The Agency of Buddhist Nuns

BSRV 27.1 (2010) 41–60 Buddhist Studies Review ISSN (print) 0256-2897 doi: 10.1558/bsrv.v27i1.41 Buddhist Studies Review ISSN (online) 1747-9681

Ca r o l S. An d e r s o n

Ka l a m a z o o Co l l e g e

[email protected]

Ab s t r a c t This article examines how Buddhist literatures construct the agency of Buddhist nuns. The first section explores the Vinaya collections of different schools, and examines the differences between the Bhikkhunī- vibhaṅga and the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga on how nuns are expected to act. The second section explores material on the faculties (indriyas) in the Pāli Abhidhamma-piṭaka and its commentaries so as to better understand how the abhidhamma analyses of ‘women’s nature’ and ‘men’s nature’ in- formed conceptions of agency. This article suggests that even though the abhidhamma literature uses such terms as ‘women’s nature’, there is little basis for concluding, as some scholars have done, that Buddhist literature reflects an essentialist view of gender. The fact that theabhidhamma analyses of gender distinguish between ‘male faculties’ and ‘female faculties’ does not appear to make a difference in the agency accorded to nuns: nuns, like monks, are expected to behave in certain ways independent of the fact that they have ‘female faculties’ and thus are inclined toward certain kinds of stereotypically female behaviour.

Keywords: Agency, Nuns, Monks, Essentialism

Introduction This article examines questions about a topic that is central to our understand- ing of nuns and women in early Indian Buddhist traditions. In this literature, nuns are represented as responsible for their actions in much the same way as monks are cast as responsible for their actions. However, throughout the Vinaya- piṭaka there are many more regulations that nuns are enjoined to follow than for monks. Depending on the Buddhist school, there are 348 rules for nuns to follow and 250 for monks in the Vinaya of the Dharmaguptaka, 366 for nuns and 258 for monks in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, and 311 for nuns and 227 for monks in the

Theravāda Vinaya (Kabilsingh 1998, 12). This disparity between the additional and different rules for nuns has given rise to many questions regarding misogyny and the ‘equality’ of monks and nuns in this strata of Buddhist literature. 1 While questions about sexism in early Buddhist traditions are hardly new, evidence used in contemporary arguments have opened up a new range of answers. For example, Bhikkhunī Juo-Hsüeh Shih, in Controversies over Buddhist Nuns, has provided translations of key points in the Pāli Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga and Buddhaghosa’s commentaries, with comparisons at the relevant points to other Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅgas of other Buddhist schools (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 25). Juo-Hsüeh articulates her questions about how nuns were treated in the Vinaya: A subsidiary theme is the discrimination that Vinaya shows against women[;] discrimination in the sense of differentiating, and to the disadvantage of the women. Thus I shall discuss cases where commission of the same offence by a monk and a nun brought down a severer penalty on the nun. Much of the material presented below will suggest that nuns came to be treated more harshly as time went on; for example, the commentary tends to take a stricter line with them than does the canonical text (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 14–15). Juo-Hsüeh is certainly not alone in posing this issue. Gregory Schopen makes a similar observation: The compilers of the various Buddhist monastic codes that we have appear to have been very anxious men …. They appear, moreover, to have been particularly anxious about nuns, about containing, restraining, and controlling them. At every opportunity they seem to have promulgated rules toward these ends. (Schopen 2004, 329) Schopen also suggests that, in contrast to the widespread assumptions that the order of nuns was strictly subordinate to the order of monks, the bhikkhunīs were in fact much stronger and more powerful than heretofore imagined. In asking the question about how agency was constructed for Buddhist nuns, it is possible to explore the territory covered by these scholars with a more pointed examina- tion of the ways in which the compilers of the Buddhist monastic codes sought to restrict the scope of nuns’ ability to act. This article examines three different assumptions that lie behind the ways in which nuns’ lives were controlled. The first question examined here involves how theVinaya collections laid out the rules that put limits on nuns’ ability to legitimately act in the world. Were nuns considered to be as capable of controlling their behaviour as were monks? The answer we find to this question will be in the affirmative: agency is represented in the same way for nuns as it is for monks, but with more constraints on the different kinds of behaviours considered appropriate and suitable for nuns, as Juo-Hsüeh and Schopen argue. The second question examines abhidhamma arguments (in the canonical Abhidhamma and its commentaries) about the nature of ‘men’ and ‘women’ and the gender of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’. Here, I explore the points at which Buddhist literature understands nuns to be women, according to classical abhidhamma analyses of what it means to be a woman or a man. The third and final question returns to the starting point: do theVinaya texts presume

1. The literature on whether or not nuns were treated equally to monks is extensive. Janet Gyatso (2003, 89 n. 1) has compiled a list of the classic studies that explore androcentrism in her article on paṇḍakas. Juo-Hsüeh has also compiled a useful list of those works devoted exclusively to Buddhist nuns (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 4 n. 16).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 Carol S. Anderson 43 that, because nuns are women, they have a different ability to act in the world when compared to monks? Michael Sweet and Leonard Zwilling have suggested that early Buddhist literatures have an essentialist framework for biologically sexed bodies and gender (Sweet and Zwilling 1993, 604). This article concludes with a reassessment of that claim. To frame this argument in Buddhist terms, the firstpārājika rule in the Bhikkhu- vibhaṅga is the injunction against sexual intercourse. Canonical and commentarial Pāli sources go to great lengths to specify just how monks and nuns should avoid violating this rule. The Vinaya goes into what many have called excessive detail about how penetration might occur, and reflects a quintessentially Buddhist eye for the minutiae of sexual intercourse (Faure 1998, 65–72). The analysis of the first pārājika — and throughout the entire Vinaya — is concerned with restraining male and female sexual behaviour. From the point of view of abhidhamma analysis, however, everything in the canonical and early commentarial traditions associated with what we would understand, in contemporary use, to be sexuality or gender is under the influence of the male or female faculties indriya( s). With regard to the faculties, however, there is no faculty (indriya) that refers to an overarching category of ‘sexuality’ or ‘gender’ in the abhidhamma texts; when the topic of classically gendered behaviours is discussed, indriya always refers to ‘male faculty’ or ‘female faculty’, and is never an overall category that could encompass ‘sexuality’ or ‘gender’. So, too, each time the term ‘bhāva’ (nature) appears in the literature discussed below — in the context of gender — it is modified with the adjective ‘male’ or ‘female’. That said, while ‘male’ and ‘female’ are the standard, normative sexes, two more are recognized: hermaphrodite (both sexes) and paṇḍaka (neither). Other words that we might expect to be able to consistently translate as ‘sexuality’ or ‘gender’, such as liṅga or vyañjana, are used in multiple ways to refer to both the physical markers of biological sex and the sexed characteristics that are constructed with a dimorphic system of gender for Buddhist texts. Liṅga, vyañjana, upastha, and nimitta can all refer to sex-specific genitals. Liṅga, vyañjana and nimitta also refer to the features, marks, or characteristics of men and women that we would refer to with the word ‘gender’.2 The blurring of these terms has led some to wrongly argue that this literature is rooted in an essentialist framework that recognizes only two fixed genders that are indistinguishable from the biologically sexed bodies of male humans and female humans. Zwilling and Sweet write: Discussions in the Buddhist commentarial literature indicate the belief in an inherent gender ‘power’ (indriya) that determines masculine and feminine primary and secondary sexual characteristics, as well as gender-role behaviour, which is expressed by girls playing with dolls and boys with toy vehicles and farm tools, differences in male and female gait, and the like. . . . These conceptions are very much in accordance with an essentialist viewpoint. (Sweet and Zwilling 1993, 604)

2. On nimitta-, Kieffer-Pülz suggests that ‘Nimitta-, “sign, characteristic” is used euphemisti- cally for the male and female organs. It seems that the word nimitta- is used in definitions (Vin III,28,11), or where the sexual organ of an inanimate object, be it a figure, a doll, or a dead body, is spoken of (Vin III,36,10 and 13; III,37,17)’ (Kieffer-Pülz 2001, 68 n. 24). Zwilling and Sweet explain the term liṅga: ‘The original sense of liṅga is “characteristic mark or sign” (Nirukta 1.17); later on it comes to mean “sexual characteristic” in general and “penis” in particular’ (Zwilling and Sweet 1996, 365 n. 26).

If Sweet and Zwilling are right about the early Buddhist traditions having an essentialist conception of sex and gender, then what is the relationship between biological sex, gender, and action? These authors do not pursue this question; their arguments are made in support of a theory that medicalized views of homosexuality are not exclusive to the West (Sweet and Zwilling 1993, 607). If they are not right, as I suggest, then what is the relationship between abhidhamma claims that women and men are controlled by a ‘feminine faculty’ or a ‘masculine nature’, and its claims that men and women have the ability to choose different kinds of action? To characterize early Buddhist traditions of gender and sex as essentialist implies that Buddhism poses an ‘inherent nature’ — an unchange- able and ‘given’ set of essential (and biological) characteristics shared by men or by women — that determines the scope of human action. However, Buddhist concepts of gender are not so simple: not only are there male and female, hermaphrodites and paṇḍakas (neither male nor female), but gender is also seen as changeable (Harvey 2000, 412). Comparing the Vinaya literature on the agency of monks and nuns to the abhidhamma analysis of the faculties that govern sex and gender, however, reveals a much more nuanced and complicated approach to fundamental questions about how men and women are constructed and how the Buddhist tradition understands nuns, and monks, as actors in the world. Vinaya Sources The question asked here is whether the rules of the Vinaya-piṭaka show us that the redactors thought that the agency of nuns was different than that of monks. By agency, I refer to the concept of a human being’s ability and ‘socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (Ahearn 2001, 112). One simple observation about the first four rules that can result in expulsion from the monastic orders, in the Pāli canon of the Theravāda tradition, points us toward the answer: the first four pārājikas are not repeated for the nuns in the Pāli Vinaya, which only specifies the four further pārājika rules that apply only to nuns. The pārājikas are rules that, in theory, result in the expulsion of the monk or nun from the saṅgha if they are violated.3 Because the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga follows the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga in the Pāli Vinaya, the first four rules are not enumerated in the PāliBhikkhunī -vibhaṅga because they have already been laid out in the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga. Practically, this means that nuns recite the first four rules from the same point of view as a monk. Therefore, both monks and nuns — when it comes to the rules held in common by both monks and nuns — occupy the same subject position and are considered to have the same capacity to act in the world within the same religious and ethi- cal framework. As a caveat, I would like to point out that I am, for the purposes

3. See Juo-Hsüeh’s extensive discussion of the meaning of this term: ‘the canonical commentacommenta-- tors do not gloss pārājika by its actual meaning but by its reference’ (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 128). The meaning of ‘expulsion’ commonly associated with pārājika comes from a gloss asaṃvāsa, or ‘no longer in communion’ (Vin III.28). Juo-Hsüeh reviews contemporary scholarship on the problems with the etymologies attributed to ‘pārājika’, and concludes that it is most useful to translate this term as ‘defeat’, not on etymological grounds but because it evokes the meaning in the canonical commentary that one who violates these rules is somehow fallen or defeated, and should not be allowed to remain in community (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 122–158, esp. 131). Heirman’s discussion of the Chinese sources on the meaning of the pārājikaya makes references to the same studies of the etymology of the word and definitions of the word (Heirman 2002, 119–124).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 Carol S. Anderson 45 of this argument, setting aside the question of whether or not it is appropriate to use the Vinaya in this way — i.e., as a reflection of an actual historical past. I am not assuming that these stories are ‘historically real’ in any sense, but I do presume that the redactors of the Vinaya-piṭaka told these stories for a reason.4 My purpose is to begin to unpack the implicit and, at times, explicit definitions of agency present in these texts. In contrast to common assumptions about nuns in scholarship written in the West — that nuns were unilaterally subordinated — we will find that nuns were considered to have the same capacity for acting in the world as monks. The first four Vinaya rules that are held in common for monks and nuns provide us with an introduction to the different kinds of actions that women and men were considered to be capable of doing. In the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga belong- ing to the different Buddhist schools, the first four pārājika rules are the same for monks and nuns: 1. no sexual intercourse (Vin III.22 = BD I.41–42), 2. no stealing (Vin III.46 = BD I.73), 3. no killing of a human (Vin III.73 = BD I.125), and 4. no lying about the possession of the further or higher powers (Vin III.91 = BD I.159). In the redactions of the vibhaṅgas for nuns found in the different Buddhist schools, not all Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅgas leave out the first four rules as in the Pāli and the Sarvāstivāda Vinayas. Even though the first four pārājika rules are binding for both monks and nuns, neither the Pāli nor the Sarvāstivāda actually lay out and explain the first four defeats in the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga — the text simply starts with the fifth rule for nuns (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 23f.; Heirman 2002, 124;BD III.156). The implicit assumption seems to be that, because the content of the first four prohibitions are the same for monks and nuns, there is no need to repeat them in the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. However, the fact that the first four are simply left out of the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga requires a closer reading. Nothing is said in the Pāli Vinaya about leaving out the first four rules, either in theBhikkhu -vibhaṅga or in the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. At the end of the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga, the compilers recap what the text contains, and say ‘Recited, ladies, is the occasion, recited are the eight rules for offences involving defeat…’ (Vin IV.350 = BD III.426). The fact that the text says that it has recited the first eight pārājikas for nuns, when in fact it only lays out the four that are unique to nuns, makes it clear that adherence to all eight rules entailing defeat is incumbent on nuns. Juo-Hsüeh points out that leaving out the first four pārājikas in the Pāli and Sarvāstivāda Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga is unusual: A group of the four Defeats specified in the Bh[ikkh]u-vibh[aṅga] are to be observed by nuns too, but the Bh[ikkun]ī-vibh[aṅga] does not include them. In a complete Pāṭimokkha for nuns, this rule [here listed first] should be the fifth Defeat. Such a compressed framework is peculiar to both the Pāli and the Sa[rvāstivādin] Vinaya… In other words, the other four extant Chinese recensions of the Vinaya comprise a complete list of Prātimokṣa rules in their Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅgas.

4. See, for example, Loriliai Biernacki (2007). Biernacki is meticulous about pointing out to her readers that in using texts we are examining representations of women and men, and that we should not slip from representation into history.

(Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 32, n. 3) Horner discusses this absence of the first four pārājikas from the Bhikkhunī- vibhaṅga at some length in the introduction to her translation, suggesting that in the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga we may have an ‘abridged version of some more complete Vibhaṅga for nuns’ (BD III.xxxi ff.). Horner discusses several points of evidence for this suggestion, including references by Buddhaghosa in the Samantapāsādika that allude to the assumption that the first four pārājikas are binding for nuns as well as monks, even though he does not comment on the absence of the first four pārājikas in the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. The fact that the Mahāsāṃghika and Dharmaguptaka Vinaya collections do repeat the first fourpārājika s for the nuns may provide further support for Horner’s suggestion that we are working with an abridged version of the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. The first four pārājikas are also omitted from the Parivāra, the compendium of the Vinaya rules for monks and nuns found at the end of the Vinaya-piṭaka (BD VI.80 = Vin V.54). However, the first fourpārājika s are included in the Pāli Bhikkhunī-pāṭimokkha (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 163ff. and Kabilsingh 1998, 17–19).5 The fact that the first four pārājikas are not included in the the Pāli and Sarvāstivāda Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga has certain implications for how nuns ‘read’ those rules and how their subject position is constructed. In much the same way as Liz Wilson argues that nuns must learn to see their own physical bodies ‘through the gendered “I” ’ of the male point of view in these early Buddhist texts, nuns following the Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda traditions must reinter- pret the first four pārājikas by transcribing the rules for male bodies in terms of their own female bodies (Wilson 1996, 141–179). In other words, if the standard for the first four rules is the male body, nuns must inscribe their female bodies onto a male model. The agency involved in, for example, the firstpārājika offence is not different for monks and nuns: there is no assumption that nuns cannot be just as sexually forward as monks, but the details must be spelled out differently for nuns than for monks. In the Vinaya of the Mahāsāṃghika and Dharmaguptaka schools, the first four rules are spelled out with explicit and deliberate attention to women’s bodies. The framing of the first pārājika against sexual intercourse in the Bhikṣunī- vibhaṅga of the Mahāsāṃghika and the Dharmaguptaka schools is not the same in the two collections, but the content of the teachings are. The Buddha, after explaining the benefits for following the Vinaya in both texts, teaches the nuns the first pārājika offence: 1. Mahāsaṃghika Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘If a bhikṣunī without having renounced her precepts or having confessed that she is weak in observing them indulges in any type of sexual intercourse — even with an animal (tiryagyoni) — this bhikṣunī,

5. The Pāṭimokkha — or bare list of rules to follow, chanted at the uposatha ceremonies — is not found in the Pāli canon itself. Discussions of the Pāli Pāṭimokkha in the literature refer to the Kaṅkhāvitaraṇī nāma mātikaṭṭhakathā (Norman and Pruitt, 2003). The relationship between the Pāṭimokkha of the monks and nuns, the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga and the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga is com- plex, and Juo-Hsüeh suggests that on certain points, we can see that the Bhikkhunī-pāṭimokkha has been modified in accord with the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 163–167). Mohan Wijayaratna provides an English translation of the Bhikkhunī-pāṭimokkha in his Buddhist Nuns: The Birth and Development of a Women’s Monastic Order. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh provides a comparison of the Bhikkhunī-pāṭimokkha in six Buddhist schools in English translation (1998).

who commits a pārājika offense ought not be allowed to live with others (in the Order)’ (Hirakawa 1982, 103). Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘If a bhikṣunī indulges in sexual intercourse and has impure conduct, also with an animal, this bhikṣunī [commits] a pārājayika and [is] not [allowed to] live in community’ (Heirman 2002, 244). This explanation closely parallels that found in the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga: Whatever monk, possessed of the training and mode of life for monks, but not disavowing the training and not declaring his weakness, should indulge in sexual intercourse, even with an animal, is one who is defeated, he is not in communion. (BD I.41–42 = Vin III.22). Thus in the Mahāsaṃghika and Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅgas we find in the firstpārājika against sexual intercourse that nuns are considered to be capable of initiating and indulging in sexual intercourse, this being described using virtually the same language as is used for monks. Following this declaration of the first pārājika in the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga, the commentary embedded in the Vinaya-piṭaka (hereafter referred to as the canonical commentary) explains precisely how one should avoid violating the prohibition against sexual intercourse. One of the explanations reads: ‘Indulges [paṭisevati] means: whenever the male organ is made to enter the female, the male member to enter the female, even to the length of a fruit of the sesame plant, this is called indulges’ (BD I.47 = Vin III.28). And further, ‘For a monk who, having thought of cohabitation lets his male organ enter a human woman at any one of the three places,6 there is an offence involving defeat’ (BD I.48 = Vin III.29). When we compare the Mahāsaṃghika and Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga explanations of this pārājika for nuns, it becomes evident that the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga is the model for Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘If a bhikṣunī has unchaste thoughts and she grabs the organ of a human man and puts it in the three places — the anus, the vagina, or the mouth — she commits [a pārājikayika] if he enters, if he does not enter, she does not commit [a pārājikayika]’ (Heirman 2002, 245). Mahāsaṃghika Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘“Sexual intercourse” refers to unchaste practices. If a bhikṣunī receives pleasure, together with any human male who is asleep, awake or dead, or with a non-human male or a male animal who is asleep, awake or dead, or likewise with an impotent male of human, non- human or animal form who is asleep, awake or dead, through the use of any of the three openings, that is, the mouth, the urinary tract [sic], or the anus, then that bhikṣunī, whose act constitutes a pārājika offense, ought not to be allowed to live with the others (in the Order)’ (Hirakawa 1982, 104; see also Nolot 1991, 62). In these passages from the Dharmaguptaka and Mahāsaṃghika Bhikṣunī- vibhaṅgas, then, the authors explain in detail that a nun should not be one who ‘grabs the organ of’ a human (or non-human) male and put it in one of the three places. In other words, the text recognizes that nuns cannot penetrate any of the three openings in the same way that monks can.

6. Horner does not translate all of the details of this firstpārājika , citing the ‘outspokenness and crudeness which it contains’ (BD 1.197). See Petra Kieffer-Pülz (2001) for her translation of these passages; see also Derrett (2006).

The canonical commentary continues in the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga, explaining that there are different kinds of living beings with whom monks should not have intercourse: humans, non-humans, and animals. Neither should monks have intercourse with human, non-human, or animal hermaphrodites (ubhatobyañ- janakas) or paṇḍakas.7 The same prohibitions are found in the Dharmaguptaka and Mahāsaṃghika Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅgas: those whom nuns should not have intercourse with include the three kinds of hermaphrodites (human, non-human, or animal), and paṇḍakas (human, non-human, or animal) (Heirman 2002, 245). And, again, a nun may be defeated if she has sexual intercourse with any of these beings who are asleep, awake, or dead, and if she uses any of her three openings (mouth, vagina, or anus) (Heirman 2002, 245–246; Nolot 1991, 62; Hirakawa 1982, 104–105). The discussion of receiving pleasure discussed in the Mahāsaṃghika Bhikṣunī- vibhaṅga passage above is also found in the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga and the Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga, although Horner’s translation of the Pāli does not make it clear: Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga: ‘Opponents of monks having brought a human woman into a monk’s presence associate his male organ with these three places. If he agrees to entering [or enjoys entering], if he agrees to entry [or enjoys having entered], if he agrees to [or enjoys] remaining, if he agrees to [or enjoys] taking out, there is an offence involving defeat’.8 Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘… if she puts the organ of that man in the three places, it is a pārājikayika if she feels happiness when he enters, if she is happy after he has entered, and if she is happy when he goes out; if she is happy when he enters, if she is happy after he has entered, and if she is not happy when he goes out, it is a pārājikayika’, and so on (Heirman 2002, 246). Like the rules for the monks in the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga, then, a nun violates the pārājika rule if she finds pleasure at any one of the moments of the act — when he enters, after he enters, when he goes out — even if she is asleep, drunk, mad, or raped (Heirman 2002, 246–248; 285 n. 77).9 And, finally, a nun is defeated

7. The meaning of paṇḍaka is uncertain at best. For example, in her translation of the Dhar- maguptaka Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga, Heirmann points out that the Chinese rendering of paṇḍaka is unambiguously ‘eunuch’. The phrase is literally the ‘yellow [color of the emperor] gate’, which refers to ‘those who can dwell within the gates of the imperial palace; they guard the gates and the women’s quarters’ — and they were eunuchs (Heirmann 2002, 282 n. 61). Juo- Hsüeh also prefers to translate paṇḍaka as ‘eunuch’, following Perera (1993, 113 and 142ff. cited in Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 58, n. 64). However, Zwilling points out that there is no question of impotence among the list of paṇḍakas, and thus he rejects the term eunuch (Zwilling 1992, 204). Gyatso generally leaves the term untranslated, and Faure too leaves it in the original language (Gyatso 2003, 98; Faure 1998). My preference as well is to leave the term in Pāli to avoid the inaccurate association of ‘eunuch’ with non-sexually normative males, the broad meaning of ‘paṇḍaka’ (Harvey 2000, 413–18). 8. The Pāli reads: bhikkhupaccathhikā manussitthiṃ bhikkhussa santike ānetvā vaccamaggena aṅgajātaṃ abhinisīdenti, so ce pavesanaṃ sādiyati paviṭṭhaṃ sādiyati ṭhitaṃ sādiyati uddharaṇaṃ sādiyati, āpatti pārājikassa (Vin III.29 = BD I.49). The verb in this passage is sādiyati, which has a range of meanings according to the PED: to enjoy for oneself, to agree to, permit, let take place. Horner chose to translate the verb as ‘agree to.’ Juo-Hsüeh suggests that the verb car- ries the sense of consent, based on Buddhaghosa’s commentary (Sp 902; Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 207 n. 2). Heirman translates the word as ‘to be happy’ (2002, 246, 284 n. 73). 9. There are some discrepancies about whether there are three or four moments to the act. In

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 Carol S. Anderson 49 if she is brought to a sleeping man, a dead man whose body has not yet decayed or has only decayed a little bit.10 Like monks, there are two reasons for which a nun should be removed from the order for breaking the prohibitions against sexual intercourse: if she finds delight or happiness in the act at any point or because she intended to commit the act. There are the exceptions for which a nun should not be found guilty of violating this pārājika rule: if she is unaware (asleep, demented or in a state of meditation), if she finds no pleasure in the act at any of three moments (beginning, middle or the end), or if the precept was not yet laid down, she is mad, her thoughts are confused, or if she is tortured by suffering (Heirman 2002, 248; Hirakawa 1982, 108). These reasons are, again, similar for monks: ‘If one is ignorant, if one has not agreed, if one is mad, unhinged, afflicted with pain, or a beginner, there is no offence’ Vin( III.33 = BD I.51; Sp 269; Bapat and Hirakawa 1970, 205). There are two interesting variations about the prohibition against intercourse for nuns. First, the Vinaya admits the possibility that a bhiksunī might ‘force a bhikṣu to engage in sexual intercourse’ — in other words, the rules allow for the possibility that women might sexually assault men (Hirakawa 1982, 107). Second, Juo-Hsüeh has shown that for monks, the act of sexual intercourse means that they have violated the rule, but with certain exceptions having to do with intent. However, nuns violate the eighth pārājika rule for nuns if they are involved in any one of eight conditions that lead up to sexual intercourse as well as intercourse itself (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 177–186). There is almost as much detail about the ways in which nuns might engage in the act of intercourse itself as there is for monks. The range of beings with which a nun might engage in intercourse — human, non-human, animal — is the same as for monks, as is the list of what we might understand to be ‘states of mind’: whether a monk or a nun is awake, asleep, intoxicated, mad, intoxicated or dead. They are listed in the same way, all of the enumerations and the numbers being the same as for the monks. However, in the eighth pārājika rule for nuns, we see that the penalties for engaging in acts that might lead up to intercourse are more severe than they are for monks. To summarize up to this point, with regard to the first pārājika, the prohibition against sexual intercourse, it is evident that nuns were considered capable of the same kind of agency as monks. The texts explicitly state that nuns should not take male organs into any one of the three openings, but beyond that dis- tinction, there are few differences between the Bhikkhu/Bhikṣu-vibhaṅgas and the Bhikkhunī/Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅgas. The canonical commentary in each of the vibhaṅgas goes to some length to articulate just how that agency was thought to be enacted in the lives of nuns and monks. Setting aside the distinctions between the rule for monks and the rule for nuns, at the core of the Vinaya, intercourse is prohibited within the same set of assumptions for both monks and nuns with, as Juo-Hsüeh Saṅgabhadra’s translation of Buddhaghosa, he states that there are three moments to the act and then four, but the four in his translation are not the same four as in the Pāli Vinaya or in Buddhaghosa’s Pāli commentaries. Saṅgabhadra notes this slip. Here, however, is a set of three moments instead of four that we find in the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga (Heirman 2002, 246 and 285 n. 77; Bapat and Hirakawa 1970, 199, n. 49–50). 10. This verb, translated by Heirman as ‘brought to’ is found in the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga explanation of the first pārājika: bhikkhupaccatthikā manusittiṃ bhikkhussa santike ānetvā …, which Horner translates as ‘Opponents of monks having brought a human woman into a monk’s presence …’ (Vin III.29 = BD I.49).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 50 The Agency of Buddhist Nuns points out, additional restrictions on behaviour that could lead to sexual intercourse for nuns. Unlike the missing first fourpārājika s in the Pāli and Sarvāstivāda Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅgas, in the Mahāsaṃghika and Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga, the redactors recognized that different physical acts were required of nuns to break the prohibition against sexual intercourse than in the case of monks, and spelled out the differences. The Pāli and Sarvāstivāda Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅgas, in contrast, appear to assume that nuns read themselves into the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga discussions of the first four pārājikas, transposing female bodies onto male bodies. The same points about the agency of nuns is true for the second, third, and fourth pārājikas in a comparison of the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga and the Mahāsaṃghika and Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅgas. The gender of the agents changes, but the same explanations and requirements are spelled out for the rules against stealing, killing a human, or lying about one’s spiritual achievements, as we see in the following parallels. (I have not reproduced the Mahāsaṃghika Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga parallels for the sake of brevity, but the wording is as close as between the Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga and the Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga cited here.) 2. Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga: ‘Whatever monk should by means of theft take from a village or from the jungle what has not been given to him in such manner of taking as kings, catching a thief in the act of stealing, would flog him or imprison him or banish him, saying, “You are a robber, you are wrong, you are a thief”, — even so, a monk, taking what is not given him, is also one who is defeated, he is not in communion’ (Vin III.46 = BD I.73). Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘If a bhikṣunī stays in a village or in a remote area and if, while having thoughts of theft, she takes away what has not been given, she will, in accordance with the stolen object, be captured and tied up, or executed or expelled out of the country by the king or by the minister of the king: “You are a thief, you are a fool!” If a bhikṣunī [commits] a pārājayika and [is] not [allowed to] live in community’ (Heirman 2002, 248; cf. Mahāsaṃghika in Hirakawa 1982, 109).

3. Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga: ‘Whatever monk should intentionally deprive a human being of life or should look about so as to be his knife-bringer, or should praise the beauty of death, or should incite (anyone) to death, saying “Hullo there, my man. Of what use to you is this evil, difficult life? Death is better for you than life”, or who should deliberately and purposefully in various ways praise the beauty of death or should incite (anyone) to death: he also is one who is defeated, he is not in communion’ (Vin III.73 = BD I.125). Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘If a bhikṣunī, on purpose and with her own hands, deprives someone of life, or if she takes a knife and gives it to someone, or if she praises death, glorifies death or incites to death, shouting: “Man, with such a bad life, it is better to be dead than alive!”, if she has such thoughts and if she takes many actions to praise death, to glorify death, or to incite to death, this bhikṣunī [commits] a pārājayika and [is] not [allowed to] live in community’ (Heirman 2002, 249; cf. Mahāsaṃghika in Hirakawa 1982, 110).

4. Pāli Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga: ‘Whatever monk should boast, with reference to himself of a state of further-men [uttarimanussadhammaṃ], sufficient ariyan knowledge and insight, though not knowing it fully, and saying: “This I know, this I see”, then if later on, he, being pressed or not being pressed, fallen, should desire to be purified and should say: “Your reverence, I said that I know what I do not

know, see what I do not see, I spoke idly, falsely, vainly”, apart from the undue estimate of himself, he also is one who is defeated, he is not in communion’ (Vin III.91 = BD I.159). Dharmaguptaka Bhikṣunī-vibhaṅga: ‘If a bhikṣunī is actually ignorant, but praises and glorifies herself, saying: “I have obtained superman faculties and I have entered into the superior dharma of the noble knowledge. I know this and I see this”, and if, later, at another time, whether questioned or not, she tries to purify herself and she, therefore, says the following: “Sisters, in reality, I do not know and I do not see, but I said that I knew and that I saw, I falsely did not tell the truth”, this bhikṣunī [commits] a pārājayika and [is] not [allowed to] live in community’ (Heirman 2002, 249–250; cf. Mahāsaṃghika in Hirakawa 1982, 110). When we look at these first four rules and compare them to the Bhikkhu- vibhaṅga, we get a snapshot of what women were thought to be capable of doing that is much broader than we usually think of women during first centuries of the Common Era. Women were seen as able to initiate sexual intercourse, steal, kill or assist a person to kill him or herself, and falsely claim spiritual knowledge of which they had no experience — in much the same way as men could. However, with the second group of four pārājikas, which apply only to nuns, we see that nuns had a greater number of serious prohibitions than monks had, as Juo-Hsüeh and others have pointed out: 5. touching a man who is filled with sexual or sensual desire while she herself is filled with desire (Vin IV.213 = BD III.160); 6. condoning or covering up another bhikkhunī’s pārājika offense (Vin IV.216–217 = BD III.166); 7. following a bhikkhu who has been suspended by the saṅgha after being admonished a third time (Vin IV.218 = BD III.169–170); and 8. engaging in one of eight ways of interacting with human males, when both parties are filled with desire (Vin IV.221–220 = BD III.273–274). Two out of the four of these restrict the behaviour of nuns toward men, and the remaining two involve following the regulations of the saṅgha. One argument that has often been made is that these additional rules found in the collections of the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga reflect a certain sexism. That is, the additional rules dis- play a certain attitude on the part of the redactors toward nuns, and this attitude reveals a degree of subordination of nuns toward monks (Juo-Hsüeh 2000, 12, 17, 159–161 ff.; Chung 1999, 30–34). It is significant that nuns — women — were understood to be capable of engaging the attention of men and of approaching men sexually — just as monks were seen as capable of the same actions. Similarly, monks and nuns were regarded as capable of equally shouldering the burdens of following the regulations of the saṅgha. The regulations in this literature shows that monks and nuns were considered capable of acting in the same matters; at the same time, however, the behaviour of nuns was more closely regulated, as Juo-Hsüeh and Schopen have pointed out. A possible reason for this is suggested by the fact that some Jātakas express the view that women never tire of sex and childbirth (Jat I.440, III.342). If such views saw women as more inclined to sex than

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 52 The Agency of Buddhist Nuns men, then this could help explain why the Vinaya rules guarding against sexual behaviour by nuns were more onerous than those for monks. If we look at the other prohibitions in the Bhikkhunī- and Bhikkhu-pāṭimokkha, the next category is the saṅghādisesas, or those rules whose violation requires a formal meeting of the saṅgha if the monk or nun continues to engage in the behaviour after being warned. Here, the Bhikkhu-pāṭimokkha has a total of thirteen rules and the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga has seventeen — and there are seven rules in common. The latter, as expressed for bhikkhunīs, are as follows in the Pāli canon (the numbers refer to the order of the saṅghādisesas in the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga — the same order is used for the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga): 5. not to act as a ‘go between’ (only in Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga at Vin III.138 = BD I.235–236); 8. not to accuse an innocent bhikkhunī of an unfounded pārājika violation (Bhikkhu- vibhaṅga at Vin III.163 = BD I.281; Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga at Vin IV.237 = BD III.205); 9. not to accuse an innocent bhikkhunī of an unfounded pārājika violation out of anger or hostility (Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga at Vin III.167–168 = BD I.289–290; Bhikkhunī- vibhaṅga at Vin IV.239 = BD III.207); 10. not to cause a schism in the saṅgha (Vin III.172f. = BD I.299); 11. not to support a schismatic bhikkhunī (only in Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga at Vin III.1175 = BD I.305); 12. not to refuse to be admonished by the saṅgha (only in Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga at Vin III.179 = BD I.313); and 13. not to ignore a third admonition to leave a village after corrupting a family or village (only in Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga at Vin III.184 = BD I.325; see also Kabilsingh 1998, 19–27 and Chung 1999, 38–43). The rules that are common to the nuns’ pāṭimokkha and the monks’ pāṭimokkha reflect not only concerns with inappropriate interactions between monks and women and between and nuns and men (and, respectively, non-human and animal females and males), but also harmful behaviour within the saṅgha — issues of schism — as well as inappropriate conduct towards members of the saṅgha and its environs. In all of these areas, while there are additional numbers and kinds of injunctions for nuns than there are for monks, none of the injunctions involve different constructions of agency for nuns when compared to monks. That is, nuns are not shown to be capable of acting any differently than monks. What they are expected to do, where this differs, reflects the different sociocultural expectations for men and women in ancient India, but they are not regarded as possessing different capacities for action. Finally, there are four rules that constrain the behaviour of monks toward women in relation to sexual intercourse that do not have a parallel in the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. These regulations reflect the ways in which behaviour was regulated, not a different conception of agency: 1. not to intentionally emit semen (Vin III.112 = BD I.195); 2. not to engage with a woman in bodily contact or take her hand, take her arm, touch her hair, touch one or another of her limbs (Vin III.120 = BD I.201–202); 3. not to speak to a woman with lewd words concerned with sexual intercourse; and (Vin III.128 = BD I.215)

4. not to speak in front of women, in praise of sexual service of the body with regard to himself (Vin III.133 = BD I.224–225). Juo-Hsüeh (2000, 185) points out that these rules do not entail expulsion from the order for monks, but since similar prohibitions are found in the fifthpārājika for nuns, there is an unequal standard for the behaviour of monks and nuns. Juo-Hsüeh notes that the key difference is the appearance of the term ‘filled with desire’ or ‘oozing with desire’ (avasuttā) in the Bhikkhunī-pāṭimokkha, and its absence in the Bhikkhu-pāṭimokkha. The point, however, is that a recognition of the equitable agency of nuns and monks appears to run throughout the various recensions of the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga and Pāṭimokkha, insofar as the variations between the surviving texts do not reveal substantially different attitudes toward the ability or capacity of women to act. The significance of these obser- vations about the agency of nuns and monks is thrown into sharper relief when we consider a different set of assumptions about the differences between ‘male’ and ‘female’ in terms of their differentiating ‘faculties’. The Male and Female ‘Faculties’ The Abhidhamma literature discusses at some length the relationships between the indriyas (faculties) of men and women, their physical appearance, and their behaviour. The terms itthindriya and purisindriya have been translated in a variety of ways. Pe Maung Tin and Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids translate the terms as ‘feminine and masculine controlling faculties’. Professor Karunadasa translates the terms as ‘faculties of masculinity and femininity’ (Karunadasa 1967, 55). The Abhidhamma lists them among 22 indriyas, the others being those of: the five senses and the mind; vitality; pleasure, pain, happiness, unhappiness and indifference; faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom; ‘I am knowing the known’, knowing, and that of one who has fully known (Vibh 122). It is explained that, in the sense-desire realm, of which humans are part, between 14 and 4 indriyas are present from the time of conception (Vibh 412). For womb-born beings — which includes humans — the ones present from conception are generally those of the body-sense, mind, masculinity or femininity, vitality, happiness or indifference, faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and, if there are karmic roots associated with knowledge, wisdom (Vibh 415–416), though in some, only those of body-sense, mind, vitality, and indifference are present (Vibh 417). Here, faculties (indriyas) should be understood as basic aspects or capacities of living beings. The relationship between biological sex, the faculties, and other characteristics that in contemporary use we classify as ‘gender’ is laid out at two points in the commentaries, in the Samantapāsādikā and the commentary on the Dhammasaṅgaṇī, the Atthasālinī.11 The primary category of analysis in these texts is the indriyas. Male and female faculties are explained and defined in the Dhammasaṅgaṇī and the Vibhaṅga as the same as the physical appearance and manner of men and women: female faculties are defined as the features (itthi-liṅgaṃ), characteristics (itthi-nimittaṃ12), occupations (itthi-kuttaṃ), and deportment (itthākappo) peculiar to women, as well as femaleness (itthi-ttaṃ) and ‘women’s being or nature’

11. While this is often said to be a work of Buddhaghosa, the fact that it says (Asl.1) that a Bud- dhaghosa asked the author to write it makes this unlikely. 12. On nimitta, see note 2.

(itthi-bhāvo) (Dhs secs.633, 713, 836; Vibh 122). So, too, male faculty refers to the physical appearance and manner unique to a man, or the state or condition of masculinity (purisatta or purisabhāva). The Aṅguttara-nikāya shares this under- standing, when the text defines both male and female faculties as focuses of attachment: ‘A woman, bhikkhus, is aware of the female faculty (itthindriyaṃ) in herself: feminine occupations (itthikuttaṃ), feminine deportment (itthākappaṃ), feminine manner (itthividhaṃ), feminine impulses (itthicchandaṃ), feminine voice (itthissaraṃ), [and] feminine adornment (itthālaṅkāraṃ)’ (A IV.57–58, cf. IV.194; cf. Karunadasa 1967, 55). The Aṅguttara sutta continues, explaining that women and men are delighted by these attributes, and ends with this sentence: Delighted by and attached to (abhiratā sattā) the condition of being a woman [or a man] (itthatte/purisatte), monks, [s/he] is delighted and is tied to men [or to women] (purisesu/itthisu saṃyogaṃ gatā) and cannot overcome (nātivattati) the state of being a woman [or a man] (itthattaṃ/ purisattaṃ). (A IV.57–58) Non-attachment, in contrast, enables men and women to overcome the state of being female or male. In all of these passages, then, the state of being a woman or a man is reflected in a woman’s or a man’s deportment, appearance, manner, desire or impulse, voice, and adornment. This accord is precisely what we expect to find in a gendered system based on biological differences between male and female: there is a correlation between a conception of female-ness or male-ness that encompasses one’s physical appearance, behaviour, and attire. In this analysis, to be possessed of the female or male faculty is to possess a set of qualities rooted in one’s biological sex. This correlation between male and female bodies, physical appearance and the ‘state of being a man or a woman’ is precisely what leads scholars to identify these teachings as essentialist: according to this argument, there is a biological basis to the differences between men and women. However, the Atthasālinī explains in its comments on the passage in the Dhammasaṅgaṇī that female faculty (itthindriya) is not the same thing as the physical differences between the sexes that we call ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’. The male and female faculties are, instead, the controlling faculties shaping what we understand today to be both biological sex and gender:13 Here, ‘by whatever cause a woman has female features (itthiliṅgaṃ) and so on’, ‘feature’ means shape. That is, the shape of a woman’s hands, feet, neck, breast, and so on is not like a man’s. A woman’s lower body is wide, the upper body is narrow. The hands and feet are small, the mouth is small. … The female breasts are noticeable. The face is without beard or moustache. The dress- ing of the hair, the wearing of the clothes are also unlike those of a man. ‘Occupation’ (kuttaṃ) means action. As children, women play with tiny shal- low baskets, pestles and mortars, different dolls, and weave string with clay- fiber. ‘Deportment’ ākappo( ) is a way of going, or one’s gait. There is a lack of assertiveness (avisadaṃ) in women’s walking, standing, lying down, sitting, eating, and swallowing. Indeed, when a man of that description is seen (pur- isam pi hi avisadaṃ disvā), people say, ‘He walks and stands like a woman’ (Asl 321; adapted from Maung Tin & Rhys Davids 1958, 419). 14

13. This is also stated in the Samantapāsādikā, the commentary on the Vinaya-piṭaka. 14. The Pe Maung Tin and Caroline Rhys Davids’ translation of the Atthasālinī in The Expositor is generally accurate; I have adapted it to make it more readable in English.

The key term here is ‘female features’ (itthiliṅgaṃ), which refers to the features or markers of females or women. The Atthasālinī has a clear description of the features that distinguish men and women – voice, posture, and so on; the male faculty (purisindriyaṃ) functions in exactly the same way (Asl 321–322). The above passage is followed by an equally detailed description of male features (purisaliṅgaṃ), which includes the same distinctions as for women: men’s bodies are broader at the top, narrower at the hips; they have facial hair, and in child- hood they play with chariots and plows, and make sand piles and dig ponds (Asl 321). This passage makes it clear that there is a correlation between female and male ‘features’ or ‘sexual characteristics’ (liṅgaṃ) and what boys and girls like to do — thus opening the door to the claim that these texts reveal an essentialist conception of gender. However, the Atthasālinī defines the terms ‘the state of being a woman’ (itthattaṃ) and ‘female being’ (itthibhāvo) by explaining that both of these terms have one meaning: ‘female nature’ (itthisabhāvo) ‘which is born of kamma and produced at the instant of conception’ (Asl 321; Maung Tin and Rhys Davids 1958, 419). So, too, for men: male being (purisabhāvo) is born of kamma and produced at the moment of conception. Here, the text is commenting on the passage in the Dhammasaṅgaṇī that has claimed that male and female faculties are the same as the ‘state or condition of male or female’. It clarifies the Dhammasaṅgaṇī when it argues: ‘But female features and so on (itthiliṅgādi) are not the female faculty (itthindriyaṃ) — female features are produced in due course as a result of the female faculty’, just like a tree grows from a seed (Asl 321). By extension, the same is true of male features and the male faculty. We have, then, two different explanations for the relationship between the female and male faculties, the physical appearance of being a man or a woman, women’s and men’s ‘nature’ or ‘being’ (bhāvo), and the state or condition of being a man or a woman (itthatta and purisatta). The Dhammasaṅgaṇī, Vibhaṅga, and the Aṅguttara-nikāya say that they are all the same.15 The Atthasālinī, on the other hand, concludes that the faculties are the cause of men’s and women’s features (liṅgaṃ), not that they are the same as men’s as women’s features. This clearly follows from the idea that women’s being (itthibhāvo) and men’s nature (purisabhāvo), and women’s nature (itthisabhāvo), are present from the time of conception. The Atthasālinī also claims that ‘female features’ and ‘male features’, while produced in the same way (as a result of the faculties), are not equal: ‘Of the two, men’s features are superior (uttamaṃ), women’s features are inferior (hīnaṃ)’ (Asl 322). The relationship between biologically sexed bodies, male and female faculties, and agency can be untangled by examining these arguments in the Atthasālinī. There are clear assumptions about how women and men are inclined to act in these passages. As discussed above, the Atthasālinī explains that the male and female faculties give rise to the physical features and typical actions and manner that we usually associate with men and with women. ‘The state of being a

15. Karunadasa (1967, 55) points out that there is another anomaly with regard to the faculties of feminity and masculinity: in the Paṭṭhāna of the Abhidhamma-piṭaka, he writes, ‘with the sole exception of itthindriya and purisindriya, all the indriyas are postulated as indriya-paccaya, ‘condition by way of faculty’. This observation has implications for how the male and female faculties are understood in the commentaries, which must be the subject for a different study.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 56 The Agency of Buddhist Nuns woman’ (itthattaṃ) and ‘female being’ (itthibhāvo) both refer to ‘female nature’ (itthisabhāvo) which are biologically established in humans: both of these states are said in the Atthasālinī to be ‘born of kamma and produced at the instant of conception’. This is the point at which we need to recognize that the key category for the differences between male and female is the seed-like faculties, not overt biology — even though ‘male or female being’ is established at the moment of conception. According to these texts, the aspects of being male and female that define men and women in society cannot be simply reduced to a biologically essentialist framework, precisely because the faculties are inscribed on humans at the point of conception. In short, the terms that Sweet and Zwilling used to conclude that the Buddhist teachings were essentialist when it comes to gender cannot so clearly be reduced to biologically-linked and gendered behaviours and actions, because the faculties control biology, not the reverse.16 Furthermore, male and female faculties — and genitalia — are mutable according to both the Pāli Vinaya and the abhidhamma analyses. This phenomenon appears in the Pāli Vinaya-piṭaka at two points, in the extensive discussion of the firstpārājika for monks and in the Parivāra: ‘Now, once the sexual characteristics of a woman (itthiliṅgaṃ) appeared on a monk’, and a few lines later, the reverse is laid out as a possibility: ‘the sexual characteristics of a man (purusaliṅgaṃ) appeared on a nun’ (Vin III.35 and Bapat 1957). The Atthasālinī comments on this passage: Matter coming into being at conception fluctuates during procedure [pavatte, i.e. post-conception life] and changes its features; and matter coming into being during procedure does likewise; as has been said: ‘At that time in a certain bhikkhu the features of a woman were revealed; at that time in a certain female bhikkhu the features of a man were revealed’. Of the two, the masculine sex is superior, the feminine is inferior. Therefore the former disap- pears through grossly immoral conduct; the latter may be brought about by weak morality. But in disappearing, the latter does so by weak immorality, the former may be brought about by strong morality. Thus both disappear through immorality and may be brought about by morality. (Asl 322 = Maung Tin and Rhys Davids 1958, 420–421; see Harvey 2000, 412). The commentaries and ṭīkās take up this point at length, reiterating this discussion of just how moral actions can lead to changes of sex. The ṭīkās go into greater detail about the role of kamma and what to do with a monk or nun who wakes up with the genitalia (liṅgaṃ) of the opposite sex (Sp 273-274; Sp-ṭ 2.79-83; Vmv 1.133-137).17 The fact that in this literature, sexual characteristics or genitalia can change in a single monk or nun underscores the point made above: male and female faculties control biology, not the reverse. The argument that Buddhist literature has an essentialist view of gender is in error.

16. Janet Gyatso has made this point with reference to the category of paṇḍakas, using Nāgārjuna’s deconstruction of essentialist and dualistic points of view (Gyatso 2003, 103). 17. I provide a more comprehensive analysis of this material on sex change in Buddhist literature in Loriliai Biernacki’s forthcoming volume, Sex and Texts: Representations of Sexuality in Asian Religious Traditions.

Conclusion This article laid out three questions at the outset. What kind of agency are nuns shown to have when compared to monks in the Vinayas? What is the relationship between ‘female faculty’ and ‘male faculty’ in abhidhamma analyses? Finally, what is the relationship between ‘male faculty’ and ‘female faculty’ and the agency expected of nuns? I have explored what the Vinaya texts say about how nuns and monks should behave as monks and nuns, and have suggested that there is no substantial difference in how the redactors of the Vinaya conceived of nuns’ or monks’ abilities to act in the world, even with regard to the injunctions against sexual intercourse. On the other hand, Abhidhamma and commentarial literature suggests that there are marked differences between men and women: the texts use such terms as ‘female nature’ and ‘male nature’. The fact that such terms are used in the Abhidhamma and commentaries, however, should not lead us to conclude that the Buddhist traditions were biologically essentialist with regard to men and women. On the basis of this survey of the Vinaya regulations, the opposite appears to be the case. In the Vinaya texts of various Buddhist schools, nuns and monks clearly occupy similar subject positions and are considered to share the same kind of agency. Both monks and nuns are required to regulate their behaviours in a variety of areas — with regard to sex, living in community, and so on. Both nuns and monks are characterized as able to control their sexual urges, bodies, and behaviours due to their ‘natures’. So, while the basically inborn (but changeable) sexual faculties are seen to determine the typical action repertoire and manner of men and women, they are not seen as limiting the power to do or refrain from actions. As a correlative, both women and men are portrayed as potentially sexual forward, as in the Jātaka stories and elsewhere.18 We can, I believe, be more specific about the long-standing questions about the ‘equality’ of nuns and the misogyny of this body of early Buddhist literature.19 Schopen and Juo-Hsüeh’s contentions, among others, about the apparent need to control the behaviour of nuns are incontrovertible: I have referred to Juo-Hsüeh’s points about the increased regulation of nuns’ actions throughout this article, particularly with regard to prohibitions about the different ways in which contact with the opposite sex is regulated in the vibhaṅgas. The three questions at the outset of this article ask: (1) are nuns considered to be as capable of controlling their behaviour as were monks in the Vinaya literature? (2) What are the abhidhamma arguments (in the canonical Abhidhamma and its commentaries) about the nature of ‘men’ and ‘women’ and the gender of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’? (3) Do the Vinaya texts presume that, because nuns are women and thus have a ‘female nature’, they have a different ability to act in the world when compared to monks who have ‘male nature’? First, we have found that there is an unqualified equity with regard to agency: nuns were considered capable of acting in the same way as were monks. We have also seen evidence to support Juo-Hsüeh’s arguments about the fact that

18. I am grateful to Peter Harvey for this point. For Jātaka references to sexually voracious women, see Harvey (2000, 376–379). Serenity Young (2004) has explored similar questions about sexuality. 19. Harvey lays out nine different ways in which the question of ‘equality’ might be understood in a religion (2000, 353).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010 58 The Agency of Buddhist Nuns nuns were expected to regulate more of their behaviours and actions than were monks, particularly with regard to contact with the opposite sex.20 Second, even though the abhidhamma analysis of ‘gender’ does identify different ‘natures’ for men and women, which has led some scholars to conclude that gender and sex are essentialist categories in these texts, the closer investigation of this evidence shows that ‘masculine and feminine natures’ are not fixed or immutable categories or ones that definitively determine the actions of women or men. Put differently, even though the Atthasālinī explains that ‘men’ and ‘women’ may be inclined, when young, to dig in the dirt or to play with dolls, the Vinaya does not recognize ‘female nature’ or ‘male nature’ as a barrier or limiting factor when it comes to controlling behaviour. The third and final point is that responsibility in the Vinaya is placed on the actions of nuns or monks, on their intentions and on what they actually do – not on a biologically essentialist determination of ‘male’ or ‘female’. The abhidhamma analysis of gender is rooted in the faculties, in which male and female faculties control biology, and, ultimately, karma determines the configuration of the faculties. Nevertheless, though what actions men and women are inclined to undertake are seen to be affected by their inborn (though changeable) sexual faculties, the faculties are not seen to place limits on responsibility for actions. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Nirmala Salgado, Gisela Krey, Vanessa Sasson, Liz Wilson, Ann Heirman, and Jennifer Einspahr for conversations about the topics explored in this paper, which was first presented at a panel at the American Academy of Religion (2008). Karen Pechilis and Ruth Vanita also made suggestions on earlier versions of this paper for which I am grateful. The final version is much improved due to the close readings of Peter Harvey and Vanessa Sasson. Abbreviations A Aṅguttara-nikāya Asl Aṭṭhasālinī (commentary on the Dhammasaṅgaṇī) BD The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-Pitaka). 6 vols. transl. I. B. Horner, Sacred Books of the Buddhists. London: Oxford University Press, 1949-1963. Dhs Dhammasaṅgaṇī Jat Jātaka and its commentary Nirukta The Nighaṇṭu and the Nirukta, ed. and trans. Lakshman Sarup. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2nd ed., 1967. The Nirukta is a glossary and treatise on terms found in the Vedas. Sp Samantapāsādikā (Buddhaghosa’s commentary on the Vinaya-piṭaka) Sp-ṭ Sāratthadīpanī – twelfth century ṭīkā on the Vinaya-piṭaka by Sāriputta (Dhammagiri edition, Chaṭṭa-Saṅgāyana Tipiṭaka 4.0) Vibh Vibhaṅga Vin Vinaya-piṭaka

20. Juo-Hsüeh argues that not only did nuns have to control more of their behaviours than monks did, but that the penalties for nuns not controlling their actions were more severe (2000, 15, 159–205, 497). In this article, we have only considered her arguments about how many different kinds of actions nuns had to control in comparison with monks.

Vmv Vimativinodanī – thirteenth century ṭīkā on the Vinaya-piṭaka by Kassapa (Dhammagiri edition, Chaṭṭa-Saṅgāyana Tipiṭaka 4.0 Translations of the above Pāli texts are cited by the translator’s last name, with the exception of I. B. Horner’s translations of the Vinaya-piṭaka which are cited as BD. Bibliography Ahearn, Laura. 2001. ‘Language and Agency’. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 109–137. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.109 Bapat, P. V.. 1957. ‘Change of Sex in Buddhist Literature’. In Felicitation Volume Presented to Professor Sripad Krishna Belvalkar, edited by S. Radhakrishnan et al., 209–215. Banaras: Motilal Banarsidas. Bapat, P. V., and Akira Hirakawa, eds. 1970. Shan-Chien-P’i-P’o-Sha: A Chinese Version of Samantapāsādikā by Sanghabhadra, Commentary on Pali Vinaya, Bhandarkar. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Biernacki, Loriliai. 2007. The Renowned Goddess of Desire: Women, Sex and Speech in Tantra. New York: Oxford University Press. Chung, In Young. 1999. ‘A Buddhist View of Women: A Comparative Study of the Rules for Bhikṣunīs and Bhikṣus Based on the Chinese Prātimoksa’. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 6: 29–105. Derrett, J. Duncan M. 2006. ‘Monastic Masturbation in Buddhist Texts’. Journal of the History of Sexuality 15 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1353/sex.2006.0050 Faure, Bernard. 1998. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gyatso, Janet. 2003. ‘One Plus One Makes Three: Buddhist Gender, Monasticism, and the Law of the Non-Excluded Middle’. History of Religions 43 (2): 89–115. doi:10.1086/423006 Harvey, Peter. 2000. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundation, Values, and Issues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heirman, Ann. 2002. Rules for Nuns According to the DharmaguptakaVinaya: The Discipline in Four Parts. Vol. 49, Buddhist Tradition Series. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. von Hinüber, Oskar. 1994. Selected Papers on Pāli Studies. Oxford: The Pāli Text Society. Hirakawa, Akira. 1982. Monastic Discipline for the Buddhist Nuns: An English Translation of the Chinese Text of the Mahasamghika-Bhiksuni-Vinaya, Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series. Patna: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute. Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. 1988. The Bhikkhuni Patimokkha of the Six Schools. 1st Indian edition, Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications. Juo-Hsüeh Shih, Bhikkhunī. 2000. Controversies over Buddhist Nuns. Oxford: Pali Text Society. Karunadasa, Y. 1997. Buddhist Analysis of Matter. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Department of Cultural Affairs. Kieffer-Pülz, Petra. 2001. ‘Pārājika 1 and Saṅghādisesa 1: Hitherto Untranslated Passages from the Vinayapiṭaka of the Theravadins’. Traditional South Asian Medicine 6: 62–84. Maung Tin, Pe and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. [1921] 1958. The Expositor (Atthasālinī). London: Luzac and Co. Nolot, Edith.19991. Règles De Discipline Des Nonnes Bouddhistes: Le BhiksuniVinaya De L’école Mahasamghika-Lokottaravadin, Publications De L’institut De Civilisation Indienne. Paris: Diffusion de Boccard.

Norman, K.R. and William Pruit, eds. 2003. Kaṅkhāvitaraṇī. London: Pali Text Society. Perera, L.P.N. 1993. Sexuality in Ancient India: A Study Based on the Pali Vinayapitaka. Kelaniya: Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Schopen, Gregory. 2004. Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: Still More Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India. Edited by Luis O. Gomez, Studies in the Buddhist Traditions. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i. Sweet, Michael J. and Leonard Zwilling. 1993. ‘The First Medicalization: The Taxonomy and Etiology of Queerness in Classical Indian Medicine’. Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (4): 590–607. Wijayaratna, Môhan. 2001. Buddhist Nuns: The Birth and Development of a Women’s Monastic Order. Colombo: Wisdom. Wilson, Liz. 1996. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Young, Serenity. 2004. Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconographies, and Ritual. New York: Routledge Press. Zwilling, Leonard. 1992. ‘Homosexuality as Seen in Indian Buddhist Texts’. In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, edited by J. I. Cabezón, 203–214. Albany: State University of New York Press. Zwilling, Leonard and Michael J. Sweet. 1996. ‘“Like a City Ablaze”: The Third Sex and the Creation of Sexuality. Jain Religious Literature 6 (3): 359–384.