Читать книгу Women in Buddhist Traditions - Karma Lekshe Tsomo - Страница 12

According to the Therī-apadāna, a compilation of biographies of eminent early Buddhist nuns, Buddha Śākyamuni, like countless buddhas before him, established a fourfold community (cāturdisa-saṅgha) consisting of monks (Pāli: bhikkhu; Sanskrit: bhikṣu), nuns (Pāli: bhikkhunī; Sanskrit: bhikṣuṇī), laymen (upāsaka), and laywomen (upāsikā).⁵ It follows that each of these buddhas instituted full monastic ordination for women. According to the oldest texts, the ideal Buddhist society is composed of these four groups. Together, they create a stable foundation for the social order, with each of the four sectors serving as a pillar to maintain an ideal, balanced, harmonious society. Buddha Śākyamuni considered nuns to be an essential element in this configuration. In a significant statement in the Pāli version of the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, the Buddha says, “I will not pass away until I have nun disciples who are wise, well trained, self-confident, and learned.”⁶ Like the Buddha’s other disciples, the nuns were charged to act as examples of discipline, ethics, and learning, to transmit the teachings, and to inspire others on the path. Not only was the task of embodying and sharing the teachings of the Buddha entrusted to the fourfold saṅgha, but also the flourishing and even the continued existence of the teachings in the world depended on it.

The Buddha taught a path to liberation—freedom from the delusions of the mind, from suffering, and from rebirth in cyclic existence—that was accessible to all. He reportedly gave teachings publicly to people of all ages, genders, and social backgrounds, without discrimination. His teachings (Pāli: Dhamma; Sanskrit: Dharma) explaining the path or process for achieving liberation were considered revolutionary in rejecting caste hierarchy and priestly authority. As we have seen, he also admitted women to the saṅgha, albeit on an unequal footing according to the texts preserved and transmitted by Buddhist monks. These texts describe women’s travails and the joys of liberation, some in the words of liberated nuns themselves. Their stories are found in the vinaya, the monastic codes, and in other texts that were eventually transmitted to China, Korea, Tibet, and many other countries. The transmission of these stories about women who achieved liberation were part of a process of appropriation, adaptation, and reconfiguration of Indian Buddhist philosophy, practice, and institutional structures that flourished for centuries.

A number of texts recount the achievements of illustrious women at the time of the Buddha.⁷ Several centuries intervened between the period when these women lived and the time that their stories were committed to writing, but the monk narrators had prodigious memories and as youth had been trained to memorize oral texts. In addition to narratives about the Buddha’s stepmother and wife, the Buddhist texts abound with stories about other accomplished women of this early generation. Rūpanandā, the Buddha’s half-sister, was acknowledged as being foremost in meditation; Soṇā was most “strenuous in effort”; Sakulā was most highly attained in divine insight; Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā was swiftest in attaining higher insight; Bhaddā Kapilānī was foremost in remembering her past lives; Bhaddā Kaccānā was most skilled in remembering innumerable eons; Sigālamātā was foremost in faith; and Kisāgotamī was renowned for her asceticism and for wearing garments woven of rough fibers.⁸ Paṭācārā and Sukkhā were acknowledged as great teachers. Laywomen such as Visākhā, Mallikā, and Ambapalī were renowned for their virtue and generosity. These stories served to teach Buddhist principles and values, and to inspire women on the path. For example, the Therī-apadāna (Biographies of elder nuns) describes the lives of numerous eminent women at the time of the Buddha, including the story of Khemā, Uppalavaṇṇā, Paṭācārā, Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā, Kisāgotamī, Dhammadinnā, and Visākhā. These seven women in a previous lifetime had been the daughters of a king named Kikī who did not allow them to become nuns. After cultivating virtue for thousands of lifetimes, they were reborn at the time of Buddha Śākyamuni and were among his leading disciples.⁹ Stories about Uppalavaṇṇā can be found in the Manorathapūrani, the Therīgāthā, and a commentary on the Dhammapada, texts that were written down in Pāli in Sri Lanka sometime between the third and sixth centuries CE but apparently were based on orally transmitted stories dating back to the time of Buddha Śākyamuni.¹⁰

Certain Buddhist texts clearly state that women have the potential to achieve liberation and become free from mental defilements, suffering, and further rebirth.¹¹ Many also include the names of exemplary nuns who did so. By comparison, however, the number of monks who reportedly achieved liberation is far greater. For example, in the Dīgha Nikāya in the Pāli canon, the complete collection of Theravāda scriptures, the Mahāpadāna Sutta states that there were 6,800,000 arhat monks in one assembly of a previous buddha named Vipassī, but no arhat nuns are mentioned.¹² This demonstrates that the gender imbalance in Buddhism is a very old problem indeed. Monks are more prominently represented in the texts and also in the various Buddhist cultures and communities that evolved over time.

Indian Buddhist texts and commentaries describe a Buddha as being unique in having the thirty-two major physical characteristics (lakṣaṇa) of a great person (mahāpuruṣa) that attest to the extraordinary spiritual attainments of a fully awakened being.¹³ The salient point here is that the body of a Buddha is explicitly described as being male, by virtue of possessing a sheathed penis “like a royal stallion.”¹⁴ It therefore follows that the ultimate state attainable by a human being is envisioned in a male body. Buddhist scholar José Cabezón points out two competing discourses regarding the Buddha’s sexuality. Prior to his renunciation, he is portrayed as a virile, sexual being: “His masculinity and heterosexual prowess are evidenced by the fact that he showed interest in women, married, and begat a son.”¹⁵ After his awakening, however, when his sexual virility is under control, “the Buddha’s genitals are depicted as retracted into his abdomen or pelvis, ‘enclosed in a sheath like those of a fine elephant or stallion.’”¹⁶

Not everyone aspires to become a fully awakened Buddha, however; many aspire to become an arhat, a being who is liberated from cyclic existence. The Buddha himself affirmed that the liberation of an arhat is possible for women and men alike. The story of highly accomplished women in Buddhism is therefore a saga of trial and triumph, prominence and erasure, testimony and silence. Fortunately, the voices of some of these women have been preserved, and remarkable women continue to express their realizations even today.