Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia by Garima Kaushik

Author:Garima Kaushik [Kaushik, Garima]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, India & South Asia, Religion, Buddhism, Women
ISBN: 9781317329381
Google: GICPCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-02-12T16:12:49+00:00

The ‘flow of the river’ stands for craving, while ‘lovely and alluring’ stands for the six senses. The ‘pool further down’ represents the five lower fetters – they being self-identity, uncertainty, attachment to practices and precepts, sensual passion and resistance. The ‘waves’ stand for anger and distress. The ‘whirlpools’ is the simile for the five strings of sensuality. The ‘monsters and demons’ stand for the opposite sex. ‘Against the flow’ stands for renunciation. ‘Making an effort with hands and feet’ stands for the arousing of persistence. ‘The man with good eyesight standing on the bank’ stands for the Tathāgata, worthy and rightly self-awakened.

It is noteworthy that in this particular text the reference to ‘monsters and demons’ is not directed to members of any particular gendered group, and takes both men and women within its sphere. Unlike the representations in the other texts which more often than not equate temptation and lust with female nature, this text offers a contradictory stance, and desire here is not represented by any specific gender. This basic difference stems from the fact that unlike all the other texts that were intended for an exclusive monk audience, the Ittivuttaka was intended for a female-inclusive audience. According to the tradition, Ittivuttaka was first delivered to Khujjuttara by the Buddha, who then later delivered it to some 500 more women of the king’s harem. It was at a point later in time also delivered by Ānanda, who is known to have been a champion of women’s causes during the time of the Buddha. His association with such a text further attests the association of the feminine with the text. Thus it is evident that this text espouses and accepts the spiritual potential of women practitioners, albeit in a roundabout manner.

A more direct acknowledgement can be found in the narrative of the Princess Jātaka, which makes the dramatic point that Theravāda tradition in the past acknowledged the possibility of women as bodhisattvas, as striving for Buddhahood. This narrative is found in a variety of Pāli and vernacular texts78 popular in the Theravādin world from the 14th to 16th centuries C.E., and has been exhaustively studied by Karen Derris79 (‘When the Buddha Was a Woman: Reimagining Tradition in the Theravāda’). The story is complex and contains contradictory representations of women on the surface: while the Princess Jātaka asserts that a woman can be a Bodhisattva, it attributes the Bodhisattva’s flaws to her female sex. The Princess Jātaka is unique in two ways; first, as it is the only story to envision the Buddha Gotama as female in one of his previous lives. Remarkably for the Theravāda, which imagines a Buddha as exclusively male, the Bodhisattva is reborn in this narrative as a woman. Second, as in several medieval biographies of the Buddha, the Princess Jātaka is part of an extensive preamble to a canonical biography of the Buddha, the Buddhavamsa. The narrative framework of the Buddhavamsa begins with the Jātakas narrating the Buddha’s previous lives and develops chronologically to the final lifetime when the Bodhisattva finally attained Buddhahood and became the Buddha Gotama.

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