Читать книгу Women in Buddhist Traditions - Karma Lekshe Tsomo - Страница 14

A major historical juncture for women in Buddhism was when Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī, the Buddha’s foster mother and aunt, asked the Buddha’s permission to renounce the household life in order to follow his teachings and the monastic discipline. It is said that Mahāprajāpatī received her ordination directly from the Buddha when she became the first Buddhist nun (see figure 1.2).³⁰ As the story goes in the vinaya portion of the Pāli canon, five or six years after the Buddha’s five companions became the first bhikkhus, Mahāpajāpatī expressed a wish to join the newly created order. When the Buddha hesitated, presumably out of concern for the safety of the aspiring female renunciants, Mahāpajāpatī led hundreds of noblewomen on foot across northern India in what was mostly likely the first women’s liberation movement in history. After repeated urging by Ānanda, his male cousin and attendant, the Buddha agreed to the admission of women, and the bhikkhunī saṅgha began. The saṅgha (“assembly” or monastic order) that the Buddha established thus consisted of both male and female ordained renunciants who had reached the age of twenty and had made a commitment to observe specific precepts, or rules of training. The categories of novice monks (Pāli: sāmaṇera; Sanskrit: śrāmaṇera) and novice nuns (Pāli: sāmaṇerī; Sanskrit: śrāmaṇerika) were established as a period for training in the precepts in preparation for the rite of higher ordination (upasampadā). A woman is required to spend two years as a probationer (Pāli: sikkhamāṇā; Sanskrit: śikṣamāṇā) before receiving full ordination as a bhikkhunī (Sanskrit: bhikṣuṇī).

Figure 1.2. Painting of Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī, foster mother of the future Buddha, who became the first Buddhist nun, at Hue Lam Temple, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Credit: Photo by Karma Lekshe Tsomo.

As noted earlier, when Mahāpajāpatī requested to live the homeless life, the Buddha reportedly agreed on the condition that she observe the eight weighty rules. According to the version of this event included in the Madhyama-āgama, a collection of medium-length discourses of the Buddha in the Pāli canon, she made her first request to him during the rainy season retreat at Kapilavastu, the Buddha’s hometown, where she and the other Śākya women mentioned in this text lived:

At that time Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī approached the Buddha, paid homage with her head at the Buddha’s feet and, standing back to one side, said: “Blessed One, can women attain the fourth fruit of recluse-ship? For that reason, [can] women in this right teaching and discipline leave the household out of faith, becoming homeless to train in the path?”

The Blessed One replied: “Wait, wait, Gotamī, do not have this thought, that in this right teaching and discipline women leave the household out of faith, becoming homeless to train in the path. Gotamī, you shave off your hair like this, put on ochre robes and for your whole life practice the pure holy life.”

Then, being restrained by the Buddha, Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī paid homage with her head at the Buddha’s feet, circumambulated him thrice and left.³¹

Mahāpajāpatī is depicted as approaching the Buddha with this request on three separate occasions, once more in Kapilavastu, and again in another town, receiving the same answer each time. Before the third occasion recounted in the Madhyama-āgama, Mahāpajāpatī is described as following the Buddha “together with some elderly Sakyan women” to the next location where he stopped.³² After the Buddha declined her request the third time, Ānanda intervened on her behalf:

The venerable Ānanda saw Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī standing outside the entrance, her bare feet soiled and her body covered with dust, tired and weeping with grief. Having seen her, he asked: “Gotamī, for what reason are you standing outside the entrance, your bare feet soiled and your body covered with dust, tired and weeping with grief?”

Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī replied: “Venerable Ānanda, in this right teaching and discipline women do not obtain the leaving of the household out of faith, becoming homeless to train in the path.”

The venerable Ānanda said: “Gotamī, you just wait here, I will approach the Buddha and speak to him about this matter.

“Blessed One, can women attain the four fruits of recluse-ship? For that reason, [can] women in this right teaching and discipline leave the household out of faith, becoming homeless to train in the path?”

The Blessed One replied: “Wait, wait, Ānanda, do not have this thought, that in this right teaching and discipline women leave the household out of faith, becoming homeless to train in the path. Ānanda, if in this right teaching and discipline women obtain the leaving of the household out of faith, becoming homeless to train in the path, then this holy life will consequently not last long.”³³

Ānanda then is described as reminding the Buddha of the kindness of Mahāpajāpatī, who suckled and raised him after his birth mother passed away, and recounted her accomplishments in faith, ethical development, and learning. The Buddha then agreed that Mahāpajāpatī could enter the homeless life if she agreed to observe the eight weighty rules for life. In the Madhyama-āgama recension of the story, these weighty rules require a woman seeking bhikkhunī ordination to receive ordination from monks as well as nuns, and once she is ordained to request instruction from monks every half month, spend the rainy season in a place where there are monks, report to both the communities of monks and nuns at the end of the rainy season retreat, refrain from posing unwanted questions to monks, refrain from exposing monks’ offenses, perform penance for infractions before both assemblies, and pay homage even to junior monks.³⁴

There are several notable contradictions in both the content and chronology of the eight rules that assign a subordinate status to nuns and elevated authority to monks. First, there are contradictions in the method of ordination. During the early days of the Buddha’s dispensation, monks were ordained with a simple declaration: “Come, bhikṣu.” Gradually, this was replaced by the recitation of the declaration of taking refuge in the Awakened One, his teachings, and the renunciant community: “I go for refuge to the Buddha; I go for refuge to the Dharma; I go for refuge to the Saṅgha.”³⁵ The recitation of the refuge formula was later replaced by a somewhat more elaborate ordination procedure. Several texts show nuns being ordained with a simple declaration by the Buddha, “Come, bhikṣuṇī.” If the Buddha imposed the eight weighty rules on Mahāprajāpatī, why did he revert to a simple declaration for other nuns later on? Second, there are inconsistencies among various recensions of this story and the nature of the eight rules. Third, there are logical incongruities in all recensions related to chronology. How could the Buddha have required Mahāprajāpatī to agree to receive ordination from both the bhikṣu and the bhikṣuṇī saṅghas when the bhikṣuṇī saṅgha had not yet been founded? Again, how could he have required her to go before both assemblies to be absolved of transgressions when there was as yet no bhikṣuṇī saṅgha?

The story as recounted in these texts raises other questions too. Ānanda is portrayed as convincing the Buddha to admit women to the saṅgha. Upon reflection, it appears odd that the Buddha needed to be convinced. The German Theravāda monk-scholar Bhikkhu Anālayo contends that it was not Ānanda’s advocacy for the women’s request that caused the Buddha to change his mind but rather the women’s determination to live the homeless life: “Now, according to a range of sources the Buddha’s initial decision to teach the Dharma at all was based on surveying the potential of human beings to reach awakening. Thus, he would have been well aware that women do have such potential, without needing a reminder.”³⁶ In fact, the Buddha readily admitted as much when he declared that women were capable of achieving the four fruits of the path: stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and liberated being (arhat).

According to the Aṅguttara Nikāya in the Pāli canon, Ānanda was later castigated by some elder monks and made to confess to a wrongdoing for having advocated the admission of women to the saṅgha. Undaunted, he stated unapologetically that it was appropriate to allow women to join the saṅgha. Further, it was not Ānanda who established the bhikkhunī saṅgha but the Buddha himself. In the face of these controversial passages, Anālayo advances an alternative view, using evidence elsewhere in the texts to argue that, once the Buddha had made a decision, he was not easily dissuaded by others.³⁷ Based on the evidence, it appears likely that the eight rules were developed later and have been inserted into earlier narratives of Mahāpajāpatī’s admission to the order.

The Buddha’s concern for nuns living a mendicant life is clear in a number of places in the texts. For example, due to incidents of sexual harassment and rape, the Buddha declared that nuns were no longer required to sleep under trees. Instead, they were required to live together in communities for their own safety and to construct their monasteries in towns rather than in more isolated locations; according to Buddhist studies scholar Gregory Schopen, nuns “found themselves in, quite literally, a very different position from that of monks.”³⁸ One of the gurudharmas requires nuns to stay for their rainy season retreat in a place where there are monks, which may be based on a concern for the nuns’ safety.

To a contemporary sensibility, it is difficult to justify those rules that place nuns under the authority of the monks, but in ancient times and up to the present day it has not been uncommon for women to relinquish their independence in exchange for security. Regardless of the provenance and chronology of the eight gurudharmas, it is likely that over time the disparity in status between nuns and monks reflected in these rules worked to diminish the status of both laywomen and nuns relative to laymen and monks. The presupposition that women are less capable, less inclined to spiritual attainment, and more enmeshed in worldly affairs has led to gender inequalities, in both religious and secular spheres, in all Buddhist societies.

In Western scholarship, a great deal of ink has been devoted to the Buddha’s hesitation to admit women to the saṅgha. Anālayo notes that in the Madhyama-āgama, as well as in vinaya texts of two of the Buddhist schools that developed after the Buddha’s death—the Mahīśāsaka and (Mūla-)Sarvāstivāda Schools, whose vinaya texts are extant in Chinese translations—the Buddha had already agreed to allow women to shave their heads, don robes, and live a renunciant life, but in the home rather than as homeless wanderers, because becoming homeless posed a danger to the women and left them vulnerable to sexual assault. It was presumably for this reason that the Buddha suggested women should shave their heads, wear robes, and practice “the pure holy life” (celibacy) in their homes without seeking full ordination.³⁹ The Mahīśāsaka School was a precursor to the Dharmaguptaka School of vinaya that has been practiced in China, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, up to the present day.

Anālayo points out that in the vinaya texts of four other Buddhist schools, including the Cullavagga in the Theravāda vinaya, a different story is told about how the Śākya women shaved their heads and put on ochre robes.⁴⁰ According to this account, Mahāpajāpatī and her five hundred Śākya female companions took the initiative and decided to shave their heads, put on robes, and walk a vast distance with many hardships to find the Buddha and once again request going forth “from home into homelessness.”⁴¹ The contrast between the two narratives is significant. If the Buddha had already concluded that the queen and her retinue were indeed capable of leading a renunciant life, and had given them permission to shave their heads, put on ochre robes, and live the renunciant life at home, his hesitation to grant Mahāpajāpatī’s request that they be permitted to enter into the homeless life may have been prompted by worries about whether these aristocratic women could cope with the dangers and difficulties of living as homeless wanderers. Rather than expressing doubts as to whether they were capable of liberation, his reluctance may well have been based on a sincere concern to protect nuns from harassment and abuse.⁴²

Anālayo constructs a cogent narrative from the diverse texts about the founding of the bhikkhunī saṅgha in which Mahāpajāpatī and her followers were advised by the Buddha to shave their heads, don the robes of renunciants, and practice at home rather than adopting the lifestyle of homeless wanderers.⁴³ Not satisfied by this compromise, they subsequently proved their determination to live the homeless life by shaving their heads, donning the robes, and walking barefooted to find the Buddha to request again that they be permitted to live the renunciant lifestyle; the Buddha then relented and allowed them to join the monastic order, which at that time consisted of wandering mendicants.⁴⁴ For two and a half millennia, Buddhist women have continued to prove their determination on the path to liberation, despite countless obstacles.