Temptress, Housewife, Nun: Women's Role in Early Buddhism

By Cornelia Dimmit
           Georgetown University

Anima

vol.1 no.2 (Spring, 1975)

page 53-58

pg 53

IN OUR SPIRITUAL lives we are neither male nor female. We are one; male and female represent complementary aspects of our psychological constitution rather than biological determinants which shape the limits of our spiritual hopes. In some ideally transformed future, a spiritual distinction between the sexes may not be necessary. But in our present society, which confuses biology, social role, and spiritual possibility, why should there not again be a Bhikkunī Sangha ("order of Buddhist nuns")?

  Early Buddhism had such an Order, and the monastic life was open to women as fully as to men. In several Theravada Buddhist countries even today some women have renounced worldly life to live in ascetic discipline, but without the support of an Order.  What has become of it? Can it be restored? Perhaps this cannot be because, as at least one monk has told me, according to the Vinaya Pitaka (rules of discipline in the Pali canon) a nun can be ordained only by the joint ministrations of bhikkus ( “monks” ) and bhikkunīs ( “nuns” ), and the continuous chain of Bhikkuni ordination has been broken. broken.                                                                                                             

If the Order were to be restored, it should be for both literal and symbolic reasons. Literal, so that women of all countries can join for short or long periods in the meditative life. Symbolic, so that it will become evident that the possibility of nibbāna (nirvāna in Sanskrit) as well as freedom from ego, desire, and samsāra (“the cycle of rebirths”) can be openly available for women as well as for men. A sangha for males only becomes the literal testimony to the possibility of nibbāna for men and its impossibility for women.

Let us acquaint ourselves with the position of women in early Buddhism as shown in the Pali Canon and then raise the question of the value and viability of a Bhikkuni Sangha in the modern world.

According to the Book of Discipline, the Buddhist order of nuns was founded during the lifetime of the Budhha himself by Mahāpajāpatī, step-mother and aunt of the Buddha, and it was not a simple matter.

At one time the Awakened One, the Lord, was staying among the Sangha at Kapilavatthu….Then the Gotamid Pajāpatī the Great approacned the Lord... and asked to establish an older of nuns, the Bhikkuni Sangha. The Buddha replied, "Be careful about this!" and repeated his admonition four or five times. She went away disappointed.

 [Cullavagga, chap. x]

Again in Vesālī she approached him with head shaven and wearing a yellow robe, testifying to her seriousness of purpose, “feet swollen, limbs covered with dust, tearful face.” This time the Buddha’s disciple Ānanda was touched, and he approached the Buddha, who said again, “Be careful!” When Ānanda asked directly_whether or not women are capable of realizing nibbāna, it is recorded that the Buddha answered,

Women having gone forth from home into hoelessness in the Dhamma (the "way of life") and discipline proclaimed by the Truthfinder, are able to realize thefruit of non-returning and perfection.

[Cullavagga, x.254]

And later he proclaims, "I allow, monks, nuns to be ordained by monks" [x.257].

So the original Bhikkuni Sangha was finally established by Pajāpatī, the Buddha's aunt, nurse, "giver of milk.” But in this account there are substantial problems. That women were felt by some to be a very real threat to the male Sangha appears to be reflected in this famous dialogue:

How are we to conduct ourselves, lord, with regard to womankind?

As not seeing them, Ānanda.

But if we should see them, what are we to do?

No talking, Ānanda.

But if they should speak to us, lord, what are we to do?

Keep wide awake, Ānanda. [Dīghā-Nikāya, xvi. 5.9]

Nuns were accepted only on condition that they obey eight specific rules in addition to those kept by monks. These provided for a longer period of training before ordination, more severe punishments for rule

pg54

infractions, and complete respect for all monks at all times, regardless of rank.

 A nun who has been ordained [even] for a century must greet respectfully, rise up from her seat, salute with joined palms, do proper homage to a monk ordained but that day. And this rule is to be honored, respected, revered, venerated, never to be transgressed during her life.

[Cullavagga, x. 255 ]

 There appears to have been much gossip about the possible cohabitation of monks and nuns, the general effect of which was to undermine the laity's faith in the purity of the Sangha.

 People looked down upon, criticized, spread it about saying "these are their wives, these are their mistresses, now they will take their pleasure together." [x. 264]                                        

The result of this criticism separated the Bhikku and Bhikkuni communities further from each other. Where-        as monks originally officiated in all ways for the nuns, hearing their confessions and so forth, nuns gradually took over all responsibility for their own discipline. With a single important exception, the Order of Nuns appears to have been independent: the full ordination ceremony required the officiation of both Sanghas, whereas for monks only the Bhikku Sangha  was required.                                                                                               

I find here a genuine belief on the part of the Buddha and Pajāpatī that the spiritual life is fully open to women. But I also see skepticism as to the capabilities of women for selfdiscipline; they seem to be treated like children. The texts also show great concern on the part of the monks to preserve their superior status as men, for reasons which I think are more social and cultural than Buddhist - reflecting he prevailing attitudes of contemporary Indian society. In the entire Pali Canon I detect a profound ambivalence toward women, their nature, their spiritual capabilities, and their social position. It is hard for these writers to admit the spiritual or social equality of women. Even as they see evidence of women's capabilities around them, they tend to emphasize their  ineptness. This marvelous ambivalence can be seen in a passage located between the two statements of the Buddha we have already seen granting full privileges to nuns, both to nibbāna and to ordination, where this colorful diatribe has apparently been introduced:

If, Ānanda, women had not obtained the going forth from home into homelessness in the Dhamma and discipline proclaimed by the Truth-finder .. . the Dhamma would have endured for a thousand years.  But since women have gone forth ... true Dhamma will endure only for five hundred years.

[Cullavagga, x.256]

This is followed by a series of metaphors for the awful pollution that has just occurred in the acceptance of women into the Order. It is "as households with many women and few men fall prey to robbers, as red-rust attacks a field of sugar cane ..." a series of devastating prospects. This same ambivalence prevails elsewhere in the canon, often, in the same manner; a positive statement about women is followed by a critical one. Do we see here the hand of some ancient misogynist editor(s)? I think that in some cases, indeed we do.

It may be that the reason some monks enter the Order in the first place is to avoid women. The same appears to be true in reverse for some women who are seeking to escape marriage and its servitude. But more than this, such criticism of women as it exists appears to reflect attitudes of the larger Indian society, attitudes the modern world in many ways has scarcely outgrown. From the Laws of Manu, Hindu law code written ca. 200 B.C.:

Day and night women must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one's control.  Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a women is never fit for independence.  [ix. 2, 3]

Women in general are dependent on their male relatives, having neither social nor spiritual life of their own. Little wonder that the Order of Nuns is treated in the same manner. It seems to be this same prevail-

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ing attitude we see in the Pali Canon when women are regarded as property, as hopelessly foolish and inept, as incapable of taking care of themselves, or as a sensual snare for men because the men are unable to control their own sexual passions.                                                             

In the Dīgha Nikāya, Brahmins are criticized fo excessive greed, their desire for possessions prevent ing them from enlightenment. Here "wives" and "wealth" are simply two items of property: so have wives been considered in India and also in English common law. The idea is hardly unique to the Pali Canon!

Numerous passages in the Anguttara Nikāya point to the general ineptness and lack of seriousness of  women. This, too, may well reflect criticism based on observation of current social life that was not entirely ill-founded. I would only add that from my own observation these weaknesses are by no means restricted to women.                                                                                                                                 

Womenfolk are uncontrollable... envious ... greedy ... weak in wisdom ... A woman's heart is haunted by stinginess ... jealousy ... sensuality.  The ways of womenfolk are secret, not open. [iv. 8,10; iii.l3,127, 129]                                          

  In short, “it is impossible, monks, it cannot come to pass that a woman should be an arahant who is a fully enlightened one” [i. 15]                                                                                
           More symbolic than literal, however, is the degree to which woman is regarded as seducer, temptress,  lusting after men at every opportunity. As such, woman in the Pali Canon often appears to be the symbol of samsāra, the locus of that desire and attachment the monk is endeavoring to rid himself of. Here, I think, we should be careful to distinguish between literal attitudes toward women and the symbolic function of woman. Symbolically, she is the personification of tanha, desire, and as such, the greatest threat to selfrealization, the egolessness of  nibbāna.                                                                                                     

I see no other single form so enticing, so desirable, so intoxicating, so binding, so distracting,. .. such a hindrance to winning the unsurpassed peace from effort, ... as a woman's form.... Verily, one may say of womanhood it is wholly a snare of Māra. [v. 6, 5 ]

The problem is not woman's nature, it would seem, but rather the frailty or susceptibility of men. It is the difficulty of eradicating desire of all kinds that hinders release; sexual desire is only one of its forms, but perhaps the most persuasive hindrance of all. For in the same text other passages reveal broader attitudes toward the problem of desire, for example on lust in general:

 Like a piece of bone is lust,… like a lump of meat, …like a fire-stick made of grass, . . . like a pit of blowing embers,… like a passing dream,…like some borrowed bravery,…like a ripe fruit on a broken branch,... like a hooded snake is lust fraught as it is with ill and tribulation .... Find your delight (instead) in the holy life! [v. 8,76]

It is clear that lust is a problem for both men and women, for both monk and nun.

Monks, I know of no other single form, sound, scent, savor and touch by which a woman's heart is so enslaved as it is by the form, sound, scent, savor and touch of a man. Monks, a woman's heart is obsessed by these things. [1.1]

Woman as nun is herself tempted here, not a temptress. In short, desire is a universal human problem, hindering nibbāna, the most difficult obstacle for both woman and man to overcome.

What was the Buddha's own view of women? Insofar as it is possible ever to know what he himself believed, it seems to me that the reluctance evident in the Pali Canon to accept women into an Order of Nuns was due not so much to his belief that men are inherently superior to women, but rather to the difficulties of monastic life for both sexes if lived in close proximity, sexual temptation being equally distracting for both women and men. Clues to this question come from the attitudes toward caste and karma shown in the Dhammapada passage on Brahminhood. Who is fit for enlightenment? Not only the upperclass man, the Brahmin, but any human being who is spiritually pure:

 pg56

    Who is a Brahmin? He is Brahmin

    who has gone beyond good and evil,

    who has no sorrow, no passion, no taint.

    Who is a Brahmin? I call him Brahmin

    who is pure, serene, joylessly tranquil,

    like the moon.

    Who is a Brahmin? He is a Brahmin

    who has crossed the mire of birth and delusion

    (so difficult to cross) and reached the other shore,                              
             who is calm, meditative, without greed, without doubt.    

[Dhammapada,p.176]                                                                                                                                                    

Further, consider the early Buddhist doctrine of anatta, no-self, which claims that man has no immortal soul, no personal Self, no cosmic Self, but consists of five parts that have no necessary nor permanent connection, being held together by desire alone: body, sensation, perception, will and consciousness (the five khandas.) In connection with these five no mention is ever made of sex; it is not even considered to be a significant transitory characteristic of human nature, much less a permanent one.                                                         

     A story from the Visuddhi-magga, although written centuries after the Buddha lived, seems to suggest the same neutral attitude toward sex as the Dhammapada and offers a delightful perspective on the matter. The story is of…                                                                

    ... a certain woman who had married into a family of rank, but had quarreled with her husband, and, decked and ornamented until she looked like a goddess, had issued forth from Anurādhapura, early in the morning, and was returning home to her family. On her way she met the elder Mahātissa as he was on his way from Mt. Cetiya to go on his begging  rounds. And no sooner had she seen him, than the perversity of her nature caused her to laugh loudly. The elder looked up inquiringly, and observing her teeth, realized the impurity of her body and attained to saintship. . . . Then came her husband, following in her footsteps, and seeing the elder, he said

   “Revered sir, have you seen a woman pass this way?"

    And the elder said:

    "Was it a woman or a man,

    That passed this way? I cannot tell.

    But this I know, a set of bones

    Is traveling upon this road!"*

   Qouted from H.C Warren, Buddhism in Translations (New York: Atheneum, 1970), pp 297-98

The most telling evidence on women in the entire Pali Canon is that which has been written by women themselves, the Therīgathā or “Psalms of the Sisters.” Here we find eloquent and touching  testimony to the struggles and achievements of actualwomen who entered the Bhikkuni Sangha, some of whom realized enlightenment themselves. Here is not theory but witness, incontrovertible, to the spiritual agonies and capabilities of women.

          The reasons for joining the Sangha of these seventy-some women are quite diverse, ranging from feeling trapped in domestic life, hoping to avoid marriage in the first place suffering through loss of children, exhaustion with too much luxury, attraction to the Dhamma and searching for intellectual fulfillment, scarcely possible outside the Sangha. A sense of freedom from suffering, and the joy of selfrealization manage to breathe gratefully through their hymns on every page.

Muttā:

       O Free indeed! O gloriously free

       Am I in freedom from three crooked things!

       From quern, from mortar, from my crooked lord!

       As, so I'm free from rebirth and from death,

       And all that dragged me back is hurled away![1.11]

Sumangalā's mother:

        O woman well set free! How fully free am I ...

        from kitchen drudgery!

        Me stained and squalid 'mong my cooking pots

        My brutal husband ranked as even less

        Than the sunshades he sits and weaves alway.

        Purged now of all my former lust and hate

        I dwell, musing, at ease beneath the shade

        Of spreading boughs —O, but 'tis well with me! [1.21]

Sakulā, free from wealth:

        Thereat I left my daughter, left my son

         I left my treasures and my stores of grain

         I called for robes and razors, cut my hair

         And gat me forth into the homeless life. [v. 44]

This first, initial freedom from social claims and responsibilities leads for some to the final freedom of nibbāna, the enlightenment that liberates from all fetters. The occasions of this realization are various:

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Uttamā:                                                                                                   

      ... for seven days I sat in jhanā-joy                                                      

      And ease, cross-legged; on the eighth day at last                                   

      I stretched my limbs, and went my way serene.                                    

      For I had burst asunder the surrounding gloom.  [iii 30]                                    

Sīhā, almost a suicide:                                                     

      Strung was the noose I made and on a bough                                             

      I bound the rope and flung it round my neck                                               

      When see!... My heart was set at liberty! [v. 40]                                       

 Sanghā, who left hearth, home, child and the first of                                   

 lust:                                                                                                         

      ... cool am I now, knowing Nibbāna’s peace!                                             

Again and again such experience of enlightenment is expressed with joy and wonder in these Psalms until there is no question left in the mind of the hearer about the possibility of this experience, the reality of the hope of nibbāna for all humankind. And here also we find an answer to our question of early Buddhism: are women considered fit for nibbāna? Are they capable of the austere life of a nun?                  

                            
               Somā:                                                                                                         
                   That vantage ground the sages may attain is hard                                    
                   To reach. With her two-finger consciousness                     
                   There is no woman competent to gain!                                                    

           What should the woman’s nature do to them                                           

           Whose hearts are firmly set, who ever move                                               

           With growing knowledge onward in the Path?                                             

           What can that signify to one in whom                                                      

           Insight doth truly comprehend the Norm?                                                    

           To one for whom the question doth arise:                                                

           Am I a woman in these matters or                                                          

           Am I a man, or what not am I then?                                                       
                    To such a one is Māra fit to talk! [Appendix, 181]            

One's sex is irrelevant to realization; it is merely one of the conditions of the general ignorance under  which we all live. In nibbāna. it is entirely transcended. In the search for nibbāna, too, it should not be dwelt upon.

 As if once again confirmed by male orthodoxy, this position is made clear from the mouth of the Buddha himself:                                                                                           

        Monks, among these some women disciples are streamwinners, some once-returners, some non-returners. Not fruitless, monks, are all these women disciples who have met their end. [Udāna, ii. 10]

These women have, themselves, reached enlightenment, rendered asunder the knot of ignorance, dispelled the gloom, found final freedom. Did these nuns need monks to confirm their experiences? Do we? Perhaps the time has come to grow up, both spiritually and socially, and take credit for our own spiritual lives, to cease waiting for others to grant us the right to nibbāna, to take credit for our own experiences without qualification, or (as the translator of the Therīgathā, Mrs. Rhys-Davids says in her introduction) to educe, ourselves, from our souls, our own latent self-reliance.

            In conclusion, if the role of women in early Buddhism derives from a particular social situation that sees women as inept, dependent, foolish, needing guidance at all times, the sisters of the Therīgathā gloriously testify to the actual spiritual capabilities and experiences of women in the Bhikkuni Sangha. If woman in the Pali Canon takes on a symbolic significance as the personification of tanha, desire, and of samsāra, so does the existence of the Bhikkuni Sangha represent the ideal of nibbāna to be realized by women as well as men. The complexity of the situation is twofold, and it is this that is responsible for the ambivalence toward women evident in the Canon. In many ways the social situation in the modern world is very much the same as regards attitudes towards women. They are still regarded as inept, despite the very real achievements of individual women, both in the social and spiritual spheres. The ambivalence is still with us. What is to be done?

            For over 1000 years there has been no Buddhist Order of Nuns. What women have lived ascetic, disciplined lives have remained in a secondary and subordinate position to monks. It seems to me that the time has come for a change. Now in the twentieth century I believe we should throw out for good the view of the Hindu Laws of Manu and of the misogynists of the Pali Canon that women are inevitably

 pg58

spiritually inept, careless with discipline, and threatening sexually to men. We should endeavor to realize once again both the literal and symbolic value of a Bhikkuni Sangha in this regard: literally valuable in that women could actually join it and practice the discipline if they so chose, and symbolic in that the hope of nibbāna would thus be made visible and available to all women, as it is not currently so. Although a spiritual distinction between the sexes may not be necessary in some ideally transformed future, precisely because of the current common con-    fusion between biology, social role and spiritual possibility that acts so detrimentally toward women, we should now urge the reestablishment of the Bhukkunī Sangha in its own independence and dignity, out of a renewed vision and with courage to step outside the narrowness of ancient laws where they are no longer appropriate, in the hope of nibbāna for all humankind.

bibliography

Bühler, G., trans. The Laws of Manu. London: Oxford University Press, 1886.

Hornor, I. B. The Book of Discipline. London: Luzac & Co., Vol. V, Cullavagga.

Lal, P., trans. Dhammapada. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1967.

Rhys-Davids, T.W. and C.A.F., trans. Dialogues of the Buddha. London: Luzac & Co., Dīgha-Nikāya.

Rhys-Davids, Mrs., Psalms of the Early Buddhists. London: Luzac & Co Therīgathā.

Warren, H. C. Buddhism in Translations. New York: Atheneum, 1970.

Woodward, F. L., trans. The Gradual Sayings. London: Luzac & Co., Anguttara Nikāya.

______, Udāna. London: Oxford University Press, 1948.

CORNELIA D1MMITT CHURCH teaches Asian Religions and Mythology at Georgetown University. She is currently editing a book of selections from Hindu mythology with translations from the Epics and the Purānas.