Ian Robinson-Lambert RN364 Buddhist Literature Comparing The

Robinson-Lambert 1 Ian Robinson-Lambert RN364 Buddhist Literature Comparing the Depiction of Women Across Three Branches of Buddhism The relationship between women and organized religion has always been somewhat fraught; in almost no popular religion have women been depicted as equal to men since the beginning, and in many cases are active demonized or antagonized as immoral, greedy, or seductive. Buddhism—though speaking the name of the religion conjures mental images of peace, harmony, and serenity—is no exception to this difficult relationship. Sexism, misogyny, and inequality appears in some form in all the major branches of Buddhism, though there is a definite positive evolution in the portrayal of women with time. Theravada Buddhism, the oldest branch of Buddhism and derived from the teachings of the historical Buddha himself, has the most wholly negative view of women, with much of its female-featuring literature falling into the categories of institutional androcentrism (only depicting women as objects to be used by men) or ascetic misogyny (actively portraying women in a misogynistic light). Mahayana Buddhism, the largest sect of Buddhism and the second-oldest, is more progressive in its views towards the sexes, but still teaches that the female body is inferior and can even be a punishment for a past life’s sins. Vajrayana Buddhism (also called Tantric Buddhism), the smallest and most recent branch, is also the most enlightened in its view of women, with numerous writings about the joys of the female body and literature that features bold, independent women. For the purposes of this paper, we will not be examining how women were treated in Buddhist society itself, but rather solely how they were portrayed in selections of the teachings and literature found in each branch—Theravada (originally southern Indian, now found all throughout Asia), Robinson-Lambert 2 Mahayana (primarily East Asia, such as China, Korea, Japan, and Indonesia), and Vajrayana (primarily Tibet). Although there has been some discourse about the timeline of the Buddhist canon, scholars generally agree that the oldest branch of Buddhism is Theravada, which draws its teachings from the Gautama Buddha himself in the 5th century B.C.E. In the introduction to her book Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity, and Identity, Kate Crosby notes that although Theravada Buddhism is historically rooted in southern India, it has since been found in parts of China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, and even parts of Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. The teachings of the Gautama Buddha were passed down orally until they were eventually transcribed and became the Pali Canon, the largest and oldest collection of Buddhist texts in the world. The Pali Canon is considered to be “the highest authority on what constitutes the Dhamma—the truth or teaching of the Buddha” and is generally regarded as the preeminent source of “early Buddhism” (Crosby 1). As such, it is an essential tool for analyzing Buddhist thoughts and views on societal issues such as the treatment of women. The Pali Canon is divided into three “baskets”—the Sutta Pitaka (discourses), the Vinaya Pitaka (disciplines), and the Abdhidhamma Pitaka (analyses). Each of these baskets contain collections that themselves are composed of dozens and sometimes hundreds of texts; for example, the enormous body of jataka tales is merely one of many collections within the Khuddaka Nikaya, which itself is a collection within the Sutta Pitaka. In short, the Pali Canon is a tremendous body of literature, and therefore it is impossible to make generalizations about its treatment of social issues. It would easy to make a sweeping statement that “Theravada Robinson-Lambert 3 Buddhism is misogynistic,” but it would be grossly oversimplifying and discrediting the wide range of texts within the Canon. Alan Sponberg writes at length about the treatment of women within the Pali Canon, and opens his paper “Attitudes Toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism” by positing a “multivocality” of female portrayals in Theravada literature (Sponberg 2). Because of the sheer size and volume of the Pali Canon, he writes that there cannot be a “single, uncertain voice” that dictates the Buddhist stance of various issues, but rather a “multiplicity of voices, each expressing a different set of concerns current among the members of the early community” (Sponberg 2). By analyzing the major texts of the Pali Canon that discuss women or the female body, Sponberg draws four conclusions about the treatment of women in Theravada Buddhism, two of which we will examine more closely in this paper. The first concept that Sponberg proposes is called institutional androcentrism, which he writes is a common thread that links hundreds of Theravada texts together. This concept, though not outwardly misogynistic as some of his other conclusions, reinforces the superiority of men and the male body. Sponberg describes institutional androcentrism as “the view that women indeed may pursue a full-time religious career, but only within a carefully regulated institutional structure that preserves and reinforces the conventionally-accepted social standards of male authority and female subordination” (Sponberg 16). Texts that espouse institutional androcentrism do not necessarily demonize or antagonize women (though we do see that in many other Theravada texts), but rather they tend to preach the great virtue of men and the inferiority of women as though it is the proper way of the universe. Interestingly, one example of Sponberg’s theory of institutional androcentrism comes from the Therigatha, the oldest written accounts of Buddhist nuns in their own words. The Robinson-Lambert 4 Therigatha is a large collections of poems by the “wise women of early Buddhism,” according to Susan Murcott in her introduction to First Buddhist Women, and are considered among the most impressive texts in the Pali canon (Murcott 15). These poems are far from misogynistic—on the contrary, they show that there are countless Buddhist women who were revered and admired— but many of the texts reflect that women were viewed through a fundamentally different lens than their male counterparts. In a poem by Buddhist nun Nanduttara, she notes that she was “obsessed with sensuality” before finding Buddhism, and “loved makeup and jewelry, baths and perfumes, just serving my body” (Murcott 62). The theme of women being shallow and narcissistic is echoed in many male-authored Pali texts (such as the jataka tales), and it is unlikely that a man would have written about his own “obsession” with sexual desire and his own body before becoming enlightened. This is a minor example, of course, but it shows that Theravada Buddhism clearly did not seek to treat men and women equally. Later, in a section on Buddhist wives, the nun Isadasi writes at length about how she strove to be the perfect wife for her “rich merchant” husband (Murcott 106). She describes herself as a “humble and affectionate servant” to her husband, rising early every morning and bringing him “comb, mirror, soap, and ornaments as though [she] were a servant,” despite the fact that her husband does not reciprocate her feelings and in fact “felt nothing for [her]” (Murcott 107). This dichotomy—the woman whose duty it is to act as “mother, servant, and slave” to her husband despite not getting anything in return—is a profound example of how women in Thervada literature are largely viewed only in relation to the morally and physically superior male. Robinson-Lambert 5 Another example of Sponberg’s institutional androcentrism can be found within the jataka tales, one of the largest and best-known bodies of work within the Pali canon. The tales are presented as stories of the Buddha’s past lives, with a distinctive moral that espouses one of the Buddha’s teachings. In the tales, the Buddha (or the bodhisattva, as he will not be the Buddha until a later life) is often the protagonist or one of the main characters, while his various well- known followers (such as Ananda, Sariputra, or Uppalavanna) comprise the rest of the characters. Occasionally, a past life of the Buddha’s villainous cousin Devadatta appears as the antagonist of the story. There are countless jataka tales that present the bodhisattva as a king, an ascetic, or an animal, but in almost none of the tales is he a woman. Therefore, it is essential to examine those few tales that do show the bodhisattva as female if we are to analyze women’s role in the Pali canon. One such tale is the Rupyavati jataka, in which the bodhisattva is in the form of the eponymous young woman in a kingdom overrun with famine. One day she encounters a female servant who has just given birth and is on the brink of starvation; to save herself from starving to death, the servant girl is considering eating her own newborn child. Horror-struck by the girl’s determination to commit this ultimate sin, Rupyavati intervenes and chooses to sacrifice the most feminine part of her body—her breasts—so the girl can eat something and save her baby. She severs her breasts—a metaphorical destruction of her female side—and feeds the servant girl, which summons the god-king Sakra to Earth, as all enormous acts of virtue do in the jataka tales. After ensuring that Rupyavati does not want to usurp him and take his place among the gods (a suspicion that he notably does not have when men commit great acts of virtue in other tales), Sakra asks what Rupyavati’s greatest wish is so he can fulfill it. She answers immediately that she wishes to become a man, “for manhood is an abode of virtue in this world,” and because “ a Robinson-Lambert 6 man is superior in goodness and strength and much better at achieving the welfare of others” (Ohnuma 160-168).

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