The path of practice as taught in ancient India by Gotama Buddha was open to both women and men. The texts of early Indian Buddhism show that women were lay followers of the Buddha and were also granted the right to ordain and become nuns. Certain women were known as influential teachers of men
and women alike and considered experts in certain aspects of Gotama's dhamma. For this to occur in an ancient religion practiced within traditional societies is really quite extraordinary. This is apparent especially in light of the continued problems experienced by practitioners of many religions
today involved in challenging instilled norms and practices and conferring the status of any high office upon women.
In this collection, Alice Collett brings together a sampling of the plethora of Buddhist texts from early Indian Buddhism in which women figure centrally. It is true that
there are negative conceptualizations of and attitudes towards women expressed in early Buddhist texts, but for so many texts concerning women to have been composed, collated and preserved is worthy of note. The simple fact that the Buddhist textual record names so many nuns and laywomen, and
preserves biographies of them, attests to a relatively positive situation for women at that time. With the possible exception of the reverence accorded Egyptian queens, there is no textual record of named women from an ancient civilization that comes close to that of early Indian Buddhism.
This volume offers comparative study of texts in five different languages - Gandhari, Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese and Sinhala. Each chapter is a study and translation, with some chapters focusing more on translation and some more on comparisons between parallel and similar texts, whilst others are
more discursive and thematic.
Contributors
A Note on Non-English Words
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Bajaur Collection of Kharosthi Manuscripts
Mahaprajapati Gautami and the Order of Nuns in a Gandharan Version of the Daksinavibhangasutra
2. The British Library Kharosthi Fragments
Behind the
Birch Bark Curtain
3. Pali Vinaya
Re-conceptualizing Female Sexuality in Early Buddhism
4. Mahasamghika-Lokottaravada Bhiksuni Vinaya
The Intersection of Womanly Virtue and Buddhist Asceticism
5. Anguttara-nikaya / Ekottarika-agama
Outstanding Bhikkhunis in the
Ekottarika-agama
6. Samyutta-nikya / Samyukta-agama
Defying Mara - Bhikkhunis in the Samyukta-agama
7. Therigatha
Nanda, Female Sibling of the Buddha
8. Apadana: Theri-Apadana
Wives of the Saints: Marriage and Kamma in the Path to Arahantship
9. Avadanasataka
The Role
of Brahmanical Marriage in a Buddhist Text
10. Dhammapada- atthakatha/Saddharmaratnavaliya
Women in Medieval South Asian Buddhist Societies
Bibliography
There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.
Alice Collett is a Fellow of the Arts and Humanities Council of Great Britain (AHRC) and Lecturer at York St John University. She has worked in different universities in North America and the UK, and published several articles on women in early Indian Buddhism, including two which look at
reception history and review the modern scholarly debate on the subject. She is currently working on a monograph entitled Pali Biographies of Buddhist Nuns, for which she is in receipt of an Arts and Humanities Research Council award.
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
Little Buddhas - Edited by Vanessa R. Sasson