In recent years, as the community they serve has grown, the nuns have been in dire need of funds to repair and extend their quarters and to build new facilities. But whereas the monks' efforts have focused on Southeast Asian Buddhist communities, the nuns have raised considerable sums at home5o. Ironically, the monks have found that their success in attracting foreign funds has damaged - perhaps permanently - their relations with their devotees, many of whom, feeling slighted and ignored, have distanced themselves from the bhantes and transferred their trust - and their dana - to the gurumas.

References

Amritananda, Bhikkhu, 1986. A Short History of Theravada Buddhism in Nepal. Kathmandu: Ananda Kuti Trust.

49 In 1999 the Nepalese nuns' order received funding from a private American foundation for the secondary and tertiary education of young nuns. This is the fIrst substantial amount they have received from any foreign source.

50 In 2000, Drabya Man Singh Tuladhar, a Kathmandu businessman, donated 12.5 million rupees ($170,000) for the reconstruction of DharrnakIrti Vihara; he also· provided a house for the nuns to live in while the work was being carried out.


Bames, Nancy I., 2000. The Nuns at the Stupa: Inscriptional Evidence for the Lives and Activities of Early Buddhist Nuns in India. In (ed.) Ellison Banks Findlay, Buddhism's Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pp. 133-155.

Bartholomeusz, Tessa, 1994. Women Under the Bo Tree, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bechert, Heinz, 1966/67 and 1973. Buddhismus: Staat und Gesellschaft in den Liindern des Theraviida Buddhism. Vol. I Frankfurt and Berlin: Alfred Netzer, 1966; Vols II and ill, Weisbaden.

Bechert, H. and Hartmann, I.-U. 1988. Observations on the Reform of Buddhism in Nepal. Journal of the Nepal Research Center, 8, pp. 1-28.

Chattopadhyay, A., 1967. Atria and Tibet. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas. Falk, Nancy Auer, 1980. The Case of the Vanishing Nuns: The Fruits of Ambiva

lence in ancient Buddhism. In (eds.) N. A. Falk and R. Gross, Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 207-224.

Falk, Monica Lindberg, 2000a. Thamacarini Witthaya: the First Buddhist School for Girls in Thailand. In (ed.) Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Innovative Buddhist Women. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, pp. 61-71.

- 2000b. Women in Between: Becoming Religious Persons in Thailand. In (ed.) Ellison Banks Findlay, Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pp. 37-57.

Gellner, David, 1992. Monk, Householder & Tantric Priest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- 1995. Introduction. In (eds.) David Gellner and Dec1an Quigley, Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 38-79.

Gilbert, K., 1992. Women and Family Law in Modem Nepal: Statutory Rights and Social Implications. New York Journal of International Law and Politics, 24: pp. 729-758.

Havnevik, Hanna, 1989. Tibetan Buddhist Nuns. Oslo: Norwegian University Press.

Hofer, Andras, 1979. The Caste Hierarchy and the State in Nepal: A Study of the Mulukhi Ain of 1854. Innsbruck: Universitat Verlag Wagner, Khumbu Rimal series, 13/2: pp. 25-240.

Hoton, M., Raeper, W. and Whelpton, I, 1999. People, Politics and Ideology: Democracy and Social Change in Nepal. Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point.

Houtman, Gustav, 1984. Novitiation: Received and Interpreted Versions. South Asia Research, Vol. 4,1: pp. 51-76.

Jordt,Ingrid, 1988. Bhikkhuni, Thilashin, Mae-Chii: Women who Renounce the world in Burma, Thailand and the Classical Piili Buddhist Texts. Crossroads, Special Burma Studies Issue. Vol. 4, 1, pp. 31-39.

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Kawanami, Hiroko, 1990. The Religious Standing of Burmese Buddhist Nuns: The Ten Precepts and Religious Respect Words. JIABS, 13, (1), pp. 17-40.

- 2000. Patterns of Renunciation: the Changing World of Burmese Nuns, in ed. Ellison Banks Findlay, Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pp. 159-171.

Kerin, Melissa, 2000. From Periphery to Center: Tibetan Women's Journey to Sacred Artistry. In ed. Ellison Banks Findlay, Buddhist Women, Women's Buddhism. Boston: Wisdom Publications.

Kloppeborg, Ria, 1977. Theravada Buddhism in Nepal. Kailash, 4: pp. 301-322. Kunreuther, Laura, 1994. Newar Traditions in a Changing Culture. In ed. Michael

Allen, Anthropology of Nepal. Kathmandu: Mandala Bookpoint, pp. 338-348.

Lall, Kesar, 2001. The Newar Merchants of Lhasa, Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar.

LeVine, Sarah, 2000. At the Cutting Edge: Theravada Nuns in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. In (ed.) Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, pp. 13-29.

Lewis, Todd T., 1989. Newars and Tibetans in the Kathmandu Valley: Ethnic Boundaries and Religious History. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 38, pp. 31-57.

- 1995. Buddhist Merchants of the Kathmandu Valley: The Asan Twah Market and Uray Social Organization. In (eds.) David Gellner and Declan Quigley, Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 38-79.

- 2000. Popular Buddhist Texts from Nepal: Narratives and Rituals of Newar Buddhism. Albany: SUNY Press.

Macdonald, A. W. and Stahl, Anne Vergati, 1979. Newar Art: Nepalese Art Dur-ing the MaZZa Period. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.

Mahapragya, Bauddha Rishi, 1983. The Autobiography of Mahapragya, ed . • 0 Darasha Newami. Kathmandu: Rishi Ashram. Nissan, Elizabeth, 1984. Recovering Practice: Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka. South

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(Original edition 1877).

NUNS, LAYWOMEN, DONORS, GODDESSES: FEMALE ROLES IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDHISM*

PETER SKllUNG, NONTHABURI.

[ Gender pairing

In this paper, I will examine several aspects of the role of the female in "early Buddhism", defmed here as from the time of the Buddha up to the early centuries of the Christian Era l . Since a s-tudy of female roles should not neglect the broader context of gender relations within the Buddhist community, I will begin by examining a structural feature of Buddhist social organization and literature (the one reflecting the other), which I describe as "gender pairing". For this we will start in the middle of the 3rd century BCE, with the reign of King A§oka, whose edicts are both the earliest lithic records of India and the earliest extant information on Buddhism.

A§oka's famous edict on sarrzghabheda, which was set up at three important centres of Buddhist activity - KausambI, Sand, and Samath - refers to both monks and nuns (bhikkhu, bhikkhunf)2, The S1irnath inscription was to be communicated to both the order of monks (bhikkhusarrzgha) and the order of nuns (bhikkhuni-sarrzgha) , In the "CalcuttaBairat" edict, the King conveys his wish that both monks and nuns, both laymen and laywomen, frequently listen to and reflect upon selected teachings of the Buddha - the famous dharrzmapaliyaya3 ,

* I am grateful to illrike Roesler (Marburg) and Justin Melland (Oxford) for their careful reading, comments, and corrections.

I The classic study of the subject remains Homer 1930. Her work makes thorough use of Pali sources, but does not take into account inscriptions or the literature of other Buddhist schools. See also Paul 1979. For a variety of views on the date of the Buddha, see Bechert 1991, 1992, 1995: for this article, I assume that the parinirv{iI:za took place between 400 and 350 BCE.

2 Bloch 1950, pp. 152-153. 3 Bloch, pp. 154-155; Schneider 1984, pp. 49l-498. The edict is from a hill 52 miles

north of Jaipur in Rajasthan; the "Calcutta" of the title signifies that the inscription was removed to Calcutta, then capital of British India.


242 PETER SKILLING

For our purposes, the edicts tell us two things. Firstly, they show Asoka's concern for the welfare of both saf!lghas, and his regard for the order of nuns as an important social body, on a par with the order of monks4• Secondly, the language of the inscriptions reflects the fact that the monastic ordination lineage, established by the Buddha himself, was dual in nature: men became bhikkhu-s, and women became bhikkuni-s. Lay disciples were also classed by gender: laymen (upasaka) and laywomen (upasikil).

From Asoka's edicts we may thus deduce that the leading participants in the early Buddhist movement were two gendered pairs: monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen5. A similar picture may be drawn from the scriptures, where the two pairs make up the "four assemblies"6. At the beginning of his career, the Buddha expressed his intention that the four groups become independent of him in their ability to absorb, teach, and explain his teachings. This is recounted in the Theraviidin Mahiiparinibbana-sutta, where the Buddha relates how, not long after his enlightenment, Mara came and requested him to enter final nibbana immediately (that is, fearing loss of influence, Mara did not want the Blessed One to teach the dhamma). The Buddha replied: "I will not enter parinibbiina, Evil One, until my monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen have become auditors who are intelligent, trained, confident, learned, bearers of dhamma who practise in accordance with dhamm(l, who practise correctly, who follow dhamma; who, taking up what they have leamed

4 Let us remember that according to Sri Lankan tradition Asoka's daughter SaI)lghamitta became a nun, and took a sapling of the bodhi-tree to the isle of Lanka, where she established the order of nuns.

5 A shorthand for the orders of monks and nuns was ubhato- or ubhaya-sal[lgha, "both orders", "the two orders", In piicattika 84 of the Mahasarp.ghika and Lokottaravadin BhikeU/Jf Vinaya-s, Visakha invites "the two orders" to a meal together: see Hirakawa 1982, p. 273; Roth 1970, Nolot 1991, § 198. In the DakkhilJii-vibhanga-sutta (Majjhimanikiiya ill 255.28) the fIrst two of seven classes of offerings made to the order (sal[lghagatii dakkhilJii) are to "both orders" (ubhatosal[lghe diinal[l deti); these are followed by offerings to the order of monks, the order of nuns, an appointed number of monks and nuns, an appointed number of monks, and an appointed number of nuns. .

6 See PTSD 437a, s.v. parisii, and Takasaki 1987, pp. 250-252. It is remarkable that the Catueparieat-sutra, a Sarvastivadin text which according to its title deals with the [origins of] the "four assemblies", entirely omits the tale of the foundation of the order of nuns. The Jainas also have a "fourfold community" (caturvidha-sal[lgha): Dundas 1992, p.129.

FEMALE ROLES IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDIDSM 243

from their teacher, will announce, teach, proclaim, establish, reveal, explain, and clarify it; who, when a dispute arises, will admonish correctly, following the dhamma, and, having admonished, will teach the marvellous dhamma. I will not enter parinibbiina, Evil One, until under me the holy life is successful, flourishing, widespread, popular, and far-famed: until it is well-proclaimed among humans,,7. The phrasing of (MiHa)Sarvastivadin parallels - the Divyiivadiina and the Central Asian Mahiiparinirviil)a-satra - differs, but also stresses the wisdom and capability of all four groups equally8.

In this passage, the Buddha defines the conditions for the success of his teaching, of the "holy life" (brahmacaryii). When the Buddha is eighty years old Mara reminds him of the statement, and asserts that the conditions have now been fulfilled. The Buddha offers no direct comment, but tells Mara thathe will enter nibbana in three months' time, thereby implicitly accepting the truth of Mara's verdict. Similarly, in the Piisiidika-sutta, in the latter years of his career, the Buddha tells Cunda that he now has "senior monk disciples who are intelligent, trained, confident, who have attained release from bondage; who are able to proclaim properly the holy dhamma; who, when a dispute arises, are able to admonish correctly, following the dhamma, and, having admonished, to teach the marvellous dhamma". He goes on to list the other members of his flock: middle-ranking monks, and newly-ordained monks; senior,

7 Dfgha-nikiiya IT 112-113, na tiiviihaf!l piipima parinibbiiyissiimi yiiva me bhikkhil .. , bhikkhuniyo ... upiisakii , .. upiisikii na siivikii bhavissanti viyattii vinltii visiiradii bahussutii dhammadharii dhammiinudhamma-patipannii siimfcipatipanna anudhammacariniyo, sakaf!l acariyakaf!l uggahetva acikkhfssanti desessanti pannapessanti patthapessanti vivarissanti vibhajissanti uttiinfkarissanti, uppannaf!l parappaviidaf!l sahadhammena suniggahftaf!l niggahetva sappiitihttriyaf!l dhammaf!l desessanti, na tiivahaf!l papima parinibbiiyissami yiiva me idaf!l brahmacariyaf!l na iddhan c' eva bhavissati phftan ca vittharikaf!l biihujafznaf!l puthu-bhiltaf!l, yava devamanussehi suppakiisitaf!l.

8 Miindhiitiivadiina, Divyavadiina § XVII, Cowell & Neil 1987, p. 202.11, na tavat piipfyan parinirviisyami yavan na me sriivakii/:t pal}tjita bhavi~yanti vyakta vinita visiiradii/:t, alaf!l utpannotpannanaf!l parapravadinaf!l saha dharmel}a nigrahftiira/:t, alaf!l svasya viidasya paryavadiipayitiiro bhik~avo bhik~ul}ya upiisakii upiisikti vaistiirikaf!l ca me brahmacaryaf!l cari~yanti biihujanyaf!l P!thubhzttaf!l yavad devamanu~yebhya/:t samyaksal?lprakaiital?l. The Mahtiparinirviil}a-siltra has a different string of words at the beginning, but is otherwise the same (except for some orthographical variation) (Waldschmidt 1986, § 16.8) pal}tjita .. , vyaktii medhiivina/:t (= Tib, mkhas pa gsal ba ses rab tu ldan pa), alaf!l ... , Cf, also Buddhacarita XXllI 63-68.

244 PETER SKILLING

middle-ranking, and newly-ordained nuns; laymen and laywomen householders, both celibate and non-celibate, and concludes with the assertion that: "Now, Cunda,under me the holy life is successful, flourishing, widespread, popular, and far-famed, well-proclaimed among humans,,9.

The four assemblies are also put on an equal footing in the Sobhanasutta. Here the Buddha states: "These four [individuals], 0 monks, intelligent, trained, confident, learned, bearers of dhamma who practise in accordance with dhamma adorn the order (safTlgha): a monk who is intelligent ... ; a nun ... ; a layman ... ; a laywoman ... "10. By way of contrast, according to the Theravadin Sangfti-sutta and an Ekottariigama cited in the Siitrasamuccaya, one of the characteristics of barbarous frontier regions is that they are not visited by monks or nuns, laymen or laywomen 11. That is, the presence of the four assemblies in an area WaS the defIning mark of "civilization", since only then was there a chance to hear and practise the dhamma.

Other members of the movement were also classed in gendered pairs. Disciples ofthe Buddha in general were known as male-auditors (siivaka) and female-auditors (siivikii); lower ordination consisted of siimalJera-s and siimanerl-s. For further examples, see Table 1.

9 Dfgha-niktiya ill 125.17, santi kho pana me cunda etarahi thera bhikkhil siivaka viyatta vinita visarada patta-yogakkhema, aiarrz samakkhiiturrz saddhammassa, alarrz uppannarrz parappavadarrz sahadhammena suniggahftarrz niggahetva sappa{ihiiriyarrz dhammarrz deseturrz . .. etarahi kho pana me cunda brahmacariyarrz iddhafi ca phftafi ca vittharikarrz bahujafifiarrz puthu-bhiltarrz, yavad eva manussehi suppakasitarrz.

10 Anguttara-nikaya, Catukka-nipata: PTS II 8; CharthasailgIti [I] 314; Syamrartha Vol. 21, pp. 9-10; Nalanda II 9-10, cattaro 'me bhikkhave viyatta vinita visarada bahussuta dhammadhara dhammanudhamma-pa{ipanna sangharrz sobhenti. Only CharthasaIiglti and Nalanda give the text in full. (Note that the omission of dhammadhara in the description of the bhikkhunf at PTS 8.13 must be a typographical error, since the epithets are applied equally to all four in the opening and closing statements.) The commentary (ChaghasaIiglti ed., Anguttara{thakatha II 252.4) has little to say: viyatta ti pafifia-veyyattiyena samannagata, vinita ti vinayarrz upeta suvinlta, visarada ti vesarajjena somanassa-sahagatena fial!ena samannagata, dhammadhara ti sutadhammanarrz adhiirabhilta. For a parallel in the Ekottaragama, see Przyluski 1923, pp. 207-208.

11 Dfgha-nikaya III 264.12, paccantimesu janapadesu paccajato hoti milakkhusu avififiataresu yattha n' atthi gati bhikkhilnarrz bhikkhunfnarrz upasakana,!1 upasikanarrz ... ; Pasadika 1989, p. 6.15, mtha' 'khob kyi mi dan, rku 'phrog byed pa dan, kia kio dan, brnab sems can dan, gnod sems can gan du, dge slon dan, dge sion rna dan, dge bsfien dan, dge bsfien rna mi 'on ba'i nan du skyes pa yin no.

FEMALE ROLES IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDIDSM

Table 1. Gender pairing in terminology!

a. General

savaka: sravaka kulaputta: kulaputra

b. Renunciants

samaI).a: sramaI).a bhikkhu: bhik~u samaI).era: SramaI).era thera: sthavira

savika: sravika (kuladillta)2: kuladuhiq-

samaI).l: srama¢", sramaI).a, sramllI)ika bhikkhum: bhik~u¢" SamaI).en: SramaI).en, SramaI).erika then: sthavirl, sthen, thavirl

245

upajjhaya: upadhyaya -: karmakaraka

upajjhaya, upajjhayinl: upadhyayinl, upadhyayika -: karmakarika3

acariya: acarya saddhivihan: sardh1iIp.vihan antevasi: antevasi

c. Lay persons

upasaka: upasaka gahapati: grhapati gOO: grill

acari¢"4: acaryayi¢", acaryika saddhivihiiriru-5: sardhrurIvihari¢" antevas-r>: antevasinl sahajlvinl7: -sikkhamana: sik~am1iI).a -: upasthayikaS

pavattiru-9: -

upasika: upasika gahapatam: grhapatinl ,,-a.,;n': hinl 5 llLUll gr .

1 This is a preliminary list, and does not include all possible terms or forms. For each term I give first Pilii then (Buddhist) Sanskrit (largely Lokottaravadin), as available. References are given for only a few rarer terms. For further equivalents in Prakrit and Sanskrit from inscriptions and literature, see Skilling 1993-4, pp. 29-30. Nolot 1991, pp. 30, n. 80, and pp. 533-534, discusses several of the terms (not all of which are uniquely Buddhist).

2 See remarks in text, n. 67. 3 See Nolot 1996, p. 89. 4 For Pilii iicarif}f see Vinaya (Bhikkhunf-vibhanga) IV 227.4,317.26 and 29,320.3,

322.11. 5 For Pali saddhivihiirinf see Vinaya (Bhikkhunf-vibhanga) IV 291.27, 325.11,

326.penult. 6 For Pali anteviisf see Vinaya (Bhikkhunf-vibhanga) IV 291.31. 7 Vinaya (Bhikkhunf-vibhanga) IV, piicittiya XXXIV, LXVIII, LXX. 8 See Nolo! 1991, p. 533. 9 See Nolo! 1991, p. 534.

246 PETER SKILLING

, Since the monastic lineages were dual in nature, the related monastic literature was made up of paired texts: Vinaya, Patimokkha, Kammavaca for both monks (bhikkhu) and nuns (bhikkhunf). These texts pertain to the regulation of the monastic life. Other paired texts are fOUli.d in the Khuddhaka-nikaya of the Sutta-pitaka, as may be seen in Table 2. The "feminine" pairs consist of three collections of verse that include, I believe, some of the oldest examples of (ascribed) female composition in Indian literature!2. The Therz-gathti contains verses spoken by over seventy senior or elder nuns (therzs), expressing their enlightenment or relating their spiritual careers. A few of the nuns' verses are mcorporated mto the Lokottaravadin BhikWlJz Vinaya13. That the Miilasarvastivadins transmitted a counterpart of the Theri-gtitha is seen from references in lists of titles corresponding roughly to the K~udraka or miscellaneous collection: the Carma-vastu and AdhikaralJa-vastu of their Vinaya refer to a Sthaviri-gathti!4, and the SaY[lyuktagama m Chinese translation mentions a Bhik~ulJf-gatha!5. The collection has not been preserved either in the original Sanskrit or m translation!6.

In the Therf-apadana, forty therfs relate in verse the deeds of their past existences and the joy of their present freedom!? The Theri-gathti and Therf-apadana give the verses of the therf-s only, with no narrative elements. The Itthivimana has a different structure: in answer to verse questions put by others (for example, Mahamoggallana), goddesses explain in verse the meritorious deeds that have led to their rebirth in fabulously beautiful conditions!8. It is noteworthy that the stories present, without comment or condemnation, female continuities

"across rebirths: in their past lives the goddesses were also female 19•

12 "Ascribed" because monks were certainly involved in at least the later stages of editing, and because the Itthivimana belongs rather to narrative literature. Female authorship was not uniquely Buddhist: for example, some hymns of the ~g Veda are attributed to women. Women act as astute philosophical interlocutors in the BrhadaralJyaka Upani:jad: Olivelle 1996, §§ 3.6, 8 (GargI Vacaknavl) and 2.4, 4.5 (Maitreyl).

13 Nolot 1991, pp. 96-98. 14 Dutt 1984, Vol. ill, pt. 4, p. 188.9; Gnoli 1978, p. 64.17. 15 Lamotte 1976, p. 178 (reference to TaishO 99, p. 362c10). 16 For the Sthavira-gatha from Central Asia see Bechert 1974. 17 For the Apadana see Cutler 1994. 18 For the Vimanavatthu see Homer 1974, Masefield 1989, and Falk 1990, pp. 139-142. 19 Cf. Harvey 1995, pp. 68-69, on gender continuity and change across rebirths.

FEMALE ROLES IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDHISM

Table 2. Paired T.exts in the Theravadin tradition!

a. Texts related to monastic discipline (Vinaya)

Male

Bhikkhu Vibhaizga Bhikkhu P iitimokkha Bhikkhu Kammaviicii

Female

Bhikkhuni Vibhaizga Bhikkhuni Pii(imokkha Bhikkhuni Kammaviicii

247

b. Texts included in the "Miscellaneous Collection" (Khuddaka-nikiiya) of the Sutta-pitaka

Male

Verses of Elder Monks (Theragiithii) Exploits of Elder Monks (Theriipadiina) PuTisa-vimana

Female

Verses of Elder Nuns (Therigiithii)

Exploits of Elder Nuns (Theri-apadiina) Itthi-vimiina

! As different schools or lineages evolved, each codified and transmitted texts in its own recensions. In this table I list only the Theraviidin versions.

While the Thera-giithii and Thera-apadiina are much longer than the Theri-giithii and Theri-apadiina, the Itthivimiina is longer than the Purisavimiina. The closest non-Theravadin parallels to the Vimiinavatthu that I know of are Parables 51 to 57 of the Tsa-pao-tsangching, all of which concern goddesses2o•

Gender pairing also occurs within the texts of the Nikaya-s!Agama-s, particularly (by nature of its structure) the Anguttara-nikaya/ Ekottariigama. The most famous example is the Etadagga-vagga of the Ekaka-nipiita, in which the Buddha praises outstanding monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen according to their individual talents21 • A parallel text is included in the Chinese translation of an Ekottariigama of unknown school22• In the Theravadin version, the Blessed One lists thirteen

20 See Willemen 1994, pp. 121-129. 21 Anguttara-nikiiya I 23-26. 22 "Ekottariigama (Traduit de la version chinoise par Thich Huyen-Vi)", in BSR 3.2

(1986), pp. 132-142; 4.1 (1987), pp. 47-58. This text, the Tseng-i-a-han-ching, is preserved only in Chinese translation; for its school affiliation, see Skilling 1994a, n. 21.

248 PETER SKILLING

outstanding nuns; in the Ekottariigama he extols fifty-one nuns23. The Sanskrit Karmavibhaitgopade§a (of unknown school) refers to a similar collection as the Bhik~uIJiniim-agratii-siltra24. References to nuns using the etad-agra formula are scattered here and there in MiUasarvastivadin literature: in the Avadiinasataka, for example, Supriya is praised as "foremost of those who have made merit" (!qtapuIJyiiniirrz)25. Some other examples will be given below.

(It is worthy of note that the Uppiitasanti, a Pali protective 'Verse text believed to have been composed in Northern Thailand [Un Na] during the Ayutthaya period, lists the thirteen theris of the Pili version along with their attainments, and invokes their protection - along with that of past Buddhas, the great male disciples, deities, and so on)26.

From a verse of the Apadiina of Pa!acara we learn that past Buddhas (in this case Padumuttara) also made etad-agga declarations27• Indeed, each Buddha of the past, present, and future has two "chief male-auditors" (aggasiivaka) and two "chief female-auditors" (aggasiivikii). The Buddhavarrzsa names the pairs of monks and nuns who held this position for each past Buddha; in the case of Gotama, the chief female-auditors were Khema and UppalavaI).l;la28. The Aniigatavarrzsa gives the same information for the future Buddha Metteyya29•

In another paired text - found in the Ayiicana-vagga of the Aitguttaranikiiya; a Sanskrit Ekottariigama from Gilgit, and the Chinese Ekottariigama - the Buddha names model pairs of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen, whom their peers should emulate3o. In the Pili and Chinese versions, Khema and UppalavaI).l;la are the model nuns, while Khujjuttara and

23 Anguttara-nikaya I 25.17 foIl.; BSR 4.1 (1987), pp. 47-51 (see p. 58, n. 11, for the total number).

24 Levi 1932, p. 161.19; Vaidya 1961, p. 216.6. 25 Speyer 1970, p. 11.2; Feer 1891, p. 267. 26 See Phra Dhammananda Mahiithera (ed.), Uppatasanti, verses 172-186, in Agrama

htipal:ujitanusaralJa, Lampang, BE 2535 [CE 1992]. 27 Theri-apadana, Niilandii ed., verse 471, tato vinayadhtirinaTfl aggaTfl valJlJesi nayako.

bhikkhuniTfllajjiniTfl tadiTfl kappakappavisaradaTfl. 28 BuddhavaTflsa XXVI, 19 khema uppalavalJlJa ca bhikkhuni aggasavika; see also

DipavaTflSa XVIII, 9. 29 Chit Tin & Pruitt 1988, verses 97-98. 30 Anguttara-nikaya I 88-89; Okubo 1982, pp. (21)-(22); BSR 5.1 (1988), pp. 47-48.

FEMALE ROLES IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDHISM 249

Ve~ukaJ).takI Nartdamata are the modellaywomen31 • The Gilgit version has MahaprajapatI G:iutanii and Utpalavan;ta in the fIrst instance, and Visak:ha M!garamata of SravastI and Kubjottara of KausambhI in the second.

Laymen and laywomen are not neglected. The Buddha praises the qualities of ten laywomen in the Theravadin Etadagga-vagga, and thirtyone in the Chinese Ekottariigama32• The Sanskrit Karmavibhaftgopadda refers to a similar collection as the Upiisikiiniim-agratii-sutra33 • The Buddhaval'{lsa names the two chief female lay-supporters (agg' upa(thik' upiisikii) for each past Buddha, as does the Aniigataval'{lsa for the future Buddha Metteyya34•

There is also a Bhikkhunl-sal'{lyutta in the Sagiitha-vagga. Here there is no matching *Bhikkhu-sal'{lyutta (but several sal'{lyutta-s of the Sal'{lyutta-nikiiya are devoted to individual monks). A Sanskrit counterpart of the Bhikkhunl-sal'{lyutta is known from Central Asia, and a similar section is found in the Chinese Sal'{lyuktiigama; both belong to the (Miila)Sarvastivadin schooP5. Verses from this sal'{lyukta are cited in Sanskrit works such as the Abhidharmakosa. The Dharmaguptakas and MahIsasakas also included a Bhik~ulJl-sal'{lyukta in their Sal'{lyuktiigama-s36•

These examples show an even-handed treatment of gendered pairs in Asoka's edicts and in texts of several schools: monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, are recognized and valued social roles or bodies3? This gendered pairing - which goes beyond a simple acknowledgement of the natural fact of sexual polarity (classed in Buddhist texts as the male and female faculties, purisa and itthi indriya-s) - pervades early Buddhist literature. I do not think that gender pairing was accorded the same degree

31 That is, if in the Chinese Ekottara, Kiu tch'eou to 10 = Khujjuttara. 32 Anguttara-nikaya I 26.16 foIl.; BSR 4.1 (1987), pp. 54-57 (and p. 58, n. 19 for the

total number). 33 Levi 1932, p. 161.20; Vaidya 1961, p. 216.7. 34 Chit Tin & Pruitt 1988, verse 99. 35 See Waldschmidt 1980, pp. 144-148, and Akanuma 1990, p. 183. 36 Levi & Chavannes 1916, p. 35; Przyluski 1926, p. 194. 37 There are, of course, hierarchical disparities: monks are mentioned first, followed

by nuns, laymen, laywomen, and it is well-known that the order of nuns was subordinate to the order of monks. Furthermore, the lists of outstanding nuns and the verse-collections of nuns are shorter than those of the monks.

250 PETER SKILLING

of significance in early brahmanical or Jaina literary traditions38 • Although these traditions also had paired terms (as is only natural) - especially the J ainas, whose terminology was similar to that of the Buddhists -:- they did not transmit paired texts, or anthologies devoted exclusively to women39•

II. Nuns and the transmission of the scriptures

What role did nuns - or women - play in the transmission of scriptures? For practical purposes, the Bhikkunf Piitimokkha and Bhikkunz Kammaviicii must have been transmitted by the nuns themselves, since these texts had to be memorized and recited. What about other texts? Traditional accounts of the Buddhist councils (sarrzglti) (available for a number of schools) record that the oral traditions and (later) written scriptures were rehearsed, redacted, and handed down by monks: or at least they do not mention nuns.

That nuns did participate in the transmission and explication of the sacred texts is, however, proven by both literary and epigraphic records. Several nuns are known to have been outstanding preachers4o• An important discourse, the Cu!avedalla-sutta, is spoken by the nun Dharnmadinna to her former husband Visakha. The Sarvastivadin and MUlasarvastivadin counterparts, included in the Madhyamiigama, were known as the Bhik~ulJzdharmadinnii-sutra41. It was a well-known and authoritative text,

38 For the position of women in Jainism, see Deo 1956, Jaini 1991, and Dundas 1992, pp. 48-52. Deo (p. 578) remarks that "the nuns always remained subordinate to the monks not only regarding seniority but also in the execution of monastic jurisprudence. With all that, they have played a very important role in the organisation of the female Jaina laity .... " See Ibid. pp. 507-508 for some (not entirely satisfactory) remarks on "Nuns and Brahmanism". For the status of women in Indian society in general, see Basham 1971, pp. 179-190.

39 The J ainas also use the terms bhikkhu and bhikkhunf, siivaka and siivikii, upiisaka and upiisikii, as well as nigantha and nigganthL They did not have a separate set of rules for the nuns: as noted by Deo (1956, p. 473), "right from the time of the composition of the Acaranga, different texts give a rule starting with the formula: 'Ie bhikkhu bhikkhUlJf va', or 'Niggantho nigganthf vii', which shows that the rule was common both to the monks as well as to the nuns".

40 For "the influence of the teaching and preaching nuns" in China see Tsai 1994, p. 8. For early Jainism cf. Deo 1956, p. 491, who says that "women preachers are often mentioned". See also Jain 1991, pp. 352-353.

41 Majjhima-nikiiya no. 44. For the Sarvastivadin version see Bhik~u Thich Minh Chau 1991, pp. 269-278; for the Millasarvastiviidin version see Samathadeva,Abhidharmakosaupiiyikiitfkii (Q 5595, Vol. 118, mnon pa'i bstan beos tu, 7a8-12b3).

FEMALE ROLES IN EARLY INDIAN BUDDlllSM 251

cited in the Abhidharmakosa and other works. In the Khematheri-sutta of the Avyakata-saipyutta, Khema Then delivers a profound discourse to King Pasenadi42. The nun Thullananda - whose behaviour was less than ideal- is described as "learned, eloquent, confident, outstanding in the ability to preach sermons,,43. Many people came to hear her preach, including, on at least two occasions, King Pasenadi of Kosala44• The same epithets are applied to Bhadda KapiHiIll-45.

According to pacattika 93 of the Mahasamgbika and Lokottaravadin Bhi~U1Ji Vinayas, the ten qualifications of a nun who can induct other women into the order include being leamed (bahusruta) in abhidharma and abhivinaya46• According to pacattika 104, a nun who acts as ·preceptor (upasthiiyikii ti upddhyiiyinf) must train her charge (upasthdpitan ti sardhaJ'{l vihdrilJ-l) for two years in abhidharma and abhivinaya47• In the Sobhanasutta cited above, a nun who is, among other things, "learned, a bearer of dhamma" (bhikkhuni ... bahussuta dhammadhara) is said to adorn the

42 SaTJIyutta-niktiya IV 374-380. According to Akanuma (1990, p. 235) there is no Chinese parallel.

43 Vinaya IV 254.4, 255.4, 256.23, 285.18, 290.4, bahussutti hoti bhtilJikti vistiradti parrhti dhammiTJI katha7JI ktituTJI. I interpret bhtilJikti as "eloquent", rather than as the feminine of bhtilJaka in the technical sense of a trained reciter of a section of the scriptures (digha-bhtilJaka, etc.), since in this sense bhtiQakalbhtilJikti does not appear in the Tipitaka, but only in later literature such as paracanonical texts and Atthakathti (and also early inscriptions). The occurrences of bhtilJikti listed above seem to be the only ones in the Tipitaka, except for manju-bhtilJikti, "sweet-voiced, uttering sweet words", ltitaka VI 422: see PTSD 501b, s.v. bhtilJaka. The termparrha is also rare (PTSD 402b). The word bhtilJikti is not listed in the indexes to the Lokottaravadin Bhik:tulJi-vinaya (Roth 1970; Nolot 1991). I reluctantly render bahussuta/bahusruta as "learned", for want of a better equivalent: we should remember that the term belongs to the realm of aurality/orality, and means literally "having heard· many [teachings]".

44 Vinaya IV 254-256. 45 Vinaya IV 290.7. 46 Hirakawa 1982, p. 290; Roth 1970, Nolot 1991, §207. There is no Piili parallel to

this rule. 47 Hirakawa 1982, pp. 313-314; Roth 1970, Nolot 1991, §218. The text defmes abhid

harma as nava-vidhal; sutrtintal; and abhivinaya as prtitimok:tal; vistara-prabhedena. Here, and in other epithets, terms such as (abhiJdharma or (abhiJvinaya do not refer to the written texts that we know today, but to earlier oral transmissions and explications of the Buddha's teachings and the monastic guidelines. The Piili parallel (pticittiya 68) does not give the ten qualifications, or mention abhidharma and abhivinaya (but the ability to train in abhidhamma and abhivinaya are among the five qualities that a monk should possess in order to ordain another: Vinaya I 64.penult.) For the two terms see Watanabe 1996, pp. 25-36.

252 PETER SKILLING

order. The C;;ujapak~avadana of the Divyavadana mentions nuns who are "versed in Tripitaka, preachers of dharma, coherent and fluent speakers" (bhik~ulJyas tripita dhiirmakathika yuktamuktapratibhiilJa)48.

The accomplishments of nuns related to the transmission or preaching of dhamma are singled out in statements phrased in the etad-agga fonnula. It is important to observe that these exemplary nuns are described as "foremost among my female auditors, among the nuns" (etad aggaJ?l ... mama savikiinaJ?l bhikkhunfnarrt) in a certain ability: that is, other nuns had the same accomplishments, but to a lesser degree. In the Etadagga-vagga, the above-mentioned Dhammadinna is extolled as "foremost among preachers of dhamma"49. Patacara is singled out as "foremost among bearers of vinaya"50. According to the MUlasarvastivadin Vinaya and the Avadanasataka, Kacarp.gala is "foremost among those who explain the siitras"51. According to the Avadanasataka, Soma is "foremost among those who are learned and who preserve the oral tradition" (bahusrutanaJ?l srutadharflJaJ?l), and K~ema is "foremost among those who are very wise and very eloquent" (mahiiprajnanarrt mahiipratibhiinaJ?l)52. In the Etadagga-vagga, the latter is described as "foremost among those who are very wise"53.

48 Cowell & Neil 1987, p. 493.8, 15. The same passage occurs in the Vinaya-vibhanga and Vinaya-samuccaya with the variant *dvlpita va tripita va: Vinaya-vibhanga, Q1032, V0143, 'dui ba fie, 65bl, 7 and Vinaya-samuccaya, Q5607, VoL 121, 'dui 'grei mu, 104a7, b6, dge sion ma rnams ni sde snod gfiis pa dan, sde snod gsum pa chos sgrog pa, rigs pa dan, groi ba'i spobs pa can dag. (The few minor variants in the Tibetan need not trouble us here.) For yuktamuktapratibhtilJa cf. Braarvig 1985, pp. 18 and 25, nn. 3, 4.

49 Anguttara-nikaya I 25.22, etad aggal'(! bhikkhave mama savikanal'(! bhikkhunfnal'(! dhammakathikanal'(! yad idal'(! dhammadinna. Cf. BSR 4.1 (1987), p. 48.

50 Anguttara-nikaya I 25.21, etad aggal'(! bhikkhave mama savikanal'(! bhikkhunfnal'(! vir(ayadharanal'(! yad idal'(! patacara. Cf. BSR 4.1 (1987), p. 47. Patacara's initial aspiration in a previous life is related in her apadana: Therf-apadana, Niilanda ed., verses 468-511, especially verses 471 (for which see n. 27 above) and 506. For a summary of the apadana see Cutler 1994, pp. 9-10.

5] Bhai~ajyavastu, in Dutt 1984, VoL III, pt. 1, p. 22.13, e~agra me bhik~avo bhik~ulJfnal'(! mama sravikalJal'(! siitrantavibhtigakartrflJal'(! yad uta kacal'(!gaia bhik~ulJf; Tibetan translation QI030, VoL 41, 'dui ba ge, 121b8; Avadanasataka in Speyer 1970, p. 43.8 = Feer 1891, p. 291. See also the Tsa-pao-tsang-ching (Taisho 203), in Willemen 1994, p. 21, "Among bhik~ulJf-s [Kacaqlgala] had the best understanding of the sutras".

52 Speyer 1970, pp. 22.4,50.9, respectively; Feer 1891, pp. 277, 295, respectively. For the skills implied by bahussuta and sutadhara see Majjhima-nikaya I 213.1.

53 Anguttara-nikaya I 25.19, etad aggal'(! bhikkhave mama savikanal'(! bhikkhunfnal'(! mahtipafifianal'(! yad Idal'(! khema. Cf. BSR 4.1 (1987), p. 47.


An early Pali· chronicle, the Dfpavar{lsa, gives a long list of nuns, starting with MahapajapatJ: GotamI and other nuns in India, who are described as "learned in vinaya" (vinayafifiu) and "adept in the path" (maggakovidii)54. It then gives long lists of nuns: Then Satp.ghamitta and nuns who came with her from J ambudipa to Sri Lanka, followed by other nUns both from India and Ceylon. A refrain states that the nuns "recited the Vinaya-pi(aka in Anuradhapura, recited the Five Nikiiyas [of the Sutta-pitaka], and the Seven Treatises [of the Abhidhamma-pitaka],,55. The account goes up to at least the time of Abhaya, son of Ku!ivar,u;ta, that is to the first half of the first century of the Christian Era56, and concludes with the statement: "At present there are others - senior, middle, or newly-ordained - ... bearers of vinaya, guardians of the transmission of the teaching: learned and virtuous, they illuminate this earth"57. The nuns were honoured by Kings Abhaya and Devanatp.piya Tissa. King Lajjitissa listened to the well-spoken words (subhiisita) of the nuns and offered them whatever they desired58.

Epigraphic evidence for the accomplishments of nuns in the field of learning is scant. At Siifici Avisina from Maqalachika!a is described as "versed in the sutras" (sutiitikinf)59. No title is supplied to indicate her status, so we do not know whether she was a nun or a laywoman. A bhilqulJf named Buddhamitra, who set up images of the Buddha, is described as "versed in the Tripi!ak:a" (trepitikii)60. Buddhamitra is associated with her teacher the bhilqu Bala, also "versed in the Tripi!ak:a". It is likely that both Buddhamitra and Bala belonged to the Sarvastivadin school.

Although early literary and epigraphic evidence thus shows that nuns contributed to the transmission of the texts - as is only to be expected -

54 Dfpava,!!sa XVITI, 7-10. 55 Dfpava,!!sa XVITI, 11-43: the refrain runs (with variants) vinaya,!! tiiva viicesu'!!

pi!aka,!! anuriidhasavhaye, nikiiye palka viicesu'!! satta c' eva pakaralJe. 56 Geiger 1953 II, p. x, gives regnal dates CE 16-38 for Ku!akaI}I).atissa, 38-66 for

Bhiitikabhaya. 57 Dipava'!!sa xvm, 44 idiini atthi afzfziiyo therikii majjhimii navii, vibhajjaviidi

vinayadharii siisane pavelJipiilakii, bahussutii suasampannii obhiisenti mahi,!! ima,!!. 58 Dipava1!lSa XIX, 12. 59 Marshall & Foucher 1983, Vol. I, §§304, 305. 60 Shanna 1984, p. 184, notes 46 and 49. For trepitikii (masc. trepitaka) see Damsteegt

1978, pp. 179 and 248 (where he notes that the feminine trepi!ikii is not in any of the dictionaries that he consulted).

254 PETER SKILLING

their role seems to have eventually been forgotten or ignored. Furthermore, no commentaries or independent treatises composed by nuns are known to have survived. It may be that they were never written down, or,. if they were, they were not preserved in later ages, when the influence and status of the order of nuns waned. This may have been a decision made by the monks, who controlled the redaction of the scriptures.

If the scriptures were transmitted by males, by monks, there is one intriguing exception: the ltivuttaka. According to the commentaty (attributed to Dharnmapala), the ltivuttaka was transmitted by the laywoman (upasika) Khujjuttara, first of all to the ladies of the royal harem of King Udena at Kosambl, who learnt it by heart. Later the monks learned the collection, which was recited by Ananda at the First Council. This is a unique case of an entire collection being transmitted by a woman61•

Khujjuttara is praised for her "wide learning" (balJussutata) in both the Pali Etadagga-vagga and the Chinese Ekottaragama62. As seen above, she is presented as a model laywoman in the Pali, Gilgit, and Chinese Ahguttara-nikaya/Ekottaragama.

Nuns and laywomen in Mahayana sutras63

In Mahayana siitras, we meet another gendered pair: kulaputro va kuladuhita va, "son: of good family or daughter of good family". The pair occurs frequently, for example in the Prajftiipiiramita Sutras64 -

where it often refers to the exemplary audience or potential practitioners of the "Perfection of Wisdom" - and in the SaddharmapulJ4arika65.

61 Woodward 1948, p. viii. 62 Ailguttara-nikiiya I 26.19; BSR 4.1 (1987), p. 55. Note that the Sobhana-sutta (see

n. 10 above) includes "laywoman" among those who adorn the order: upiisikii bhikkhave viyattii vinitii visiiradii bahussutii dhammadharii dhammiinudhamma-pa{ipannii sailghaTfl sobheti.

63 For some aspects of the feminine in Mahayana literature, see Dayal 1932, pp. 223-224 and Paul 1979.

64 See e.g. the Vajracchedikii in Conze 1974, §§ 8, 14h, 19,28, 30a, 32a, and Conze's remarks on kulaputra, pp. 103-104. It is interesting that several of the similes of the Vajracchedikii begin with "whatever woman or man" (yas ca khalu punaIJ. subhUte stri vii pur~o vii): see §§ 13e, 15a, and also 11.

65 See Ejima et al. 1985, pp. 280-281, s.v. kula-duhitr, kula-putra. kula-duhitr is "always accompanied with (sic) kulaputra"; the latter occurs alone, and more frequently.


The pair also occurs in (Miila)Sarvastivadin literature, for example in the *Gautamf-sutra of the Chinese Madhyamagama, in the MahaparinirvalJasiitra, and in a siUra cited in the Abhidharmakosa66 , but the extent of its use remains to be detennined. It does not seem to be known in Pa:li67•

The openings (nidana) of some Mahayana sutras mention the presence of nuns in the audience. Some, such as the Vimalakirti-nirdda, the Susthitamatidevaputra-pariprccha, the Bhadrakalpika-sutra, and the RatnagulJasafTlcaya-gatha simply record the presence of the four assemblies, or what I have described above as the two "gendered pairs" (monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen). The qualities, names, and size of the attendant sravaka assemblies are often mentioned, more often for monks but sometimes for nuns as well. The PafzcavifTlsatisahasrikii and Dasasahasrikii Prajfzaparamita-s state that 500 nuns, laymen, and laywomen were in the audience, "all of them stream-enterers"68. The SaddharmapulJcjarzka and KarulJapulJcjarzka Sutras give the most detailed nidana that I have found: "6000 nuns headed by Mahaprajapau, Bhik~ul)I Yasodhara Rahulamata and her following". Similarly, some sutras mention (e.g. the SaddharmapulJcjarika) or list (e.g. the Vajracchedikii) the four assemblies in the closing formula. Many other Mahayana sutras do not mention nuns at all. Although these nidana-s are formulaic and ahistorical, they tell us something about the attitude of the compilers or editors of the texts towards nuns, and deserve further study69.

66 Tsukamoto 1985, Vol. II, pp. 1094-1095; Waldschmidt 1986, §41.5, 10; Abhidharmakosa-bhii~ya N 4ab (pradhan 1975, p. 196.15); N 117ab (Pradhan 270.11): for a fuller citation see Abhidharmakosa-vyiikhyii ad N 4ab (Dwarikadas 1971, pp. 580-582).

67 For kula-putta see PTC 63b, which gives only 3 references for kula-dhltii (63a), to Vinaya II 10 and Mahiiniddesa 229, 392. In none of these references is kula-dhltii paired with kula-putta. Where the Sarvastivadin *Gautamf-sutra has "believing son or daughter of good family", the Pili counterpart (Dakkhil}iivibhanga, Majjhima-nikiiya III 254-255) has no equivalent. Where the (MiHa)Sarvastivadin Mahiiparinirviil}a-sutra has both kula-putra and kula-duhitr, the Pali Mahiiparinibbiina-sutta has only kula-putta. In both Pali and Sanskrit, kula-putta/kula-putra (and, in the latter, kula-duhitr) is regularly prefIxed by "faithful, believing" (saddha, sriiddha), and is frequently used in connection with the creation of merit (pul}ya). A comprehensive study of the usage and contexts of kula-putra/kuladuhitr in Theravadin, (Miila)Sarvastivadin, and Mahayana literature is a desideratum.

68 Since the passages referred to may easily be found at the beginning of any edition or translation of the texts in question, I do not give any references.

69 I would not be surprised if in some cases different recensions or translations of the same siitra give different nidiina-s.

256 PETER SKILLING

One Mahayana siitra which allots to females an outstanding role as teachers of the profound bodhisattva practices is the Gar.ujavyuha. Out of the 52 kalyalJamitra~s consulted by the pilgrim bodhisattva Sudhana, one is a bhik~ulJz named SiI!lhavij!lllbhita70• Another kalyalJamiira, the "night goddess" (ratrz-devata) SarvanagararalqasaI!lbhavatejal}.sn, relates her deeds in a former life as a nun named Dharmacakranirmfu).aprabha, who had a retinue of 100,000 nuns (bhik~ulJz-satasahasra-parivarafl. Out of the 52 kalyalJamitra-s, four are described as laywomen (upasikti)72, and four others are female 73. Others are goddesses: these will be discussed below.

The Mahayana was not a monolithic· entity, and different texts present different views of women. An example is the discrepancy in attitude between the Sukhtivatz and Ak~obhya Vyuha-s74• In Amitabha's "pure land" there are no women - devotees are reborn as men, albeit within beautiful lotus-flowers - while both genders are present in the pure land of Ak~obhya. Neither sutra mentions the presence of nuns or laywomen in the audience. In contrast, the SaddharmapulJtjarzka includes a large group of nuns in the audience, as seen above, and predicts the future Buddhahood of MahaprajapatI and Yasodhara75• After they have heard their predictions, the nuns offer to teach the Lotus Sutra. These differences may reflect the influence of time and place, of social milieu, upon the composition of the sutras, as well as the attitudes of the compilers towards women.

70 Vaidya 1960, pp. 148-153, translated in Paul 1979, pp. 94-105 (from Sanskrit: abbr.), and Cleary 1987, pp. 141-146 (from Chinese).

71 Vaidya 1960, pp. 236.10 foll. 72 Nos. 8, 14,20,46: see table in Vaidya, pp. xxiv-xxix. For translations from San

skrit of Nos. 8 and 14 see Pauly 1979, pp. 137-144, 144-155; for translations from Chinese see Cleary 1987, pp. 84-90 (No.8), 107-111 (No. 14), 127-132 (No. 20), 318-319 (No. 46).

73 Nos. 11,26,41, and 42 in Vaidya's table. For a translation of No. 26 from Sanskrit see Pauly 1979, pp. 155-162. For translations of Nos. 11,26,41, and 42 from Chinese see Cleary 1987, pp. 98-102, 146-149,273-305,305-315. No. 51 (Cleary pp. 320-328) has a gendered pair: a young man (diiraka) and a young woman (diirikii).

74 G6mez 1996, vow 35, pp. 74 (from Sanskrit) and 170 (from Chinese) for the former; Dantinne 1983, pp. 97-98 (vow 21), 141-142 (note x), 194-197,223-224 (note w) for the latter.

75 Watson 1993, pp. 191-192. Needless to say, as Buddhas the former nuns will be males.


III. Nuns and laywomen as donors

During his lifetime, the Buddha and the community of monks and nuns attracted the support of female donors. One of the best-known, and most liberal, was Visakha, "Migara's mother", lauded by the Buddha as "foremost among female donors,,76. She endowed a monastery at Savatthi:, at which the Blessed One spent several rains-retreats. One of the classical sutta opening formulas (nidiina) begins with: "At one time the Blessed One was staying in Savatthi:, in the Eastern Pleasance, at Migara's mother's residence .. .'>77. As noted above, on at least one occasion Visakha inv.ited both orders to a meal.

In the period beginning about a century after Asoka, women participated in the sponsorship of the construction of the earliest surviving monuments of Buddhism, the great caityas at Bharhut and Sanci. These edifices - the earliest large-scale stone monuments of India - were not erected and adorned by a single donor,. but rather through collective sponsorship of men and women from various walks of life: royals, merchants, artisans, and their wives and relatives 78. Donative inscriptions from these monuments and from other early sites record the names, and sometimes other details, of individuals who sponsored component parts of the structures, such as coping stones or pillars.

(A study of the family and social relationships recorded in the dedications is much needed, since it would tell us a great deal about individual and collective acts and dedications of merif9. Many donations were joint [family or corporate, rather than individual] acts; even when they were individual, the ensuing merit was dedicated to family members and teachers. The inscriptions show that family relationships retained their importance for renunciant monks and nuns. This is borne out by the monks' rules, the Piitimokkha, in which certain practices that are normally

76 diiyikiinarrz aggii, Anguttara-nikiiya I 26.18. For Visakha see Horner 1930, pp. 345-361; DPPN II 900-904; FaIk 1990.

77 e.g. Majjhima-nikiiya ill 104.2, ekam samayarrz bhagavii siivatthiyarrz viharati pubbiiriime migiiramiitu piisiide.

78 For patronage during the period in question, see Thapar 1992, Dehejia 1992, Willis 1992. For the vocabulary of donation in early inscriptions, see Bhattacharya 1987.

79 See, for a start, Gokhale 1991, pp. 13-15 and Gregory Schopen, "Filial Piety and the Monk in the Practice of Indian Buddhism: A Question of 'Sinicization' Viewed from the Other Side", in Schopen 1997, Chap. ill.

258 PETER SKILLING

prohibited are allowed if the person involved is a relative. For example, nissaggiya piicittiya no. 4 states: "Should any bhikkhu get an old robe washed or dyed or washed by beating by a nun not related to him [afifiiitikiiya bhikkhuniyii], this entails expiation with forfeiture": Similar exceptions involving nuns are found in nissaggiya piicittiya-s nos. 5 and 17; exceptions involving male or female householders [afifiiitako gahapati vii gahapatiinf Vii] are given in nos. 6 to 9 and 27. Biographies of the Buddha relate that he returned to Kapilavastu to convert his father [and other clan-relations], and ascended to the Trayastrirpsa heaven to convert his mother. In the [MUla]Sarvastivadin tradition these two acts are among the necessary deeds performed by all Buddhas [avasyakara~iya].

The first convert after the Group of Five monks was the householder Yasa, who became an arhat and a monk. Immediately afterward, Yasa's father, mother, and former wife all became stream-winners and lay-followers. Thus, from the beginning of the order, family relationships were important.)

Inscriptions from Sand, Bharhut, Kru:meri, Karle, Kuqa, Nasik, Pauni, AmaravatI, and Mathura show that nuns were major sponsors of the early monuments. Gregory Schopen has calculated that at Sand there were 129 monk donors, and 125 nuns. He notes that "at Pauni there were three monk donors and five nuns; at Bharhut 16 nuns and 25 monks; at AmaravaH there were 12 monk donors and 12 nun donors"so. The inscriptions, which date from roughly the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE, show not only that nuns played an active role in the erection of caitya-s and vihiira-s, but also that they had the social and economic status that ellabled them to do so. Inscriptions from Nepal, belonging to the Licchavi period (5th to 9th centuries) record a number of donations made by nunsS!.

Other inscriptions commemorate donations made by women: some described as laywomen, others not. A thorough study of the role of laywomen as revealed in inscriptions remains to be undertaken, and I can give here only a few examples. At SancI the term upiisikii occurs in fifteen dedications, upiisaka in fours2. At Sannati a beam was sponsored by upiisikii

80 Schopen 1988-89, p. 164. 81 See Skilling 1993-94, pp. 34-35. 82 Marshall & Foucher 1983, Vol. J, p. 297. For women as patrons, see Thapar 1992,

pp. 28-29, Gokhale 1991, pp. 14-15, and Willis 1992.


Sama83• Queens, or other female members of the court, played a role. MahadevI Gautarni Balasn, mother of Gautarniputra Siri-Satakrup, donated a cave (lelJa) at Nasik (LL 1123). Also at Nasik, upiisikii Vi~l.1udatta gave an endowment to the order (LL 1137), a cave (layana) was offered by upiisikii Mamma (LL 1145), and cells (ovaraka) were donated by Dak~amitra, wife of ~~abhadatta (himself an active donor in the region) (LL 1132, 1134). At NagarjunakoJ.1<~a in Andhra Pradesh, female members of the royal elites were prominent donors84. In Sri Lanka, ten of the early (3rd century BCE to 1st CE) BrahmI inscriptions edited by Paranavitana record the donation of caves to the sarrzgha by nuns (samalJi) - as against nearly 300 by monks85•

Nuns and laywomen also participated in the sponsorship of some of the earliest Buddha images, such as those produced at Mathura86• At Mathura a seated bodhisattva was set up by upiisikii Nagapriya, housewife of the goldsmith Dharmaka87• At SancI, in the Ku~al).a period, an image of the jambu-chiiyii episode was installed by Madhurika, an image of Sakyamuni by VidyamatI, and an image of Bodhisattva Maitreya by a woman whose name has been 10st88• At a later date, a fine bronze standing Buddha was donated by "Lady Buddhakaya" in Uttar Pradesh89•

The pedestals of early stone images frequently bear scenes in relief representing worshippers Qr donors (in addition to geometric, floral, animal, or architectural motifs). I have not seen any studies of these reliefs in their own right. They are rich in detail and variety, and might be described as relief miniatures (especially in most reproductions, in which the scenes are so small that they are difficult to read). Examples from Mathura show a variety of devotees: couples, or men and women, including children, paying respect to dharma-cakras, trees, or auspicious

83 Sarma & Rao 1993, p. 90. 84 For references see Chaudhury 1982, pp. 229-232. 85 Paranavitana 1970, pp. cv-cvi, cxvii. Paranavitana describes samalJi as "the recog

nized form of referring to a nun", and notes that "the equivalents of the terms bhikkhu and bhikkhunl have not been applied to Buddhist monks and nuns" in the early inscriptions.

86 For examples of participation of nuns, see Schopen 1988-89, pp. 159-163; Skilling 1993-94, pp. 31-32.

87 Liiders 1961, § 150. 88 Marshall & Foucher 1983, Vol. I, §§828-830. 89 Czuma & Morris 1985, §117.

260 PETER SKILLING

symbols (the nandyavarta)9o. In several cases what appear to be whole families are lined up in homage91 • Pedestals from Gandhara show couples, monks, or groups of men and women, standing or kneeling beside images of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, or "fire altars". Examples from Zwalf's handsome study of Gandharan sculpture in the British Museum include:

2 monks and a couple worshipping a bodhisattva (§ 1) male figures worshipping a Buddha (§ 6) kneeling monks worshipping a Buddha . (§ 9)

men and women worshipping a bodhisattva (§ 24) parr of gods (?) or bodhisattvas (?) with a parr of monks worshipping a Buddha (§ 26) pair of monks worshipping 3 Buddhas and (§ 31)

2 bodhisattvas pair of men and pair of women worshipping a bodhisattva (§ 47) men and women worshipping a "fire altar" (§ 48) man, woman, and girl worshipping a bodhisattva (§ 52)92.

The exact relations between the devotional figures and the donative inscriptions (when such exist), or between the miniature Buddhas or bodhisattvas on the base and the main image, are not clear93• A comprehensive study of the components of these reliefs would be instructive. It is interesting that, while Gandharan reliefs show monks at worship, the Mathura pedestals do not seem to do so, even though Mathura inscriptions record the donations of monks and nuns94. One such image, a kapardin Buddha in the National Museum, New Delhi, was dedicated by a

90 See e.g. Sharma 1984, figs. 83-86, 89-91. A small child is present in fig. 90. 91 See e.g. Rosenfield 1967, figs. 33, 104. Similar scenes are depicted on the bases of

laina images: see e.g. Huntington & Huntington 1985, fig. 8.44. 92 Monks are also shown, in homage to a seated bodhisattva, on the base of a standing

Gandharan bodhisattva in Czuma & Morris 1985, § 115 93 See Zwalf 1996, VoL I, p. 41, "Seats and bases". Zwalfremarks that "although an

iconographic programme often seems present, systematic relationships between an image and the carving on its base remain to be established in detail".

94 As far as I have noticed, monastics are not depicted in the earliest reliefs of Bharhut and Sand, whether in narrative or homage scenes. For two monks worshipping a dharma-cakra on a tympanum described as from the 1st century CE see Czuma & Morris 1985, §7.


monk named ViraI,la; the base depicts four lay figures, of which at least two are female, paying homage to a bodhi-tree95 •

The examples given here make it abundantly clear that early Buddhist building, monumental art, and iconography were joint projects, sponsored by monastics and lay-followers, male and female. Nuns, laywomen, queens, wives, and mothers played a significant role, and without their participation the monuments would have been poorer places96 • Records - inscriptions, or reliefs on caitya pillars or the bases of images - show that couples and whole families participated joyously in the cult, paying homage and making offerings at the shrines97•

Iv. Goddesses in text and stone

I have spoken above of the "paired texts" of the pari canon. One pair that is missing concerns deities: there is a Devatii-saT(lyutta, but no * DevlsaT(lyutta; a Devaputta-saT(lyutta, but no *Devadhitii-saT(lyutta; a YakkhasaT(lyutta, but no *Yakkhinl-saT(lyutta98• And generally speaking, goddesses figure rarely in the canonical pari texts.

I can think of two exceptions: the Itthi-vimiina of the Piili Vimiinavatthu, and the Sanskrit Mahiisamiija-sutra99 • The former (referred to

95 Czuma & Morris 1985, §15. 96 The role of women as donors remains strong today (except that the order of nuns is

no more): an observer at a temple ceremony in Siam will be struck by the fact that the assembly consists largely of women, who present offerings of food and requisites to the monks. On special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, or funerals, the whole (extended) family usually participates in merit-making. Just as the components of the ancient caityas were labelled by the donors, so the components and furniture - a kup, a gate, a bench, an electric fan - of the modem monastery bear the names of the donor(s) and of those to whom the merit is dedicated.

97 Male-female couples flanking caitya-s are a frequent theme in SlificI reliefs, and men and women are shown worshipping at tree or footprint shrines. See also the worshipping couples on the door-jambs in Czuma & Morris 1985, § 11, and the giant couples at Karle (Huntington & Huntington 1985; figs. 9.3, 9.4) and KaI}heri (ibid, fig. 9.20).

98 Devatii-s can be male or female, but in the Devatii-saf(lyutta they are all male. devadhftii is rare in Pili: see PTSD 330a (not in PTC).

99 For a Sanskrit Sarvastivadin version from Central Asia see Waldschmidt 1932; for a Miilasarvastivadin version in Tibetan translation see Skilling 1994b, Mahiisutra 8. Both Sarvastivadin and Miilasarvastivadin versions bear the title M ahiisamiija-sutra. For the Theravadin version, tqe Pili Mahiisamaya-sutta, see Dfgha-nikiiya 20; in this version there are fewer female deities.

262 , PETER SKILLING

earlier in Part I) gives verse descriptions of the delightful floating palaces or "mansions" (vimiina) enjoyed by goddesses (devr) as a result of meritorious deeds performed in their previous lives as humans. According to the commentary, and the occasional context, these goddesses 'belong to the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (tiivatirJlsa).

In the Mahiisamiija-sutra, hosts of female deities are among the divine assembly that gathers to pay homage to the Blessed One and 500 arhats in the Kapilavastu Forest. The goddesses figure mainly .among the "60 groups of deities" who illuminate the forest lOO• Included in their ranks are some whose names are known elsewhere, some whose nature is straightforward (such as goddesses of the four elements), and many who are otherwise unknown, whose sole claim to immortality rests in the Mahiisamiija verses. Also present in the assembly is "Hand, most exquisite in complexion and shape, surrounded by her children" 101. Hand, with her children, is mentioned in the Mahiimiiyurz and other Paficarak~ii texts, and in the Suvan:wprabhiisa and Lalitavistara102 .

Another early text, the A!iinii{zya-sutra, is available in Pati, Tibetan, Chinese, and in Sanskrit fragments from Central Asia 103. The A{iiniitiyasutra does not catalogue female divinities by name, but does list supernatural beings in gendered pairs: male gandharva-s and female gandharva-s; senior male gandharva-s and senior female gandharva-s; boy gandharva-s and girl gandharva-s; male gandharva attendants and female gandharva attendants; male gandharva messengers and female gandharva messengers: and so for pisiica, kumbhiilJq,a, preta, niiga, etc 104.

100 These are listed in six sets of verses, each of which names ten groups of deities: Skilling 1994b, Mahiisutra 8, §§ 20-26. The deities catalogued in §§ 20, 22, 23, and 24 are all female. Fa-t'ien's Chinese translation of the Mahiisamiija describes the deities of § 22 as "Giittermadchen", of §§ 23 and 24 as "Yak~amadchen": see Waldschmidt 1932, pp. 184-188.

101 Skilling 1994b, Mahiisutra 8, § 28. 102 One version of her story is related in the Tsa-pao-tsang-ching: see Willemen 1994,

§ 106. For further remarks and references see Zwalf 1996, Vol. I, pp. 44 and 48, n. 125. 103 I use here the title as given in the Miilasarvastivadin version. In the Central Asian

Sanskrit version the title is Atiiniitika, in Pili (Digha-nikiiya 32) it is Atiiniitiya. 104 Skilling 1994b, Mahiisutra 9, § 3.7: for other beings see §§ 4.2, 5.7, 6.2, 7.7, 8.2,

9.7, 10.2. Pali § m.2 is less scrupulous. I do not know if it would be safe to conclude that the (Miila)Sarvastivadin editors were especially gender-sensitive, since the context - protective invocation - requires comprehensiveness.


Other apotropaic (rak.yii) passages - such as those in the MahiimiiyurY, Laftkiivatiira, and Mahiibala, also list powerful beings in gendered pairs105•

Goddesses playa significant role in other early texts. The Lalitavistara lists in verse the goddesses who watched over the bodhisattva at birth, and female deities play prominent parts in other chapters of that text. The AsYrviidagiithii - a verse blessing bestowed by the Buddha upon the merchants Trapu~a and Bhallika, just after his enlightenment, transmitted both independently and in the Lalitavistara, the Mahiivastu, and other texts - invokes 32 devakumiirY-s, in addition to 28 constellations, the four Great Kings, and a shrine for each quarter106• In a story related in the corrimentary to Maqceta's Satapafzciisatka, 700 Brahmakayika goddesses (tshafts ris kyi lha mo) pay homage in verse to the low-born Arya NYla107• A number of riik.yasY-s are named and summoned with mantras in the annex to the Nagaropama-sutra 108• Local goddesses are listed (alongside male deities) in the Candragarbha-sutra of the M ahiisannipiital09 •

Elements common to the mantras of a wide range of texts - of Sravakayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana - invoke the names of female deities. Usually found in association, they include gauri, gandhiiri, ca/;Ujiili, and miitaftgi, which feature in the mantras of the Atiiniityyasutra, the BhadrakariitrY-sutra, the MahiimiiyurY, the Mahiidm:ujadhiirm}Y, the SaddharmapUl}qarYka, the MahiibaZa-sutra, the Arya-avalokiteSvaramiitiiniima-dhiirm}l, and the Central Asian Nagaropama-vyiikaral}a 11O•

For these phrases the editors drew on a common pool of mantra elements that seem to have been connected with the cult of female deities.

Examples have been given above of the outstanding position of women as teachers of the Mahayana in the Gal}qavyuha-sutra. Out of the 52 spiritual guides consulted by Sudhana, a total of twenty are

105 See Skilling 1992, p. 147. 106 See Skilling 1992, pp. 133-134. For an edition, translation, and study of a

related Uighur text, see Radloff & von Stael-Holstein 1910; for the Sanskrit version, the DiStisauviistika-sufra, see SHT (I) 660, (IV) (Erg.) 660, and Wille 1996, pp. 387-388.

107 Shackleton Bailey 1951, pp. 119,205. 108 See Bongard-Levin et al. 1996, pp. 82-87 (text), 96-101 (translation). 109 See Levi 1905, pp. 264-268. 110 For references see Skilling 1992, p. 155.

264 PETER SKILLING

womenll1 . Out of these twenty, eleven are goddesses, who relate their attainments and give instruction112• Some recount their past lives, in which they were also female: that is, as in the Itthi-vimana (see above), female continuities across rebirths are presented in a positive light. Goddesses take the stage elsewhere, such as in Chapter 44, in which a city goddess (nagaradevata) named Ratnanetra, surrounded by a host of sky goddesses (gaganadevatagm;taparivrta) gives Sudhana a sermon on guarding and adorning the "city of mind" (cittanagara)l13.

On the testimony of literature, we may conclude that reference to goddesses - some local, some mainstream - was widespread in early Buddhism. This is corroborated by arch~ological evidence. The earliest surviving Buddhist records - the great caityas of Bhfuhut and SancY, the Bodh Gaya railings, the stone monuments of the Deccan, and the caitya of Sanghol in the Punjab - swarm with female forms. Although they in part reflect the perennial Indian fascination with the feminine form, with the exuberance of existence, their function is not merely decorative114•

They are there to celebrate, to pay homage, and to protect, along with their male counterparts. That many are divine is shown by the fact that they perch upon lotus blossoms, or on a variety of "vehicles" (vahana), animal, mythological, and human. Divine mounts - including elephants, horses, camels, bulis, buffaloes, rams, sheep, serpents, birds, men, women, boys, and girls - are mentioned in the Atanatlya-sLitra115 , as well as in the Vimana-vatthu 116•

Are these female figures anonymous, are they stereotypes, or are they individuals, with their own names? Could some of them be the goddesses enumerated in the Mahiisamaja-sLitra? They participate in a sacred complex that represents the protective circle, the ma/:u:!ala, that is invoked in

111 Or 21, counting the "young maiden" (diirikii: see above, n. 73). A paper on this subject was announced at the 35th International Congress of Asian and North African Studies (Budapest, 7-12 July, 1997): Yuko Ijiri (Leiden), "The Role of Female Kalyfu).aMitras in the Gal).Qavyiihasiitra".

112 Vaidya 1960, table, nos. 31-40, 43. 113 Vaidya 1960, p. 339.14 foIl.; Cleary 1987, pp. 306-307. 114 See Roth 1986 for a study of the motif of a woman bending down the branch of a

tree, the siilabhanjikii pose. 115 Skilling 1994b, Mahiisutra 9, § 2.33-36. 116 E.g. stories no. 5, 41, 60-62.


the Mahiisamiija" and Ataniitfya SiUras, with the Four Kings standing guard at the cardinat points. Unfortunately, few of the images seem to have borne inscriptions, and in their present condition the monuments ---: with fragments and sculptures scattered in dozens of museums - are difficult to read and interpret. A narrative scene from Bhlirhut includes the apsaras (acharii) Subhada, Padumavati, Misakosi, and Alaxpbusall7 - none of whom are mentioned in the Mahiisamiija-siitra, although they are known in other texts such as the Vimiinavatthu and the ASfrviida-giithii. Also represented at the great caitya were the yak~i1Jf-s Cada and Sudasana, and the goddesses (devatii) Culakoka, Mahakoka, and Sirima118. At Sand (and elsewhere) SIi is ubiquitous1l9, while HaIitl is popular in Gandhliran sculpture120. Other images, both free-standing and relief, represent unnamed niigf-s and yak#1Ji-s.

The role of goddesses in early Buddhism has yet to be adequately studied, whether from the point of view of archreology or of literature - perhaps because it fits uneasily into the "original Buddhism" constructed over the last century121. This Buddhism is ethical, philosophical,

117 Barna & Sinha 1926, pp. 48-52. Padumiivati is placed in the northern quarter in the ASfrviida texts (see e.g. Radloff & von Stael-Holstein, table, pp. 100-101). In the Atdndtfya (Skilling 1994b, Mahdsutra 9, § 2.43) she is a consort of Kuvera, guardian. of the north (so the Sanskrit and the Tibetan: the Pili is different).

118 Barna & Sinha 1926, pp.72-78. 119 For an inscribed Gandbiiran Sri see Zwalf 1996, § 95. 120 See Zwalf 1996, Vol. II, fig. 92; Czuma & Morris 1985, §§74, 75, 80; Huntington

& Huntington 1985, pI. 5 and figs. 8.26, 8.27. For a later image from Ratnagiri see Snellgrove 1987, pI. 21a.

121 It strikes me that many modem works attempt to rationalize the role of deities', and to limit the discussion to cosmology (treated as a carry-over from earlier beliefs) - the levels of rebirth as determined by karma and meditation - with a grudging recognition of the role of gods (Sma, certain Brahmii-s) as interlocutors (treated as symbolic). On gods in (early Theraviidin) Buddhism see Marasinghe 1974, EE IV 412-418, S.v. deva, and Wagle 1985; (in general) Lamotte 1976, pp. 759-765. For deities in Gandbiira see Zwalf 1996, Vol. I, pp. 43-44. For goddesses in Jainism see Dundas 1992, pp. 181-183. For female deities from Hindu contexts, see Danielou 1964 (especially part 4) and Kinsley 1988. (On the HindulBuddhist distinction, Sylvain Levi's remarks with reference to Nepal at the beginning of this century may be fairly applied to the India of the centuries after the Buddba: "A rigid classification which simplistically divided divinities up under the headings, Buddhism, Saivism, and Vai~l).avism, would be a pure nonsense; under different names, and at different levels, the same gods are for the most part common to different confessions [eglises)" [Le Nepal, Etude historique d'un royaume hindou, Vol. I, Paris, 1905, repro New Delhi, 1991, p. 319, as rendered in Gellner 1992, p. 76]).

266 PETER SKILLING

intellectual; it is austere and male, and it has no room for cults, no place for gods, let alone goddesses122• Beyond this, the reaction of early European scholarship to texts like the Mahasamiija and A!iinii!fya Sii.tras -not to speak of the Paiicarak:jii and other mantra texts - was generally unfavourable: the genre was regarded as peripheral, even beyond the pale of "true" Buddhism. No connection seems to have been drawn between the deities and the early monuments.

V. Conclusions

The testimony of inscriptions and other historical materials establishes that the order of nuns was a socially active and influential institution during the early centuries of Buddhism, into the Christian Era!23. We have seen above that new female members of the order were instructed by their preceptors, from the start of their careers. As they themselves advanced in accomplishment and seniority, they would in turn train other nuns. Nuns were taught by nuns, by monks, by the Buddha; nuns taught other nuns, taught lay-followers and the public, taught kings. Nuns travelled: this is known from inscriptions, from the monks' and nuns' rules 124, and other records125• Thus the order of nuns flourished not only in India, but also abroad, for example in Sri Lanka, and in Khotan and Kucha in Central Asia.

With the passage of time, the order declined and died out. Since Indian society has never been monolithic - and the status of women would never have been consistent throughout the vast and diverse continent -the process must have been gradual and piecemeal, occurring at a different pace, to a different degree, in different regions. The order may have flourished in one place, and withered in another, or even have waned and then waxed anew: surviving records are insufficient to determine what

122 For examples of colonial conceptions of Buddhism, see Scott 1994 and Almond 1988.

123 For further details see Skilling 1993-94. 124 See e.g. Hirakawa 1982, p. 337, or Theravadin bhikkhu pacittiya no. 27. 125 See above, references to Dfpavaf(lsa. As a boy KumarajIva travelled from Kucha

to India and back with his mother, who had become a nun: Watson 1993, p. xxv. In 429 and 433, nuns from Sri Lanka travelled by sea to China, where they assisted in the establishment of the nun's ordination lineage: see Tsai 1994, pp. 53-54.


happened. The factors that contributed to the decline, whether social (a parallel decline seems to have happened in "Indian" society) or internal (assertion or usurpation by the male order or male elites) remain to be defined.

In the early period, both nuns and laywomen were prominent sponsors of caitya-s, caves, and images. With the Gupta period the nature of Buddhist monument building changes: no longer do we meet with enduring edifices like the early caitya-s and caves, with their wealth of donative records carved in stone. Later monuments, constructed largely from brick and stucco, succumbed to the ravages of impermanence and war, and survive(if at all) as ruined foundations. If the practice of cooperative sponsorship continued, there is little evidence for it: either the donations were recorded on perishable materials, or the nature of sponsorship and recordkeeping had changed. Whatever the case, the body of available evidence shrinks from the Gupta period onwards, and the role of female donors becomes difficult to determine. We do know that women (laywomen more often than nuns) continued to dedicate images and manuscripts into the Pilla and Sena periods, but our records - scattered inscriptions and colophons - are fragmentary.

Gods and goddesses may enjoy fabulously long lives in their heavens, but on earth their cults rise and fall according to the whims of fickle humankind. Many of the early female deities, such as those listed in the Mahiisamaja-sutra, disappeared without trace, with a few exceptions, such as HarIti and SrI. But in the Mahayana and Vajrayana new goddesses and female bodhisattvas - such as Prajfiaparamita, Tara, or the five Paficarak~a deities - took their place, to play a vital role in day-to-day cult and practice126.

The present paper has only scratched the surface of a vast and complex topic. There is scope for much more research, investigation, and analysis, which should amplify, improve, and correct these preliminary findings. Dundas has noted that "female religiosity in south Asian religions is a subject which up to comparatively recently has been inadequately treated . .. as further ethnographic data about the role of women, both lay and ascetic, starts to appear, there should be a partial readjustment away from

126 Cf. Snellgrove 1987, pp. 150-152.

268 PETER SKIILING

the standard exclusively male-oriented perception of Jain society"127. The same holds for Buddhist society, history, religiosity. Texts - inscriptions and monuments, and ·the vast and largely unindexed Buddhist literature - wait to be read and interpreted. We should not expect the resultant data on the status of women to be consistent, especially in literature, since our texts belong to different periods and schools, and were composed, revised, and edited in different social milieux. I hope the present modest contribution to the social history of early India and early Buddhism, to some aspects of gender studies, is a step towards the sort of readJustment envisaged by Dundas for Jainism, and that it will inspire others to investigate the roles of women in Buddhism more thoroughly.

References

Unless otherwise noted, references to Pili texts are to the roman-script editions of the Pali Text Society (PTS), England, by page and line. References to Tibetan texts are to D.T. Suzuki (ed.), The Tibetan Tripitaka, Peking Edition, TokyoKyoto, 1955-61 (Q), by folio and line.

Abbreviations and titles

BCE BSR CE DipavaT(lsa

l)PPN

EB JPTS LL

PTe PTSD Q

Before Christian Era Buddhist Studies Review (London) Christian Era Hennann Oldenberg (ed., tr.), The DipavaT(lsa, An Ancient Buddhist Historical Record, [London, 1879] New Delhi, 1982. G.P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Ptili Proper Names, 2 vols., [London, 1937-38] New Delhi, 1983 Encycioptedia of Buddhism (Colombo) Journal o/the Pali Text Society (Oxford) H. Liiders, "A List of BrabmI Inscriptions from the Earliest Times to about A.D. 400 with the Exception of those of Moka", Appendix to Epigraphia Indica, Vol. X, Calcutta, 1912 (reference by list number) Pili Tipitakam Concordance The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary see above

127 Dundas 1992, p. 49.


SlIT Ernst Waldschmidt et al., Sanskrithandschriften aus den TurfanFunden, Wiesbaden, 1965-

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ClllNESE NUNS AND THEIR ORDINATION IN FIFTH CENTURY CHINA

ANNHEIRMAN

Introduction

According to the Pi-ch 'iu-ni chuan (It IT Ft:: f-', T.2063)1, a collection of biographies of Buddhist nuns (bhik-!w:zf) compiled by Pao-ch'ang between 516 and 519, the first Chinese nun was Chu Ching-chien (~ ~ t~, ca.292-361)2. When in the beginning of the fourth century, she wanted to become a nun, she was told that in China the rules for nuns were not complete3, but that in foreign countries these rules existed. Consequently, Chu Ching-chien, and twenty-four other women with her, at first received only the ten precepts for sriimal}erlS (novices)4 from a monk instructor. Later, in the middle of the fourth century, Chu Ching-chien and four other women were ordained before the bhik-!usarrzgha (community of monks) on the basis of a karmaviicanii (list of procedures) and of a pratimok-!a (list of rules) of the Mahasrup.gillka School. According to Z. Tsukamot05,

however, there is no evidence of the spread of these Mahasrup.gillka works. He hereby points to the fact that also after the ordination of the first nun, the search for disciplinary rules for the bhik-!ulJlsarrzgha (community of nuns) continued. Moreover, the fact that this ordination, contrary to what is imposed in the vinaya rules, could not take place before a twofold community (nuns and monks) led to discussion, as also mentioned in the biography of Chu Ching-chien6• An important step for the bhik-!ulJlsarrzgha in China was the translation of a Sarvastivada bhilG'julJfpriitimok-!a in 379-380 in Ch'ang-an. This (lost) text finally provided the bhik-!ulJlsarrzgha with

1 Translated by Tsai, 1994. 2 T.2063, pp.934c2-935a5. 3 On early sets of rules for nuns, see Tsukamoto, 1985: VoLl, 419, 423-430. 4 On the ten precepts, see Heirman, 2002: Part I, 66, 100. s Tsukamoto, 1985: VoU, 424. 6 T.2063, p.934c24-25.

Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies Volume 24 • Number 2.2001

276 ANNHEIRMAN

a solid basis7. The question, however, whether an ordiriation only held before the bhik~usal'{lgha is valid, remained. This is clear from the biography of the nuns Hui-kuo (1i:Jif!:, ca.364-433)8 and Seng-kuo ({1W:Jif!:, 408-?? ?)9 that contain the story of the re-ordination of more than three hundred nuns ca. 433, this time in the presence of an adequate quorum of (Sinhalese) nuns able to assure a proper transmission of the rules for women from the time of the Buddha. The permission for this ordination was given by the monk GUIJavarman (*13~Jijt"', 367-43l)l~. Among other things, GUI;J.avarman is known for his translation of the Szu-fen pich'iu-ni chieh-mo-fa ([9 7t It li ffi m J!' $;, T.1434), a karmavacana text for nuns of the Dharmaguptaka School. Therefore, S. Levi and E. Chavannesll are of the opinion that GUI;lavarman probably advocated an ordination according to the rules of the latter school. A. Hirakawa12,

however, considers T.1434 to be based on a karmavacana text for monks, entitled Chieh-mo (m J!', T.1433), that is itself a compilation based on the Chinese Dharmaguptakavinaya (T.1428).

As is evident from the above, the nuns were anxious to be ordained on a correct legal basis, as it was written down in the vinaya texts. The discussion reached its peak in the first half of the fifth century. By that time, four vinayas had been translated into Chinese: 1) the Mi-shasai pu ho-hsi wu-Jen lU (iJIIa ~ ~ ff~ fa §IE 7t ~, T.1421), Mahfsasakavinaya, translated by Buddhajlva, Hui-yen and Chu Tao-sheng between 422 and 423; 2) the Mo-ho-seng-ch'i lU (~~ {j" t1£~,

T.1425), Mahiisal'{lghikavinaya, translated by Buddhabhadra and Fa-hsien between 416 and 418; 3) the Szu-Jen iii ([9 7tjl , T.1428), Dharmaguptakavinaya, translated by Buddhayasas and Chu Fo-nien between 410 and 412; 4) the Shih-sung lU (+ ~fij~, T.1435), Sarvastivadavinaya, translated between 404 and 409 by Fu-jo-to-lo (Punyatrata/puI;lyatara), Kumarajlva and Dharmaruci, and revised a few

7 On this text, see Tsukamoto, 1985: VoLl, 424-426; Heinnan, 2000: 9-1l. 8 T.2063, p.937b18-c7. 9 T.2063, pp.939c6-940a3. 10 For a biography, see Shih, 1968: 125-137, a translation of Kao-seng chuan (~ ii {J!J:,

T.2059, pp.340a15-342blO). 11 Levi and Chavannes, 1916: 46. 12 Hirakawa, 1970: 202-218.

CHINESE NUNS AND THEIR ORDINATION IN FIFTH CENTURY CHINA 277

years later by Vimalak~a. In addition, a commentary on the priitimok~asi1tra of an unknown school13 (P'i-ni-mu ching, ffi ~ -B3: *'1., Vinayamiitrkii?, T.1463), translated at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, is extant.

The present article aims at examining all the ordination possibilities for women that are given in these texts, as well as the reactions upon them, hereby also taking the earliest Chinese commentaries into account. In this way, we can obtain a clear overview of all the data on the admittance of women into the saT[lgha as they were known in fifth century China. Also the Chinese attitude towards these different procedures can be revealed. This analysis brings all the different versions of the

story of MahaprajapatI and of the Sakya women to light, gives us some insight in the ordination of extraordinary women, and outlines the final ordination ceremony as it is strictly regulated by the Buddhist jurisprudence.

For comparative reasons, I have also included six more texts: 1) the Pali Vinaya 14, the Chinese translation of which - made at the end of the fifth century - was never presented to the emperor and was subsequently 10st15 ; 2) the Vinaya (for nuns) of the MahasatpghikaLokottaravadins16, preserved in an Indian language and never translated into Chinese, but closely related to the MahiisiiT[lghikavinaya; 3) the Millasarviistiviidavinaya 17, translated by I-ching between 700 and 711; 4) text 116 Ch'u-t'an-mi ching, V.;5IIH~, Sutra on Gautamf)18 of the

13 Demieville et aI., 1978: 125; Yuyama, 1979: 44. According to E. Lamotte (1958: 212), this text belongs to the Haimavata School. In the Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan, aPi' -ni-mu ching is linked to the Sarvastivada School (T.2063, p.947b29-cl). The story of MahaprajapatI itself ressembles the one of the Dharmaguptaka School.

14 Edited by H. Oldenberg, The Vinaya Pitakaf!!, London, 1879-1883. 15 Still, some ideas of the Pili Vinaya became known to the Chinese when in 488-489

the monk Sa!p.ghabhadra made a partial translation of the PaIi Samantaptistidikti, a fourth or fifth century commentary on the Pili Vinaya: Shan-chien lfj p'i-p'o-sha (~.l'Cl$lll~i:J,', T.l462).

For more details on Pili vinaya influence in China, see Heirman (forthcoming(a)). 16 Written in a transitional language between Prakrit and Sanskrit (Roth, 1970: lv-Ivi).

It has been edited by G. Roth, Bhik~ulJ[-Vinaya, Patna, 1970. 17 Ken-pen-shuo-i-ch'ieh-yu pu p'i-nai-ye (m 2js:IDt-tiJ 1llllH'I. ~lfIl, T.1442-T.1451).

Of the latter vinaya, a Tibetan translation as well as many Sanskrit fragments are extant. 18 A nearly identical text is T.60: Fo-shuo-ch'ii-t'an-mi-chi-kuo ching (ffllIDtl\\'~lJIli1c*~,

Sutra on the story of Gautamf), translated by Hui-chien in the fIfth century.

278 ANNHEIRMAN

Madhyamagama 19 translated by Gautama Sarp.ghadeva and Sarp.gharak~a between 397 and 398; 5) the Pi-nai-yeh <.~11~), T.1464, a vinaya text belonging to the Sarvastivada School and translated by Chu Fo-men in 3832°, that contains the story of the ordination of an extraordinary woman; 6) the Ta-ai-tao-pi-ch'iu-ni ching <* ~ m It..IT. ffi *Jll:, Satra on the bhik~Uflf Mahaprajapatf), T.1478, possibly translated in the first half of the fifth century. 21

1. The ordination of Mahaprajapati

1.1. The basic story

According to tradition, the first nun ever ordained was the Buddha's stepmother, MahaprajapatJ:. Her story appears in most vinayas, as well as in text 116 of the Madhyamagama22• In Table 1 below, I have listed the main elements of the story of MahaprajapatJ: in order to point out the differences or similarities between the several texts23 • The second table gives an overview of the reactions on the ordination, recorded in the same texts .

. )9 Chung-a-han ching (9) Iliif ~~, T.26), containing 222 siitras. The Chung-a-han ching has been attributed to the Sarvastivada School (Waldschmidt, 1980: 136-139; Bechert, 1985: VoLl, 48).

20 Yuyama, 1979: 7-8. 21 Hirakawa, 1970: 273-274; Demieville et aI., 1978: 126. 22 Although MahaprajapatI is traditionally seen as the first Buddhist nun, it is not

unlikely that the story of her ordination arose when the community of nuns already existed for some time (Homer, 1930: 102-103; Sponberg, 1992: 32, note 14; Harvey, 2000: 386-387; Williams: 2000).

23 For a comparison of the story contained in the Pali Vinaya and the one of a Sanskrit vinaya text belonging to the Miilasarvastivada School (Schmidt, 1994: 156-162), see Sponberg, 1992: 13-18, 32-35; Htisken, 1993: 151-165. The Sanskrit text has been edited by C.M. Ridding and L. de La Vallee Poussin in 1919 and was re-edited by M. Schmidt in 1993. In this paper, I have used the latter edition.


Table 1

Sources: Pali Vinaya: Vin II, pp.253-25824; Mahfsiisakavinaya, T.1421, pp.185b19-186b3; MahiisiiT(lghikavinaya, T.1425, pp.471a25-476b1l25 ; Vinaya of the Mah1isa~ghikaLokottaravadins, Roth (1970), ppA-72, §§2_11026 ; Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, pp.922c7-926b3; Sarviistiviidavinaya, T.1435, p.293b29-c9, p.345b29-c22, pAlOal0-1127; Mulasarviistiviidavinaya, T.1451, pp.350blO-352a25; Vinayamiitrkii?, T.1463, pp.803a22-b24; Madhyamiigama, T.26, text 116: Ch'ii-t'an-mi ching (Sutra on Gautaml), pp.605a8-607b17.

a) MahiiprajiipatI28 asks for the going forth/ordination. b) MahiiprajiipatI, her hair cut off and wearing the ka~aya (monastic robe), is

grieved about the Buddha's denial, and follows him together with many/ 500 Siikya women.

c) Ananda acts as a mediator. d) Ananda asks the Buddha whether or not women who have gone forth

can attain the four fruitions: the fruit of stream-entering (srotaapattiphala), of once-returning (sakrdagamiphala), of non-returning (anagamiphaZa), and of arhat (arhattvaphala). The Buddha answers in the affrrmative29•

e) Ananda refers to the extensive merit of MahiiprajiipatI towards the Buddha. She nursed and raised him.

f) Ananda refers to the fact that all earlier Buddha's had four groups of followers: monks, nuns, lay men and lay women30.

24 Translation: Horner, 1963 [1952]: 352-358. 25 T.1425 extensively discusses the eight fundamental rules (see note 31), but does

not report the story of MahaprajapatI's ordination. For this story, the text (p.471a26-27 and p.514b4) refers to a (non extant) sutra, namely the Sutra on the going forth of Mahiiprajiipati (*~~i:f:H!UUil!). Translation: Hirakawa, 1982: 47-98.

26 Translation: Nolot, 1991: 2-58. 27 T.l435 only gives an enumeration of the eight fundamental rules (see note 31), and

states that MahaprajapatI received the ordination by accepting these rules. 28 Variant: MahaprajapatI, accompanied by 500 Sakya women in T.1425, in the Vinaya

of the Ma-L., in T.1428, and in T.1451. 29 In T.1451, also MahaprajapatI asks this question, but is given no answer by the

Buddha. In T.26, both MahaprajapatI and Ananda ask the same question without receiving an answer.

30 In T.1421, p.185b26-27, the Buddha says that earlier Buddhas never allowed women to go forth. This is quoted by Tao-hsiian (M. VoL64, Szujen pi-ch'iu-ni ch'ao, ~ 5HtE.fM'J>, Commentary on the [part for] bhik~ulJfs of the Dharmaguptakavinaya, p.113a13-16) as the reason why the Buddha refused to ordain women.

280 ANNHEIRMAN

g) The Buddha fonnulates eight fundamental rules (gurudharina)31. Their mam aim is making the bhikifUl}'isaf!Lgha dependent upon the (superior) bhikifUSaf!Lgha: 1) even when a nun has been ordamed for one hundred years, she must rise up from her seat when seemg a newly ordamed monk, and she must pay obeisance, 2) a nun may not revile a monk saymg that he has done somethirJg wrong, 3) a nun may not punish a monk, nor admonish him, whereas a monk may admonish a nun, 4) after a woman has been tramed as a probationer for two years, the ordirJation ceremony must be carried out m both communities (i.e. first m the nuns' community, and then m the monks' community), 5) when a nun has committed a saf!Lghiivaseifa offense (an offense that leads to a 'temporary exclusion), she has to undergo the penance m both communities, 6) every fortnight, the nuns have to ask the monks for mstruction, 7) nuns cannot spend the sununer retreat (ramy season) m a place where there are no monks, 8) at the end of the summer retreat, nuns have to carry out the pravarar:za ceremony32 (also) m the monks' community.

h) Mahaprajapau receives the ordirJation through the acceptance of the eight fundamental rules33.

i) The (500) Sakya women i) are ordamed by the monks. ii) are ordamedby a chapter of 10 monks, by means of a jftapticaturtha

karman34, with Mahaprajapau as upadhyayini (teacher). iii) receive the ordmation through the acceptance of the eight fundamental

rules35. j) Mahaprajapau requests that nuns should be greeted by monks accordmg to

seniority. She thus asks the Buddha to relent on one of the fundamental rules. This request is denied because: i) m heterodox groups36 men do not greet women. ii) women are irIferior to men for various reasons (see below).

31 The eight rules differ only slightly from vinaya to vinaya. The rules here enumerated follow the Dharmaguptakavinaya. The eight rules were formulated most probably after the C

community of nuns had already existed for some time. For a discussion see, among others, Homer, 1930: 118-161; Nolot, 1991: 397-405; Hiisken, 1993: 154-164; Heirman, 1997: 34-43; Hiisken, 1997: 345-360; Heirman, 1998; Heirman, 2002: Part 1,63-65.

32 The praviirQ/}ii (or invitation) ceremony is held at the end of the summer retreat. On this occasion, every monk (and nun) is expected to invite his (her) fellow-monks (nuns) to point out his (her) wrongs, if any, whether seen, or heard, or suspected.

33 In T.1428 and T.145l, Mahaprajapan and the Sakya women accept the rules. 34 A jiiapticaturtha karman is a formal act consisting of one motion and three propo

sitions that concern the acceptance of the motion by the assembly of monks or nuns. Then follows a conclusion.

35 In T.1428 and T.1463 both Mahaprajapan and the 500 women accept the rules; in T.145l the acceptance by MahaprajapatI is valid also for the 500 women.

36 Here probably a reference to the Jains (Sponberg, 1992: 34-35, note 24).


a b c d e f g h j

Pili 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8(i) 9(i) T.1421 1 2 3 5 4 6 7 9(ii) . 8(ii)37 T.1425 1 2 Mli-L. 1 2 3 5 6 4 7 8 T.1428 1 2 3 5 4 6 7 8(iii) T.1435 1 2 T.1451 2 3 4 5 X38 6 7 8 (iii) 9(ii)39 T.1463 2 3 4 5 6 7(iii) T.26 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (ii)40

Table 2

a) The Buddhist doctrine will last for only 500 years instead of 100041 •

b) A Buddhist community with nuns is like a family with many women: it is weak and vulnerable.

37 Reasons: points a, b, k and I of Table 2. 38 Although this idea is not included in the story of MahaprajapatI, A.nanda uses it as

an argument when he is admonished for having helped women to go forth. For his defense, A.nanda in fact uses three arguments: he refers to the extensive merit of MahaprajapatI towards the Buddha, to the family ties that link her to the Buddha and to the fact that earlier Buddhas all had four groups of followers. These arguments are rejected because the merit of the Buddha towards MahaprajapatI is, given the fact that he brought her the doctrine, much higher than vice versa; because family ties may never playa role in the sa1'(lgha; and because at the time of the earlier Buddhas, people were all allowed to go forth because they had less desire than it is the case now (T.1451, ppA04c23-405a13).

39 Reasons: points a and 1 of Table 2. 40 Reasons: points a, k and I of Table 2. 41 Although, like the other vinayas, T.1428 states that due to the presence of women

the doctrine will end sooner, it has different figures and says that without women the doctrine would have lasted as long as 500 years (T.1428, p.923c9-1l). According to J. Nattier (1991: 30, note 12), this has to be seen as an error in textual transmission. On this prophecy of decline, see further Nattier, 1991: 28-33; Sponberg, 1992: 32-33, note 15. According to J. Nattier, this idea of decline appears only in the Sthavira side of the development of Buddhism, and not in the surviving literature of the Mahasarpghika Schools. It seems, however, that she left unnoticed a passage of the MahasaIp.ghikaLokottaravada School that does contain a similar message, saying that the doctrine will endure for only five hundred years now that women enter the monastic order (Roth, 1970, p.16, §12). Still, the context is slightly different. In the Vinaya of the MahasaIp.ghika-Lokottaravada School, the Buddha allows the ordination of women out of compassion for A.nanda who intervened on the women's behalf. It is then that the Buddha says: un vaut mieux que mon Saddharma ne dure que cinq cents ans" (translation, Nolot, 1991: 9).

282 ANNHEIRMAN

c) Women are like mildew in a paddy field. d) Women are like red rust in a sugar-cane field. e) Women are like an illness .in a grain field. ±) Women are like damaging weeds in a paddy or in a grain field42•

g) Women are like hail or frost in a paddy field. h) Women are like hail or frost;43 in a grain field. i) The eight fundamental rules are like a dyke around a water tank, or a dam to

stop water44. j) The eight fundamental rules are like a bridge/a boat to cross water: k) There are five positions women can never attain45• Thus women are inferior. 1) Lay people show more respect and offer more gifts to a community without

women.

a b c d e f g h j k I

Pili 1 2 3 4 5 T.1421 2 3 1 4 T.1425 Ma-L. 3 2 1 4 T.1428 4 1 2 3 T.1435 T.1451 6 1 3 X46 2 4 5 T.1463 3 1 2 T.26 5 1 2 3 6 '4

As can be seen from table 1, the story of MahliprajlipatI, despite many details, is essentially the same in all texts: MahliprajlipatI is given the ordination after the mediation by Ananda, who emphasizes the great merit of the Buddha's stepmother, and who refers to the fact that women can atti).in the four fruitions, just as men can. Each text also contains a very . .

42 Although T.26 and T.60 are two very similar texts, they differ on this item. Accord-ing to T.60, p.856c3-6, women are like hail in a paddy or a grain field.

43 As well as wind and rain (T.1451). 44 Just as the ocean is stopped by the shore (Mii-L.). 45 T.1421: I) Sakra devendra (7i:'IIf~), 2) Mara (1J17i:.:EJ, 3) Brahmii (~7i:.3:.), 4) Sover

eign of the world ($$;j;\~.3:, Cakravartin), 5) King of the three realms (=:",rt..3:): Buddha. T.26: I) Tathiigata, The one without fetters, The one who is fully enlightened (:liD * l\ PIi' 'I' ~ 1£ ~; Tathiigata, Arhat, SamyaksaIp.buddha), 2) Sovereign of the world ($$fi\.3:, Cakr~vartin), 3) Sakra devendra (7i:'iiI'~), 4) Mara (1Il.3:), 5) Brahmii (*~7i:). For a discussion, see Harvey, 2000: 371-373.

46 This item is not included in the story of MahiiprajiipatI, but appears when Ananda is being admonished for having helped women to go forth (T.145I, pA04c26-27).

CIllNESE NUNS AND THEIR ORDINATION IN FIFTH CENTURY CHINA 283

similar list of eight fundamental rules to be accepted by MahaprajapatI as a condition for her ordination. It is remarkable that four texts also indicate that MahaprajapatI later tried to alleviate one of these rules, by requesting that monks and nuns should greet one another according to seniority.

Table 2 further shows that also the reaction to the ordination of MahaprajapatI is similar in all the texts examined. Three of the four attitudes distinguished by A. Sponberg (1992) in his article on gender roles in Buddhism, clearly appear. A. Sponberg defines a first attitude as 'soteriological inclusiveness': women and men can both attain the highest Buddhist goal. Indeed, none of the above texts denies that women can become arhats, just as men can. Also a second attitude, 'institutional androcentrism,' is clearly recognizable. All texts enumerate eight fundamental rules that make nuns inferior to and totally dependent upon the monks' community, just as women were expected to be inferior to and dependent upon men in the illdian society. This is clearly exemplified by the fact that even a very experienced nun still has to pay respect to an only recently ordained monk, even after the explicit request of MahaprajapatI to alleviate this rule. This request is denied for three major reasons. First, women are inferior members of the community, as can been seen from the fact that they are excluded from five high positions in the world, open to men (T.1421, T.26). Secondly, lay people show more respect to a community without women (T.1421, T.1451, T.26). Since lay people are the benefactors of the community, the community tries not to offend them47• ill this sense, it was already a risk or even a mistake to have accepted women. The very least one could still do, was giving them an inferior position. The third reason emphasizes the danger of women. Women weaken the community so that it lastsless long (T.1421, T.1451, T.26). This brings us to the third attitude distinguished by A. Sponberg, 'ascetic misogyny'. A. Sponberg hereby indicates that this misogynist view is often found in discussions on ascetic purity. ill the story of MahaprajapatI, however, the danger of

47 Although this attitude is prominent in the story of Mahaprajapati, we should not forget that many patrons of the community were women and that their support was significant. See Sponberg, 1992: 5-7.

284 ANNHEIRMAN

women for the community is emphasized, without indicating what this danger exactly is. The only danger mentioned is the one of less income due to the lack of respect lay benefactors have for women. Women are thus not seen as a danger for the ascetic life of monks, but as a potential danger to the community, a danger that can only be guarded off by the eight fundamental rules, that imply the inferiority of nuns towards monks, or, the control of the monks' community over the nuns' community. This is clearly stressed as fundamental, and is illustrated as a dyke around a water tank. Two texts offer a more balanced view: T.1428 and T.26 not only present women as a dangerous, weakening factor in the community, but also picture them as beings who are themselves more vulnerable to danger than men are. In these texts, the eight fundamental rules are not seen as a dyke to protect the community for women, but as a bridge or a boat to help women to overcome the dangers of the world.

In conclusion, the story of Mahaprajapati tells us that soteriologically women are not inferior to men. Socially and institutionally, however, they are. This also seems to be the main reason why, according to the story of Mahaprajapati, women are to be seen as a danger to the community. They weaken the community, and thus the doctrine, by making it less respected. This danger can only be countered if the monks strictly control the nuns' community. Two texts add a more positive note to the latter theme. Monks do not only fight the danger of a less respected community by supervising the bhik~unlsarrzgha, but they also offer the nuns a way to get across the dangers of the world.

1.2. MahaprajapatI re-written

bfthe three attitudes mentioned above, it is the last one, misogyny, that is emphasized in the Ta-ai-tao-pi-ch'iu-ni ching (* j'f 3![ It li IE *ilL Sutra on the bhik~ur;r Mahaprajapatf), T.1478, a later vinaya text. It is uncertain when and by whom the text has been translated48 , but it was

48 Although the text has been classified as a translation by the earliest catalogues (see note 51), A. Hirakawa points out (1970: 273-274) that it cannot be totally excluded that it is a Chinese compilation.


extant in the first half of the fifth century49. From several references to and quotations of this text found in early Chinese vinaya commentaries50,

it is further clear that it attained a certain popularity. Although classified among Hinayana vinaya translations by the earliest catalogues51, many elements in the text refer to Mahayana ideas: the wish to instaure Mahayana (p.950a4-5), the wish of a sriimalJeri to save her parents and all human beings (p.947a18), the references to bodhisattvas (p.945c21, p.948b10, 25), to the three kinds of prajftii52 (p.952c7 -17), and to prajftiipiiramitii as the only relevant study object that nuns can consult monks about (p.946c13). The first part of the text is the story of MahaprajapatI' s ordination (T.1478, pp.945b25-949cll). Compared to the earlier versions, we see that, although the essential framework is still there, many elements have been significantly changed:

49 See note 21. 50 Szu-Jen /il shan-Jan pu-ch'ueh hsing-shih ch 'ao (lZ!l5T $IIIHlIHiIi 1M IT ¥ &1>, An

abridged and explanatory commentary on the Dharmaguptakavinaya), compiled by Taohsiian (596-667), references: T.1804, p.137a18, p.151b28; quotation: p.153b5-6 (abridged from T.1478, p.952b15-17). The same quotation in Szu-Jen /il shan-pu sui-i chieh-mo (lZ!l5T 1* fflIiHiiHJ!lli't m m, An abridged and explanatory karmaviicanii oj the Dharmaguptakavinaya), T.1808, p.498c21, and in Szu-Jen pi-ch'iu-ni ch'ao (lZ!l5TttJiffi~.J>, Commentary on the [partJor] bhik:jUlJls oJ the Dharmaguptakavinaya), M. VoL64, p.1l4b5-7, both equally compiled by Tao-hsiian. In the latter text also: p.67 a13 (although indicated as a quotation, it is not in T.1478), p.1l4a17-18 (corresponds to T.1478, p.946c9-11), p.158bl-2 (not in T.1478). See further also Fan-wang ching p'u-sa-chieh pen-shu ('l;IJf~i\ilI·1;fiill!li:*w.f, Commentary on the bodhisattva rules oj the Brahma's net sutra), compiled by Fa-tsang (643-712), quotation: T.1813, p.636bl-9 (corresponds to T.l478, p.947b25-c3).

51 Li-tai san-pao chi (llHI;;::::JUc), compiled by Fei Ch'ang-fang in 597, T.2034, p.1l9c4; Chung-ching mu-lu (1UHl ~), compiled by Fa-ching et al. in 594, T.2146, p.140b22; Chung-ching mu-lu (*MJl. § ~), compiled by Yen-ts'ung et aL in 602, T.2147, p.155b28; Chung-ching mu-lu U/i:MJl. § ~), compiled by Ching-fai et al. in 664, T.2148, p.188alO; Ta-t'ang nei-tien lu (*I!-f*J~~), compiled by Tao-hsiian in 664, T.2149, p.300b26 et passim; Ta-chou k'an-ting chung-ching mu-lu (*)lij ftl;iE *MJl. § ~), compiled by Ming-ch'iian et al. in 695, T.2l53, p.433b27 et passim; K'ai-yuan shih-chiao lu (fMlji';fU:'<~), compiled by Chih-sheng in 730, T.2154, p.695a14 et passim; Chen-yiian hsin-ting shih-chiao mu-lu (J)tji';!/Ji;iE~~ § ~), compiled by Yiian-chao in 800, p.1042c26 et passim.

52 This refers to lHlli!lt1l', prajfzii (wisdom) in its essence or reality;lil!!\\liJlt1l', prajfzii of perceiving the real meaning of the last; )( "" iJlt 1l', prajfzii of knowing things in their temporary and changing condition (Soothill, 1987 [1937]: 75).

286 ANNHEIRMAN

Table l'

a) MahaprajapatI asks for the 'ordination because she has heard that women can attain the four fruitions.

b) MahaprajapatI follows the Buddha together with several old mothers. She is very sad because women are hindered by so many bad attitudes: women constantly endanger and delude men.

c) .Ananda acts as a mediator. d) .Ananda reminds the Buddha that women (mothers) can attain the four fruitions.

He therefore asks for their ordination. This is refused because women endanger high-principled (male) members of the order, just as they weaken a family, like calamities or thorns that destroy a paddy or a grain field.

e) .Ananda refers to the extensive merit of MahaprajapatI towards the Buddha. She nursed and raised him. This is acknowledged by the Buddha.

f) (.Ananda refers to the fact that all earlier Buddha's had four groups of followers: monks, nuns, lay men and lay women): not in T.1478.

g) The Buddha formulates eight fundamental rules (gurudharma), that are compared to a dyke stopping water. These rules totally deviate from the rules in the above texts. Only the rule that a nun can never be greeted by a monk is preserved. The rules ofT.1478 are less technical and generally intend to form a barrier against allegedly feminine bad habits: 1) nuns must receive the doctrine from monks, and they should not ridicule it or make fun of it, 2) a nun must always honour and certainly never detract a young monk, 3) nuns and monks should never stay in each other's company, since this will unevitably enlighten the desires, 4) nuns themselves should check the nuns' community for bad habits (without the help, and thus without the presence, of monks), 5) nuns cannot demand justice of a monk; if a monk accuses a nun, the nuns themselves should examine the case, without shouting or without reviling the monk, 6) if there is any doubt among the nuns, they can ask the monks for help, but only on prajfuiparamita; they should not consult monks on trivial matters, 7) a nun cannot on her own follow the path; if she offends against a

. rule, she has to confess it at the fortnightly meeting and reject her arrogant and contemptuous attitude, 8) even when a nun has been ordained for one hundred years, she must rise up from her seat when seeing a newly ordained monk, and she must pay obeisance to him.

h) MahaprajapatI receives the going forth through the acceptance of the eight fundamental rules. After this, the Buddha enumerates forty rules to be followed by a novice (pp.947a9-948c25). The first ten rules are partially based on the ten rules for novices of the above vinaya texts53 . The forty rules aim at restraining all kinds of bad behavior, and at promoting a pure and ascetic life, and respect towards the teacher. MahaprajapatI then proves that she

53 See note 4.


is able to strictly keep up all these rules. Thereupon, she receives the full ordination.

i) (No reference to the (500) Sakya women.) j) MahaprajapatI requests that nuns should be greeted by monks according to sen

iority. The answer is negative because: * people show more respect and offer more gifts to a community without

women. * due to women, the doctrine will last for only 500 years instead of 1000. * women are inferior; proof: there are five positions54 that women can never

attain. * women are like venomous snakes. People kill them. But even when a snake

is dead, people still fear it. In the same way, people still fear women even when they are sramalJas. The venom is still there. Therefore women should pay respect even to a male novice of only eight years old.

* the arhat-ship of women is much less valuable than the arhat-ship of men.

This ends the story of MahaprajapatI' s ordination. It is followed by many further rules for women and by further proofs of inferiority: * When MahaprajapatI asks whether women can be saved, the Buddha

answers that nuns who strictly follow all the rules can, in the present world, first become men and then attain buddhahood (p.949c12-18). He also gives a few examples55 (pp.949c18-950a15).

* The Buddha then adds many other rules that aim at destroying all bad attitudes (pp.950a22-952b7). If a woman strictly follows these rules, she can become a man and attain buddhahood (p.950b3-6, p.951b20-2356).

* As for the question whether a woman can become a teacher, the Buddha answers that she can, provided all the monks agree. He then gives some details on the carreer of a nun (p.952b8-c25).

* The last part of the texts states that women are a threat to all living beings, including plants. This is because they all have 84.000 bad attitudes. Only if they can get rid of these attitudes, they can become arhats (pp.952c25-955a13).

54 1) Tathagata, The one without fetters, The one who is fully enlightened (jm*~JJI,~.iE<}!; Tathagata, Arhat, SamyaksaJTlbuddha), 2) Sovereign of the world ("*ii~.:E, Cakravartin), 3) Brahma (~t'ltx.:E), 4)lIH'f j! ~: according to H. Nakamura (1985 [1981]: 1127), this is an old term for" *ii ~.:E, Cakravartin; variant readings of T.1478 instead have Sakra devendra (x"iH~), 5) Mara (ll\I:x.:E). See also note 45.

55 He refers to the story of Sumati (see further Paul, 1985 [1979]: 199-211) and to the story of seven royal daughters (see further Paul, 1985 [1979]: 15-25).

56 This passage also indicates that a woman first has to become a man before she can attain the four fruitions.

288 ANNHEIRMAN

a b c d e f g h j

T.1478 1 2 3 5 6 7 8

As we can see from the above, the main framework of the story is still there, but the content has significantly changed. The possibility of women attaining the four fruitions is only briefly hinted at. Also the fact that nuns are institutionally inferior to men only gets little attention. The main emphasis is now on femininity itself, the ·basic characteristic of women being that they spread destruction among men. Although, just as in the earlier texts, women are still seen as a danger, the reason why has significantly changed. They are no longer seen as a threat to the community because they make it socially less respected, but are now considered as an unevitable threat to the goals of Buddhist men personally. Femininity itself is the cause of failureS? This is also the main message quoted from T.1478 by Tao-hstian (596-667) in his commentaries on vinaya58 : since women only want to be lustful and to take advantage of disciples, and since they do not want to study and only know trivial things, women will never be able to become religious mendicants (sramar;a) without a bhilqusarrzgha. T.1478 further also warns that even as religious mendicants, women remain viciously dangerous, just as snakes are. It is, in this view, only logical to claim that women first have to become men before they can attain the final goal of liberations9• In this sense, this story of MahaprajapatI shows to be a good example of severe 'ascetic misogyny' as distinguished by A. Sponberg6o. Women are responsible for constantly trying to debauch men61• According to A. Sponberg, this kind of misogynist attitude probably gained importance by the fact that some factions

57 For instance, one of the thoughts women always have to keep in mind is: 'if one has received a female shape, one is bound to lust and one cannot constrain oneself' (p.951b14-15); or 'women impede $emselves (on the way to liberation), (p.952c24"25), or 'women cannot straighten their mind, how could they straighten the mind of other people; women cannot save themselves,how could they save other people; women live in sin, how could they free other people' (p.953c1 0-12).

58 Corresponding to T.1478, p.952b15-17. See also note 50. 59 For further discussion, see Harrison, 1987: 76-79; Harvey, 2000: 373-376, Harvey,

2001: 70-72. 60 Sponberg, 1992: 18-24. 61 For instance: 'they confuse men and detract them from the path, from virtue [ ... J.

There is no man in the world who has not been misled by women' (p.946a8-1O).


in the community were seeing liberation more and more in terms of ascetic purification, im attitude typical of later Mahayana texts.

1.3. MahaprajapatI as an example to the Chinese nuns

Although the reactions on the ordination of MahaprajapatI were not positive, in fifth century China, women candidates for. ordination still refered to her as the example to follow. When the discussion on the validity ofa nun's ordination that was only held before the bhik~usa'!lgha reached its peak, the Chinese nun Hui-kuo asked whether Chinese women could receive the ordination in the way that MahaprajapatI did62.

She too did not receive the ordination from the bhik~ulJfsa'!lgha. As mentioned in the Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan63 , the central Asian monk GUl).avarman was of the opinion that there was no difference between MahaprajapatI and the Chinese women. The Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan is not clear as to why GUl).avarman accepted MahaprajapatI's ordination as a precedent, but it seems to suggest that he put the absence of a bhik~W:lfsa'!lgha at the time of the first ordination in China at the same level as the absence of nuns at the time of MahaprajapatI's ordination. In both countries, the ordination of the first nun necessarily had to be carried out without a bhik~ulJfsa'!lgha64. However, when the nun Hui-kuo insisted on the case, GUl).avarman added that according to the vinaya rules, a candidate must receive the ordination from a minimum quorum of ten fully ordained nuns, except in border areas where five nuns are sufficient. When asked what exactly a border area is, he seems to consider also China as belonging to it, in which case a minimum quorum of five nuns is needed65•

This explains why GUl).avarman says: "The correct view is that, if there is an established assembly present, one carmot but go along with all the requirements "66.

62 T.2063, p.937b25-27. 63 T.2063, p.937b27. 64 See also T.2063, p.941a18-19: "GUl).avannan said: 'Since China did not have both

sal!1ghas, the women were ordained by the bhikifUSal!1gha only.'" 65 T.2063, p.937c3-4: a border area is an area beyond a thousand Chinese miles or

where oceans and mountains create a barrier. 66 T.2063, p.937c2-3, translation by Tsai, 1994: 37.

290 ANNHEIRMAN

The consideration of the ordination of Mahaprajapafi as a precedent and the validity of the nuns' ordination are again discussed in detail in the biography of the nun Seng-kuo. Although she considered the ordination of MahaprajapatI and the five hundred Sakya women as a precedent, she too had some doubts and consulted GUI).avarman on the subject. GUI).avarman agreed with her understanding, but still did not object to a second ordination, now in the presence of foreign nuns. Hereby, the first ordination was to remain valid. The second ordination only serves to enhance the prestige of the bhik~ulJisaf!lgha67.

Although GUI).avarman thus allowed to extend the case of MahaprajapatI to the Chinese nuns, such an extension is never permitted by the vinayas or by the vinaya commentaries68 • The Sarvastivadavinaya explicitly says that only one person could ever be ordained as MahaprajapatI (T.1435, p.4lOa23). This statement is repeated in a commentary on the Sarvastivadavinaya, the Sa-p'o-to p'i-ni p'i-p'o-sha (iii~§' mffim~y,:!»69, T.1440, p.5llb3-4. Another commentary on the Sarvastivadavinaya, the Sa-p'o-to-pu p'i-ni mo-te-Ie-ch'ieh (iii ~ §, ff~ m ffi .1~ 1ji;!J fiJoFo, T.1441, p.594b8, says that after the ordination by means of a jfzapticaturtha karman 71 had been set up, an ordination based on the acceptance of the eight fundamental rules was no longer possible.

2. The ordination of the five hundred Sakya women

Numerous Sakya women, often said to be five hundred, are recorded to have accompanied MahaprajapatI on her way to the Buddha. While for MahaprajapatI the acceptance of the eight fundamental rules equals an ordination, this is not always the case for the Sakya women. On this point, the vinaya texts differ. The Pilii Vinaya (Vin II, pp.256-257) states that the women should be ordained by monks. They could in fact not yet receive the ordination in both communities, since at that time there was no com-

67 T.2063, p.939c14-21. Also in his biography, GUJ;tavannan is said to express the same ideas (Kao-seng chuan, T.2059, p.341b2-7).

68 See also Hiisken, 1997: 364-365. 69 Probably translated after the translation of the Sarviistiviidavinaya and before 431

(Yuyama, 1979: 8-9). 70 Translated by SaqIghavannan in 435 (Yuyama, 1979: 8). 71 See note 34.


munity of nuns yet, but only one nun, MahaprajapatI. A similar viewpoint is expressed by the MahWlsakavinaya (T.l421, p.lS6a2S-b3): the Sakya women have to be ordained before a chapter of ten monks by means of a jftapticaturtha karman. MahaprajapatI is the upadhyayinf (teacher). A maximum of three women can be ordained at the same time. The Dharmaguptakavinaya (T.142S, p.923cS-9; p.926a27-b3) sees it differently and states that the acceptance of the eight fundamental rules is a valid ordination for both Mahaprajapau and the Sakya women72. The same idea is also put forward by the MLilasarvastivadavinaya (T.1451, p.351c1-27).

In the Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan, the ordination of the five hundred Sakya women is taken as an example for the Chinese women by the nun Sengkuo. On the question asked by some Sinhalese nuns on how the Chinese bhik-!ulJzsaf(lgha came into being, she answers that they took MahaprajapatI and the five hundred Sakya women as a precedent. Just as MahaprajapatI received the ordination by accepting the eight fundamental rules, and just as Mahaprajapau was then seen as the upadhytiyinz for the Sakya women, in the same way can the Chinese women receive ordination73• This seems to imply that Seng-kuo considers MahaprajapatI to be the prominent teacher, whose example was followed by both the Sakya women and the Chinese women. As seen above, this kind of extension is not allowed by the vinaya texts.

3. The ordination of an extraordinary woman

The P'i-ni-mu ching c.~!b £'H~), T.1463, a commentary on the pratimok-!asutra of an unknown school74 and the Pi-nai-yeh Ol ~ $), T.l464, a vinaya text belonging to the Sarvastivada School and translated by Chu

72 This is confirmed by the karmaviicanii text for nuns Ni chieh-mo (~/f'lilil') of the DharmaguptakaSchool(compiled by Huai-su in 676, see Yuyama, 1979: 35-36), T.181O, p.540cI9-20. This also seems to be the viewpoint of the Sa-p' o-to-pu p 'i-ni mo-te-le-ch'ieh (iiI~~1l~f'I,ffi,l1l!11~1(ih{iJD), T.1441 (see note 70), p.594a22-23 and p.594b3: MahaprajapatI and others (~), presumably the Sakya women (compare the same expression in T.1428, p.923c5) receive the ordination by accepting the eight rules. A similar idea also in the P'i-ni-mu ching (f'I,ffiill:!ilO, T.1463 (see note 13), p.803bI2-24: all women present accept the eight rules and consequently become nuns.

73 T.2063, p.939c17-18. 74 See note 13.

292 ANNHEIRMAN

Fo-nien in 383, both refer to the ordination accorded to an extraordinary woman. The P'i-ni-mu ching (T.1463, p.803b26-c4) relates how once, when the Buddha was in StavastI, a matmigf woman75 came to see him. When the Buddha explained the doctrine to her, she immediately understood it and she obtained the fruit of stream-attainment. The Buddha then gave her the ordination by welcoming her into the Buddhist order16.

In the Pi-nai-yeh (T.l464, pp.863b16-864c12), we find a longer version of this story. It is the story of the calJ4ala woman Pra1qti77 who at- fIrst was attracted by the monk Ananda. In order to get him for herself she bewitched him, but Ananda was saved by reciting the words of the Buddha. Pra1qti, however, did not give up and followed Ananda wherever he went. Ananda then asked the Buddha for help. The Buddha advised him to bring her along. When Pra1qti heard the Buddhist doctrine from the Buddha, she at once obtained the fruit of stream-attainment. Her parents, who accompanied her, became lay followers and obtained the fruit of non-returning. Finally, the Buddha ordered Ananda to bring Pra1qti to MahaprajapatI for ordination. She received the ordination because she had already attained the fruit of stream-attainment. Once ordained, she reached arhat-ship78.

The above story points out that it is possible for a woman of a low class to be admitted into the Buddhist order on account of an extraordinary capability to understand the Buddhist doctrine, even if before, she was a tricky woman. This goes beyond the story of MahaprajapatI who was a

75 /ll!! ~tll;, mo-teng-ch'i: a phonetic rendering of miitatzgf, a woman of the lowest class, a cal:ujiilii woman (Monier-Williams, 1990 [1899]: 806; Nakamura, 1985 [1981]: 1279).

76 ~*~~: the ordination by welcoming someone into the order. 77 /jj;f*~, chan-ch' a-Io, a phonetic rendering of cal:ujiilii, a woman of the lowest and

most despised of the mixed tribes (Monier-Williams, 1990 [1899]: 383; Nakamura, 1985 [1981]: 838). Further in the text, she is also qualified as a miitatzgf woman (/ll!!Wfim, mo-teng-ch'ieh, see note 75). Her name was ~El!:1i, po-chi-t'i, Pra1qti (Akanuma, 1979 [1967]: 511-512).

78 Similar stories are told in T.551, Fo-shuo-mo-teng-nu ching, ffllIDI:/ll!!W~~ (Satra on the miitatzgf girl), the translation of which is attributed to An Shih-kao (second century AD) (Demieville et aI., 1978: 59-60), p.895a6-c13; in T.552, Fo-shuo-mo-teng-nu-chiehhsing-chung-liu-shih ching, ffllIDI:/ll!!llB~milll q, t;~~ (Satra on the miitatzgf girl and the six senses), translated between 317-420 (Demieville et aI., 1978: 60), pp.895c21-896b25; in T.l300, Mo-teng-ch'ieh ching, If! ~ fhu ~ (Satra on the miitatzgf girl), translated by Chu Lli-yen and Chih Ch'ien in the third century (Demieville et aI., 1978: 114), pp.399c28-401 b9; and in T.1301, She-t' ou-chien-t' ai-tzu-erh-shih-pa-su ching, ~ilIiiilll;il;:T = + J\ m~ (Satra on Sardztlakan;za and the twenty-eight constellations), translated by Dharmarak~a (ca. 265-313) (Demieville et al., 1978: 114), pp.410b28-411bI7.


member of one of the highest classes in society, and whose admittance into the order was not based on her exceptional capability. She obtained orily the opportunity to atttain the four fruitions. On the other hand, Mahaprajapan, never seen as a tricky person, opened the way to all women who want to become a nun, while the mtitangf!ca1Jr!tilti woman is presented as one exceptional case.

4. The ordination in both sarrzghas through a jiiapticaturtha karman

Once a bhik~u1Jlsarrzgha had been established, the only way to receive an ordination was through an ordination ceremony in both sarrzghas by means of a jiiapticaturtha karman 79. This obligation is one of the eight fundamental rules accepted by Mahaprajapan, and is never to be transgressed. It assures the proper and uninterrupted transmission of the rules for women from the time of the Buddha onwardso•

As already mentioned above, this obligation created a major problem in China. In the absence of a bhik~u1Jfsarrzgha, the first Chinese nun was ordained in the presence of a chapter of monks only. At first, the vinaya master GUI).avarman did not seem to consider this a problem, maybe because he thought that China was that far away from India that it was permitted to nuns to follow in Mahaprajapan's footsteps and to start all over again. However, pressed by more questions, he agreed to a new ordination, this time in the presence of a chapter of Sinhalese nuns. Doing so, he never said that the fIrst ordination was invalid, he only said that a second ordination would augment the value of the first oneS1 • In what follows, I examine all the criteria mentioned by the Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan to have a legally valid (second) ceremony: • a woman candidate must have studied for two years (as a sik~amtiT}ti,

probationer) before she can be ordained (p.937b28-29). This is in accordance with all the vinayasS2•

79 For details on this ceremony,> see Heirman, 1997; Heirman, 2002: Part 1,75-79: 80 The survival of a community relies on an uninterrupted ordination tradition (Bechert,

1961: 45; Kieffer-Piilz, 1992: 28; Harvey, 2001: 71). 81 T.2063, p.939c20-21, p.941a21-22. See also the biography of GllI}avarman, T.2059,

p.341b2-5. 82 All the vinayas state that during the two years that precede her ordination, a woman

has to undergo a special training (for details see Heirman, 2002: Part 1,67-75).

294 ANNHEIRMAN

a woman candidate must be of sufficient age (p.941a22-bl)83, most probably twenty as said in all the vinayas84. a 'small district'85 (,ordination platform') has to be established (p.939c23). a chapter of at least ten (in border regions five) legally ordained nuns must be present (p.937c1-3; p.939c21-22)86.

All the vinayas indicate a minimum number of monks and nuns to be present at an ordination ceremony. To ordain a male candidate; ten monks are needed in the bhik~usaT(lgha. ill border regions, a group of five monks is sufficient87. To ordain a female candidate, most vinayas state that ten nuns are required for the first ceremony in the bhik~ulJISaT(lgha, and ten monks for the second ceremony in the bhik~usaT(lgha88. ill border regions,

83 After the ordination question of the Chinese nuns had been settled ca. 433, there is only one reason put forward why an ordination can still be declared invalid, and a second ordination can possibly be allowed, namely when at the fIrst ordination the candidate was not of sufficient age. See also the biography of GUl).avarman, T.2059, p.341b3-4.

84 On the age of a candidate, see Heirman, 2002: Part T, 82-88. 85 Any formal act has to be carried out within a well delimited district (sima). In order

to have a legally valid formal act, every monk or nun present in that district has to attend the ceremony. In case a formal act can be carried out without the presence of all monks/nuns of the usual sima (valid, for instance, for the po~adha ceremony, see note 97), a small sfma (in the Pali Vinaya, khalJl/asima; in the Samantapasadika, also sfmamalaka and sfmamalJl/ala) can be delimited. This is the case for the ordination ceremony when a chapter of ten monks/nuns is sufficient. See Kieffer-Piilz, 1992: 27-28, 192-194. To all probability, the Chinese term 1IJ'1. (T.2063, p.939c23) corresponds to this small district (cf. Nakamura, 1985 [1981]: 942, s.v. II: malJl/ala; Heirman, 2002: Part ill, 1046, s.v. sima: J'I.).

86 See also the biography of GUl).avarman, T.2059, p.341b5-7. 87 Pali Vinaya, Vin T, pp.58-59, 197, 319; Mahfsasakavinaya, T.1421, p.144b28-29,

p:162cl6-18; Mahasaf!lghikavinaya, T.1425, p.416a19-22, p.422b4-8; Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, p.846a4-6, p.886a25-27; Sarvastivadavinaya, T.1435, p.219c25-28; M illasarvastivadavinaya, T.1447, pp.1052clO-1053a3.

88 Pali Vinaya, Vin n, pp.271-273 (fIrst ceremony in the bhik:tulJfsaf!lgha; the number of nuns is not explicitly mentioned), pp.273-274 (second ceremony in the bhi4usaf!lgha; the number of monks is not explicitly mentioned); Mahfsasakavinaya, T.1421, p.187c7-8 (10 nuns), p.188b3ff. (the bhikIfusaf!lgha is addressed; the number of monks is not explicitly mentioned); Mahasaf!lghikavinaya, T.1425, p.473c24-26 (at least 10 nuns and 10 monks); Vinaya of the Mahasfuylghika-Lokottaravadins, Roth (1970), p.50, §67 (at least 10 nuns and 10 monks); Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, p.763b24, p.763c28-29 (10 nuns), p.925a27ff., p.926a20 (the bhikIfusaf!lgha is addressed; the required number of nuns (10, see note 89) and monks has to be present; the number of monks is not explicitly mentioned); Sarvastivadavinaya, T.1435, p.331b16-17, p.333a15-16, a29-b1, 8-9, 17 (fIrst ceremony in the bhikIfulJfsaf!lgha; the number of nuns is not explicitly mentioned), p.331aI8-19ff., p.332c28-29ff. (second ceremony in


five nuns and five monks can presumably carry out the ordination. The number of nuns to be present at the ceremony in the bhik~usaf!lgha is generally also ten.89 These figures are confirmed by the Commentary on the {part for] bhik~ulJfs of the Dharmaguptakavinaya compiled by Tao-hsiian: for the first ceremony in the bhik~ulJfsaf!lgha, ten nuns are required. In border areas only five. For the second ceremony in the bhik~usaf!lgha, there must be ten nuns and ten monks90•

In China, the presence of fully ordained nuns became possible when in 429, a foreign boat captain named Nan-t'i (it :m:) brought several91 Buddhist nuns from Sri Lanka to Nan-ching, the capital of the Southern Sung dynasty92. Although GUIJavannan had agreed to a new ordination in the presence of foreign nuns, the Chinese nuns still had to wait until a sufficient number of Sinhalese nuns had arrived in China93 • This was the case ca. 43394• By that time, however, GUIJavannan had died and the ceremony was guided by another monk, Smp.ghavannan95. He was well acquainted with vinaya and translated a commentary (T.l441) on the Sarviistiviidavinaya.

the bhikeusarrzgha; both communities have to be present; 10 monks are required); Mi1lasarviistiviidavinaya, Schmidt (1993), p.256 (at least 12 nuns and 10 monks) (see also T.1451, p.352a26-27: for nuns, there are formal procedures that require four, five, or twelve nuns; in addition, there are formal procedures carried out in both sarrzghas).

89 PaIi Vinaya, Yin n, pp.273-274 (nuns accompany the candidate; the exact number is not mentioned); Mahfsiisakavinaya, T.1421, p.l88a23-24 (10 nuns accompany the candidate); Mahiisiil!lghikavinaya, T.1425, p.473a28 (the upiidhyiiyinl (and maybe other nuns, see the Vinaya of the Mahasfup.ghika-Lokottaravadins) accompanies the candidate); Vinaya of the Mahiisfup.ghika-Lokottaravadins, Roth (1970), pp.43-44, §57 (the bhikeUlJIsal!lgha accompanies the candidate); Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, p.925a25-26 (the bhikeUlJIsarrzgha accompanies the candidate); Sarviistiviidavinaya, T.1435, p.332c27 (the bhikeUlJIsarrzgha accompanies the. candidate); Mulasarviistiviidavinaya, Schmidt (1993), p.256 (the bhikeUlJIsarrzgha accompanies the candidate).

See also Kieffer-Piilz, 2000: 377-380. 90 M. Vo1.64, Szu-fen pi-ch'iu-ni ch'ao, 1Z!l5Htliffiti>, p.72a3, p.73a3-4, p.79al-6. 91 Maybe eight, see the biography of GUI).avarman, T.2059, p.341a29. 92 T.2063, p.939c12-14. 93 See the. biography of GUI).avarman, T.2059, p.341 b5-7. The latter passage also points

out that the first Sinhalese women were not of sufficient age. This possibly refers to the minimum seniority of twelve years that is requested by all the vinayas for the upiidhyiiyinl (teacher) ofthe candidate (see Heirman, 2002: Part 1,89 and 110-111, notes 113 and 114).

94 432: p.937c4-5; 433: p.939cc21-22; 434: p.941a20-21, p.944c3-5. 95 Seng-chia-pa-mo (i!t{hDJlj()lji!). For a biography, see Shih, 1968: 138-140, a transla

tion of Kao-seng chuan (i'Ilii!t1l., T.2059, p.342b11-c7).

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As can be seen from the above, one certainly tried to avoid any further discussion on the validity of the second ordination. In this context, it is striking that no attention whatsoever went to recording which vinaya text was used at the ceremony. This is remarkable since the vinayas known to the Chinese in the fifth century all state that a legal procedure (karman) has to be carried out by a harmonious sal[lgha (samagrasarrzgha)96. The terms samagra and sarrzgha imply that there has to be unity in legal procedures and unity in the recitation of the precepts, this is unity in the recitation of the priitimok~a at the po~adha97 ceremony98; that all monks and nuns who are present in the legal district (sfmii)99 have to attend the ceremony; and that there have to be enough monks or nuns in order to carry out a formal act in a legally valid way. Only then do we have a harmonious sarrzgha. This implies that this kind of sal[lgha is only possible within one and the same school (nikiiya), defined by a cornmon vinaya100•

Consequently, the chapter of nuns or monks and the candidate for ordination naturally have to rely on the same vinaya. Was this the case for the first ordinations in China? The texts do not give any hint about the vinaya text for this ceremony. We only know that the two monks who

96 Pali Vinaya, Vin I, p.316; MahfSiisakavinaya, T.1421, p.161c17; MahiisiiY(lghikavinaya, T.1425, p.422b9-14; Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, p.885c14-15; Sarviistiviidavinaya, T.1435, p.220a13-14, c3-5.

97 A ceremony held every fortnight and attended by all monks/nuns of the district (simii), so that the unity of the order is reaffirmed. At this ceremony, the priitimok.ra (list of precepts) is recited.

98 Pilii Vinaya, Vin ill, p.173 (see also the defInition of 'not to live in the community' (asaY(lviisa) in Vin ill, p.28); Mahisiisakavinaya, T.1421, p.20c6-7; MahiisiiY(lghikavinaya, T.1425, p.282c23-25; Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, p.595aI5-16; Sarviistiviidavinaya, T.1435, p.266c18-24. See Tieken, 2000: 2-3, 10-11, 13,26-27, who points out that 'unanimous' is the prominent meaning of 'samagra'. See also Hu-von Hiniiber, 1994: 219-226; Heirman, 2002: Part II, 244, 262, 271, 282 (notes 53-55), 327 (notes 290-292).

99 A district in which the formal acts are carried out by an entire order in a legally valid way (see note 85).

100 Schools (nikiiya) are defined by the recognition of a common vinaya, and thus of a common priitimok$a. Only then can they commonly perform legal procedures. See Bechert, 1982: 67-68; Bizot, 1988: 13; Bechert, 1993: 54: 'As a rule, monks belonging to different Nikayas do not conduct joint Sanghakarmas [formal acts]. Though they may not always dispute the validity of each other's ordination, they do not recognize it as beyond dispute either. If there were doubts about the validity, the Sanghakarma would be questionable. If the validity of ordinations is called into question, the legitimation of the Sangha is endangered."

CHINESE NUNS AND THEIR ORDINATION IN FIFfH CENTURY CHINA 297

played an important role in the realization of the ceremony, GUIJavarman and Sarp.ghavarinan, were probably acquainted with respectively the Dharmaguptakavinaya and the Sarwistiviidavinaya. We also know that in the fifth century, three vinayas were popular: in the south mainly the Sarviistiviidavinaya, and in the north the Mahiisiif(lghikavinaya and to a lesser extent the Dharmaguptakavinaya lOl • Since the ordination ceremony was held in the present city of Nan-ching, it is not unlikely that the Sarviistiviidavinaya has been used. However, another vinaya can certainly not be excluded. In any case, it is highly improbable that the Pali Vinaya was the basic text. Not one ordination based on the latter text is found in the biographies of Chinese monks or nuns. That the Sinhalese nuns were most probably ordained in the Pali tradition102 does not seem to have caused a problem to the Chinese. First of all, in the fifth century the question of using only one vinaya was not an issue for vinaya masters103• Secondly, the Pi-ch 'iu-ni chuan tells us that the first group of Sinhalese nuns had already mastered Chinese before the ordination ceremony was held104•

The Kao-seng chuan adds that GUIJavarman even explicitly asked them to study Chinese105• It is therefore possible that they did not only learn Chinese, but that they also studied a Chinese vinaya. In that case, even when the Sinhalese nuns had been ordained in a different tradition, the Chinese ordination ceremony itself can have been based on one and the same vinaya. Since no vinaya explicitly says that all the participants to an ordination ceremony have to be ordained in the same tradition, but only that a sarrzgha that carries out a formal act has to be unanimous as to the po~adha ceremony, the conditions for a valid ordination ceremony can have been fulfilled: the required number of nuns was present, and the participants all referred to the same legal procedures and the same priitimok~a.

The second ordination ceremony closed the debate on the validity of the ordination of Chinese nuns. However, in 474, a group of nuns again asked a new ordination after having listened to an exposition on the Sarvastivada vinaya rules by the vinaya master Fa-ying. This request was

101 See Heinnan, forthcoming(b). 102 Tsai, 1981: 8; Bartholomeusz, 1996 [1994]: 20-22. 103 See Heinnan, forthcoming (a) and (b). 104 T.2063, p.939c22-23.

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refused. It is not clear why the nuns wanted another ordination. According to the Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan, it was because unorthodox practices were widely spread. The text does not say what kind of unorthodox practices these were, but the nuns were told that the only reason to receive another ordination was that a nun was not of sufficient age at the time of the first ordinationlo6. After this incident, no further discussions on the validity of the ordination are mentioned.

5. The ordination through a messenger

Finally, a particular ordination ceremony is allowed when it is too dangerous for a woman candidate to go to the bhik~usaT[lgha after her ordination in the bhik~u1)fsaT[lgha, i.e. when her chastity might be violated. In such cases, the permission to ordain through messengers is given in all vinayas 107:

• Pali Vinaya, Yin II, pp.277-278: first allowed to the courtesan A<;lqIlakasl. A competent nun goes to the bhikkhusaT[lgha on her behalf. The ordination ceremony takes place in the bhikkhusaT[lgha. Back in the bhikkhunfsaT[lgha some rules are explained to the newly ordained nun108.

• Mahfsasakavinaya, T.1421, p.189a26-b15: first allowed to the courtesan ArdhakasI. A group of ten nuns goes to the bhik~usaT[lgha on her behalf. Back in the bhik~u1)fsaT[lgha, the candidate is told about the ceremony that took place. Finally, some rules are again explained to her.

o MahiisaT[lghikavinaya, T.1425, p.474a3-b29: first allowed to a disciple of the nun Dharmadinna. The upadhyayinf of the candidate goes to the bhik~usaT[lgha and asks for messengers. Two or three monks then go back with her to hear the woman candidate. Thereupon the ordination is carried out in the bhik~usaT[lgha in the presence of the

105 T.2059, p.341b6. 106 T.2063, p.941a22-bl. 107 Also T.1463 (P'i-ni-mu ching, see note 13), p.807a7-11, refers to the possibility of

an ordination through a messenger. When the Buddha was still alive, it was allowed once for a very beautiful girl. The same procedure can still be used for an equally beautiful girl.

108 Translation by Horner, 1963 [1952]: 383-384. See also Hlisken, 1997: 432-433.


. upadhyayinz.. Finally, the upadhyayini and the messengers go back to the newly ordained nun to inform her about the ceremony 109.

• Vinaya of the Mahasllip.ghika-Lokottaravadins, Roth (1970), pp.52-58, §§70-82: similar to the MahrlsafTlghikavinaya except that now two disciples are in danger, and that the ordination ceremony is carried out in the bhik,yusafTlgha in the presence of a chapter of at least ten nuns among whom the upadhyayinz1!o.

• Dharmaguptakavinaya, T.1428, p.926b7-c14: fIrst allowed to a group a women candidates from the Sakya and the Koliya clans. A competent nun, accompanied by two or three other nuns, goes to the bhik,yusafTlgha on behalf of the candidate(s). Thereupon, the ordination ceremony is then carried out in the bhik~usafTlgha. Finally, the nun messenger informs the newly ordained nun(s) about the ceremony.

• Sarvastivadavinaya, T.1435, pp.295b13-296a22: first allowed to the courtesan ArdhakasI111. On her behalf, a nun messenger goes to the bhik,yusafTlgha where the ordination ceremony is carried out. Afterwards, the messenger goes back to the newly ordained nun to inform her about the ceremony, and to again explain her a few rules.

• Mulasarvastivrldavinaya, T.1451, pp.368b2-369b16112 ; Dharmadinna is ordained through a nun messenger both in the bhik~ulJfsafTlgha and in the bhik~usafTlgha to save her from marriage. Thereupon Dharmadinna reaches arhat-ship.

Conclusion

Halfway the fifth century, through the translation of many vinaya texts, the ordination rules for nuns were well known to the Chinese. As elsewhere in the Buddhist world, the Chinese women wanted to rely on an

109 Translation by Hirakawa, 1982: 76-81. 110 Translation by Nolot, 1991: 37-42. 111 Although qualified as a commentary on the Sarvastivadavinaya, Sa-p'o-to-pu p'i-ni

mo-te-Ie-ch'ieh (iiI~~llflmffi,'!j!~1i\tJ{hu), T.I441, p.594b4, states that the ordination through a messenger was given to a woman called Dharmadinna (Ta-mo-t'i-na; j!,!J!!m!JIB).

112 Also T.1458 (Ken-pen-sa-p'o-to-pu Iii-she; t~ ~ iii ~ 1f, llfl ¥I< m), a commentary on the Mulasarvastivadavinaya compiled by Jinamitra and translated by I-ching in 700 (Yuyama, 1979: 14), p.599a8, refers to the ordination through a messenger received by Dharmadinna.

300 ANNHEIRMAN

uninterrupted, legally valid ordination tradition. Apart from a few unique cases of ordination, such as the ordination of the first nun Mahaprajapati who was ordained through the acceptance of the eight important rules, the ordination of her Sakya followers, and the ordination of an exceptional woman of the lowest class, the vinaya texts also prescribe all the rules to be kept for a nun's ordination by means of a jfzapticaturtha karman. The most important one of these is that the ceremony should be held first in the presence of a chapter of nuns and then in the presence of a chapter of monks. Since at the time of the fIrst ordination of a Chinese woman, there were no fully ordained nuns in China, the latter rule could not be applied, and the question was raised whether this invalidated the Chinese nuns' ordination.

In this debate, the fust points of reference were Mahaprajapati and, to a lesser extent, the Sakya women. In the fifth century, both the basic version of their story as well as the misogynist re-writing of it were well known, and, just as in India, it was pointed out that nuns should always remain in a subordinate position towards monks. But could Mahaprajapati and the Sakya women also function as a precedent for the ordination of Chinese women? If we strictly interpret the vinaya texts and commentaries, the answer is in the negative: the texts emphasize that the ordination of Mahaprajapati and of the Sakya women is a unique case never to be repeated. Still, the vinaya master GUIfavarman accepted Mahaprajapati's ordination as an example that could be legally followed by the Chinese women. Herefore, he seems to argument that since China is so far away from India, the ordination of Chinese women could start i1). ,the same way as the ordination of Indian women had. When asked, however, about distant regions that still have to apply all the vinaya rules for ordination, the answer of GUIfavarman clearly implies that also China belongs to these regions. This is probably the reason why he permitted a second ordination. He considered it to be of a higher level in the hope that it would calm down the discussion on the validity of the Chinese bhik:fulJlsarrzgha.

This second ordination, now in the presence of a chapter of nuns, became possible when more than ten Sinhalese nuns had arrived in the capital of Southern Sung China. The ceremony was prepared very carefully. The participants strictly followed the rules in order to perform a


legally valid ordination that had to become the basis of the Chinese ordination tradition.' Given the importance of this moment, it is striking that one issue is not documented: the basic text on which the ceremony relied. In accordance with the vinaya rules, all participants to a formal act should refer to the same text so as to establish the unity of the order. Although we do not know what text was used at the ordination ceremony, it seems highly improbable that it was the Pali Vinaya, while it is highly probable that the Sinhalese nuns were ordained in the latter tradition. This does not have to mean that there was a conflict between the Sinhalese and the Chinese nuns. Since the Sinhalese nuns of the fIrst group that was brought to China by the captain Nan-t'i, are said to have learned Chinese, it is not impossible that in the four years that had elapsed between their arrival in China and the ordination of the Chinese nuns, they had also mastered a Chinese vinaya. In that case, the participants in the ordination ceremony are likely to have used the same vinaya text, so that the ceremony itself was harmonious. Later discussions on the validity of the Chinese nuns' ordination were not accepted, and the debate was closed.

Abbreviations

M.

Ma-L. T.

Yin

Manji zokuzokyo, fIrst edition Kyoto 1905-1912, reproduction Taipei 1968-1970 MahasilIp.ghika-Lokottaravada/-in TaishO Shinsha Daizokyo *IElilff{~7;jlU~, I. Takakusu, K. Watanabe (eds.), Tokyo, 1924-1935 The Vinaya PitakaJ?l, H. Oldenberg (ed.), London, Pali Text Society, 19642-3 [1879-1883]

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NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Sarah LEVINE received her BA from Oxford University, her MA from the University of Chicago and her PhD from Harvard University. She is Research Associate in Human Development and Psychology in the Harvard Graduate school of Education. Her books include "Mother and Wives. Gussii Women of East Africa" (University of Chicago press) and "Dolor y Alegria. Women and Social Change in Urban Mexico" (University of Wisconsin Press). She is co-author of "Child Care and Culture. Lessons from Africa" (Cmabridge University Press).

Kim GUTS CHOW is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University in the Department of Religion. She works on gender and sexuality within Buddhist monasticism and has published articles on Buddhism, gender, merit making, Tibetan Medicine, and irrigation and settlement. Her manuscript "Gendering Enlightenment" which is under review at Harvard University Press, is based on over three years of fieldwork in Zangskar and Ladakh, Indian Kashmir.

Ann HEIRMAN (1968) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Eastern Languages and Cultures (Chinese Languages and Culture) at Ghent University, Belgium. She received her PhD in 1998 from Ghent University. Title of her thesis: The Discipline in Four Parts. Rules for Nuns according to the Dharmaguptakavinaya. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 2002. Her main fields of interest are: Early Buddhist Monastic discipline and Early Buddhist monastic history in China.

Peter SKILLING is Curator of the Fragile Palm Leaves for the preservation of Buddhist Literature (Bangkok). Among his various contributions to Buddhist studies, one may mention Mahasutras: Great Discourses of the Buddha. Vol. I and II, Oxford: Pali Text Society 1994 and 1997.

Ivette M. VARGAS is a PhD Candidate in the Committee on The Study of Religion at Harvard University and is a lecturer at Grinnell College (2002-2003). Her interests include Tibetan Buddhism and South Asian Studies, with a focus on the hermeneutics of suffering, illness and healing practices, ritual theories, and narrative studies.


The International Association of Buddhist Studies

Colette CaiUat President

Gregory Schopen Vice-president

Oskar v. Hinilber General Secretary

Cristina Scherrer-Schaub Treasurer

Regional Secretaries:

Janet Gyatso (Cambridge, MA, USA) S. Katsura (Hiroshima)

Peter Skilling (Bangkok) D. Seyfort Ruegg (London)

Members ofthe Board:

R. Buswell (Los Angeles), H. Durt (Kyoto), R. Gupta (Shantiniketan), K. Kimura (Saitama), D.S. Lopez, Jr., (Ann Arbor), A. Macdonald

(Paris), D. Seyfort Ruegg (London), E. Steinkellner (Vienna), T. Tillemans (Lausanne), A. Yuyama (Tokyo)

The International Association of Buddhist Studies, founded in 1976, is devoted to promoting and supporting scholarship in Buddhist Studies in all its aspects, past and present, around the world. Membership is open to scholars of all academic disciplines.

Membership dues are USD 40 for full members, USD 20 for student members, USD 1000 for life members. Subscriptions to the JIABS for libraries and other institutions are USD 70. Dues and sUbscriptions may be paid in the following ways:

1. by direct bank to bank transfers in US dollars or in the equivalent amount in Euros, Swiss francs. The transfers shouls be to the IABS accounts at the Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, PI. St-Fran,<ois, Ch-1001 Lausanne, Switzerland (SWIFT CODE: BCVLCH2L, clearing no. 7677), account numbers, 986.51.04 for US dollars and 983.51.02 for Swiss francs.

2. by Visa of Mastercard 3. by cheque payable to the "Association lnternationale d'Etudes Bouddhiques

(lABS)." There will be no supplementary charges for cheques drawn in Swiss currency on Swiss banks. Otherwise, please add 10 dollars or 15 Swiss francs to cover our processing charges.

4. by Eurocheque in Swiss francs. Prospective members from developing countries may contact the Treasurer concerning subsidized membership rates. Dues and sUbscripotions are payable per calendar year by December 31 of the previous year. Payments other than direct bank transfers should be sent to Professor Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Section de langues et civilisations orientales, Universite de Lausanne, BFSH 2, CH-I 015 Lausanne, Switzerland.

JIABS 24-2

Documents

Transcript of JIABS 24-2