Buddhism and Women Dr J Limainlaao

I. (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof.SumitaParmar Allahabad University, Allahabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Rekha Pande University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad Content Writer/Author Dr J LimainlaAo Independent Research Scholar, (CW) Dimapur, Nagaland Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. Rekha Pandey University of Hyderabad Language Editor (LE) (B) Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Women’s Studies Paper Name Women and History Module Name/ Title, Buddhism and women, early description Buddhism,origin of monasticism,role of bhikkuni sangha, rise of orders and decline of women, Tibetan rediscovery of ancient buddhist monasticism Module ID Paper-3, Module-4 Pre-requisites The reader is expected to have a knowledge about the religious movement in ancient India and its contribution to society Objectives To analyse the lives of women under Buddhism What were their attitude towards the sangha How did Buddhism help them find an alternative space? Keywords women,bhikkuni,sangha,therigatha, nuns and their life and the Sangha. Buddhism and women Dr J LimainlaAo In recent years, feminism has created a virtual paradigm shift in religious studies. Yet the issue of women's religious statuses and roles remains more ambiguous and controversial in Buddhism than it is for other world religions. 2500 years ago Buddhism created a revolution in India which is recognised in the history of religions as one of the greatest revolutions in 1 humankind (Bapat, PurushottamVishranath :2500 Years of Buddhism). While the message of the Buddha led to a fundamental reorientation of attitudes towards life, one aspect which was not affected much was the gender question. The Buddha preached the quality of all human beings in an age when society was stratified on the basis of caste and economy. Further the Buddha also preached that the way to enlightenment was not dependent on any other outside agency but was entirely due to the doing of the individual and his actions, Karma. The question of women in Buddhism is a topic that briefly surfaced during the life of the Buddha and was later pushed to the background. To get a clear idea of the Buddhist religion and the question of gender, one needs to have a basic idea of the context and the different Buddhist societies that have evolved over 2500 years. The Buddha was a historical figure who lived in six century BC North India in the context of a rapid transition from a pastoral to an agrarian society characterised by the rise of agrarian surplus to towns. It was during this period that we see the rise of territorial units of administration known as the mahajanapdas and the Republican states. It is an important fact that the Buddha was born in the shakya Republican state and therefore had democratic ideals. The Republican states were ruled not by monarchs or kings as 16 mahajanapadas were but were ruled by an oligarchy of the clan elders. Though there was a system of clan equality in these Republican states. The rise and rapid spread of Buddhism led to the formation of the Sangha (Upinder Singh: A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century). The Buddhist community was known as the Buddhist Sangha and consisted of four components of monks and lay men. Does the Buddhist Sangha consisted of the monks and nuns known as the bhikkus and the bhikkunis respectively and the upasakas and the upasikas known as the layman and lay women respectively. The origin of the order of the nuns in Buddhism is also an interesting episode in the history of religions. The traditional Buddhist accounts narrate the story that the aunt of the Buddha, PrajapatiGautami requested the Buddha to start the order of the nuns and 2 the Buddha was apprehensive that the entry of women into the order would lead to lack of focus and moral decay. Ultimately PrajapatiGautami led the group of 500 Sakyan women and they wore the robes and also shaved their heads and workers accepted into the sangha. Thus was born the order of nuns in the Buddhist religion. (Bechert, Heinz, and Richard Francis Gombrich :The World of Buddhism: Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Society and Culture) While some suggest that the core of Buddhist tenets contains egalitarian and feminist tendencies, others point out the perpetuation of male dominance and patriarchy in Buddhist thought or even criticizes the religion for playing a critical role in the subjugation of women in the society. Beyond general assessments of Buddhist gender ideologies, research also demonstrates the great diversity of women’s position in different traditions within the religion. Theravada tradition reserves the right to pursue enlightenment in monastic institutions exclusively for male. Most of the religious practitioners here were monks and the order of the nuns also died out in the first few centuries after the Buddha.(Warder, Anthony Kennedy: Indian Buddhism.) In contrast, the Mahayana tradition highlights the general Buddhist wisdom of nondiscrimination through the concept of emptiness, which perceives the state of perfection as transcending any distinctions, including the distinction between the sexes. Situating particular Buddhist traditions in specific socio-cultural contexts, scholars have also explored the dynamics and complexity of gender ideologies and institutions resulting from the interactions between Buddhism and society, particularly in state-based societies marked by gender hierarchy.( Upinder Singh: A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century). Despite the relatively egalitarian gender ideology of Mahayana Buddhism and its institutional manifestation in female ordination, femaleness is still commonly considered an undesirable 3 state, and transformation into men is often believed necessary for women to achieve ultimate enlightenment. Mainstream Mahayana Buddhism as practiced in the dominant societies of East Asia serves as an example. The historical context for the larger presence of women in the minor tradition is the fact that in early mediaeval India tantra was a very active movement and influenced all religious traditions and thus we see the large-scale presence of women in tantra. While the early centuries of tantra from the 7th to the 12th centuries AD saw the one hand, while the male-dominant ideologies and institutions of these societies are noted for distorting the gender-egalitarian core of Gautama Buddha's teaching, Buddhist practice is also considered to perpetuate local patriarchal traditions in different forms to varying degree. On the other hand, Mahayana Buddhist texts also include positive feminine symbols, most powerfully represented by the Goddess of Mercy, who is adapted from an Indian male bodhisattva and is widely worshiped in East Asia. To a certain degree, women are also respectfully recognized for the roles they play in the religion, especially as devout nuns, supportive mothers, friends, and teacher. (Upinder Singh: A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century). In the history of Indian Buddhism, the period c. 200 BCE- 300 CE is associated with the emergence of Mahayana. The Mahayanists coined the term ‘Mahayana’ (the greater vehicle) and ‘Hinayana’ (the lesser vehicle) though the term Theravada is used by older tradition and the term Hinayana is used only by the Mahayanists and is not well accepted. The origins of Mahayana have often been traced to the older Mahasanghika School and the emergence of Mahayana was thought of as leading to a major schism (split) in the sangha. In the Buddhist tradition, schism was associated with issues concerning monastic discipline, not doctrinal issues. Far from being a movement instigated by the devotional practices of the laity, 4 Mahayana seems to have been a set of ideas and teachings that originated among a group of monks within the sangha.(Bapat, PurushottamVishranath: 2500 Years of Buddhism) The idea of the Bodhisattva (wisdom being) is known to earlier Buddhism. Gotama himself is said to have been born as an ascetic named Megha or Sumedha in an earlier birth. He is described as having taken a vow to tread the path of Buddhahood in the presence of an earlier Buddha named Dipankara, only to postpone his own enlightenment out of compassion for others. However, the idea of the Bodhisattva assumed greater importance in Mahayana. The highest goal in the older Buddhism was the attainment of nibbana and becoming an arhat. Mahayana considered this a lesser goal; the higher one consisted in following the path of a Bodhisattva and attaining Buddhahood. This was emphasised because one would not strive for one's own enlightenment but after reaching the verge of enlightenment he would take a step back and announce the enlightenment to be in the society and strive for the well-being of all sentient beings. Thus the Bodhi meant the enlightenment and the sattva meant the essence- the combination of both these words meant the essence of enlightenment. The conduct and practices that formed part of the path leading to Buddhahood were not very different from those recommended in the earlier tradition. The several stages along the Bodhisattva path involved the attainment of a number of perfections known as paramitas. These were originally listed as six and later expanded to ten. They consisted of generosity (dana), good conduct (shila), patient forbearance (kshanti), mental strength (virya), meditation (dhyana), wisdom (prajna), skillfulness in means (upaya- kaushalya), determination (pranidhana), power (bala) and knowledge (jnana). In the early Buddhist tradition, represented in the Pali canon, the Buddha was considered a man, one among several beings who had attained enlightenment and become an arhat. 5 However, he was definitely a superior man (mahapurusha), the unequalled teacher par excellence of the path to salvation. While the older tradition considered the Buddha as the ideal man and also represented him in literature in the same way, Mahayana had a different perspective on such issues.

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