© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/156852708X373276

Numen 56 (2009) 91–117 www.brill.nl/nu

Historio-Critical Hermeneutics in the Study of Women in Early Indian Buddhism

Alice CollettDepartment of Th eology and Religious Studies, York St John University

Lord Mayor’s Walk, YO31 7EX York, United Kingdoma.collett@yorksj.ac.uk

AbstractModern scholarly study of women in early Indian Buddhism began over a hundred years ago, towards the end of the nineteenth century. In this article, I assess strategies that have been prominent in scholarly engagement with the texts from the period that are pertinent to this debate. Th e article is focused around discussion of four his-torical-critical hermeneutic strategies which either have fi gured within the debate or, as is the case in the fi nal section, are suggested as pertinent to the debate. Th e four strategies are: a hermeneutics of resonance; gender-construct hermeneutics; compara-tivist hermeneutics; and fi nally revisionist hermeneutics. Th e fi rst three comprise strat-egies which have featured signifi cantly in the debate, from its origins to changes that have arisen particularly during the last two decades. Th e fi nal strategy is, essentially, my own assertion.

KeywordsEarly Buddhism, women, texts, hermeneutics

In this article, I look at four historical-critical hermeneutical strategies which have been, are or could be utilized in our assessment of early Buddhist texts concerned with women and issues of gender.1 Th e four

1) Although other evidence, such as archeological evidence and eyewitness accounts, are important for our assessment of sex and gender in early Indian Buddhism, the debate has been conducted largely through assessment of texts. Whilst certain scholars, particularly Gregory Schopen, have drawn our attention to the value of other sources, recourse to the epigraphic, archeological and other evidence has, unfortunately, fi g-ured infrequently in the debate.

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strategies are: a hermeneutics of resonance; gender-construct herme-neutics; comparativist hermeneutics; and revisionist hermeneutics.2 Hermeneutics is concerned with the construction of meaning within the relationship between author/text/reader, and whilst this is the over-arching paradigm for the paper, there are shifts in focus between the diff erent strategies discussed. Th e fi rst section, hermeneutics of reso-nance, focuses on the author and construction of meaning within a particular historical-political milieu. Th e second section, gender-construct hermeneutics, looks at the relationship between author and text and the way in which the signifi cance of the text is understood through a reading of female-as-construct, and how the notion of female-as-construct comes to be broadly applied to the tradition as a whole. Th e third section, comparativist hermeneutics, focuses on patterns of meaning drawn out from one text (and part of this is an examination of the way a group of texts come to be considered as one). Lastly, the sec-tion on revisionist strategies look at what “the text” has come to be for the debate on sex and gender in early Indian Buddhism and at certain readings of its signifi cance that have come to dominate.

Hermeneutics of Resonance

I will begin with a prominent fi gure in the history of Buddhist studies scholarship in the west: Caroline Rhys Davids. I will discuss the herme-neutic of resonance in relation to Caroline Rhys Davids’ fi rst article published in 1893.3 Th is was Caroline Rhys Davids’ very fi rst article (published under her maiden name Foley). Th e year following the pub-lication of this article saw Caroline Foley become Mrs Rhys Davids and, soon after her marriage she gave birth to three children and did not publish again for some time. In looking at the evidence from Caro-line Rhys Davids’ diaries and personal correspondences, it seems clear

2) A fi fth strategy, hermeneutics of value, I omit here as I have discussed it previously. See Collett 2006.3) Foley 1893. My discussion is focused on one period of Caroline Rhys Davids’ life. From her diaries and personal correspondences, it is evident that she goes through signifi cant changes during her lifetime; from the youthful devout Christian to the emerging feminist and spiritual humanist, to wife and mother and, eventually, renowned scholar.

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that Caroline Rhys Davids found her own values and aspirations, which reached beyond limitations placed on women by Victorian society, res-onant with those of the early Buddhist nuns. As her diaries and letters make clear, Caroline Rhys Davids was an intelligent, independent and adventurous woman — she enjoyed travel, in particular mountaineer-ing expeditions in the Alps, which is not an activity we might usually associate with Victorian “ladies.” Prior to her marriage to Th omas, Car-oline Rhys Davids struggled with the very idea of marriage, acutely aware of the loss of freedom often suff ered by women upon marriage. In a letter to Th omas, written a few weeks after his marriage proposal she writes of a conversation she had with Th omas’ mother elaborating in the letter on her own feelings about the institution of marriage:

She thinks I ought to go down on my knees and thank heaven . . . for a good man’s love . . .

And she looked quite severe when I suggested it was rather premature to hazard any such statements and thought me . . . without judgment when I maintained that married life would not easily form a compensation for what I was giving up.4

Caroline Rhys Davids makes clear what she believes she is giving up in another letter, in which she says, writing about her own mother:

But married life, both in her own life and that of all her sisters but one, has [not] resolved itself into something most worthy of the name, but rather into reckless, perpetual childbearing with of course much domestic management and the odi-ous nothings called social duties thrown in.5

Although Caroline Rhys Davids did accept Th omas’ proposal, it was obviously with some reticence. Th is personal struggle of hers, to not be bound down and curtailed by a life of domesticity, Caroline Rhys Davids found refl ected in the struggles for liberation of the bhikkhunīs in the Th erīgāthā and Th erīgāthā commentary, the Paramatthadīpanī-therīgāthat t hakathā, the subject of her article. Whilst it is of course apparent that the struggles for liberation in the Th erīgāthā and Th erīgāthā

4) Rhys Davids Family, Cambridge University Oriental Library Archive Collection (CUOLAC), RD T/21/4/1 letter dated 9th May 1894.5) CUOLAC, RD T/21/4/1 letter dated 28th Feb. 1894.

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commentary are of a diff erent order to those that are the concern of western women at the time of fi rst-wave feminism in Europe, neverthe-less both are struggles and both have liberation as their goals. But it is in her universalising of her own idealisation of and defi nition of what it means to be an emancipated and liberated woman that Caroline Rhys Davids’ political and intellectual affi liations come into play in her herme-neutics. On the level of theory, Caroline Rhys Davids’ feminist engage-ment with the text can be seen as a liberal feminism fashioned after Western intellectualism. She writes,

Everywhere as women look, it is man imposing his own views, his own interests, and crying out at our selfi shness if we carve out a little scope for ours.6

Caroline Rhys Davids, whilst she struggles to be accepted herself, ideal-izes the (theoretical) intellectual, independent women of Western intel-lectualism, and, in reading the stories of the women in the Th erīgāthā commentary, women who renounce domesticity and their lives as wives and mothers, she extrapolates from the textual evidence and imagines them as, not just accepted into the early Buddhist male world of religious renunciation, but accepted as men’s intellectual and rational equals. She imagines that, in the ancient dispensation of the Buddha, a fi gure she greatly admires, women became — as she wishes to be — considered as intellectually on a par with their male counterparts. Of the Indian female Buddhist renouncer in the Th erīgāthā commentary, she writes:

. . . she . . . laid down all social prestige, all domestic success, as a mother, wife, daughter, queen, or housekeeper, and gained the austerer joys of an asexual ratio-nal being, walking with wise men in recognized intellectual equality on higher levels of thought. . . . (Foley 1893:348)

Whilst it is true that some of the women described in the Th erīgāthā commentary can be seen to engage their intellect in their religious endeavours, this is not so for each case recorded. As well as stories of women with highly developed intellect, there are other stories of par-ticularly emotional women, alongside others which have recourse to

6) CUOLAC, RD T/21/4/1 letter dated 6th March 1894.

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events we might call supernatural or supernormal. In the chapters on Bhaddā Kundalakesā and Nanduttarā we fi nd two instances of a story concerning a branch of a rose-apple tree.7 Both women are described as having left home to go forth as Jains. In each case, the woman proved herself to be in possession of a sharp, skilled intellect which enabled her to triumph in debate. In both cases, the point came at which each woman was so skilled in debate that they each put a standing rose-apple tree branch in the ground, near the village they are visiting, indicating their preparedness to debate with anyone who wanted to take up the challenge. Although in each case, these events took place prior to them joining the Buddhist community, it is easy to see how recounting of such stories in the Th erīgāthā commentary caused Caroline Rhys Davids to consider women of early Buddhism to be “walking with wise men in recognized intellectual equality.”

In the above cases, it is not diffi cult to understand Caroline Rhys Davids’ suppositions about the women of the Th erīgāthā commentary. In other instances, it is perhaps less obvious, such as with women who express a strong degree of emotionality (Kisāgotamī for example), or others who talk of or are described as (formally) obsessed with their own beauty, such as Khemā.8 However, it seems quite possible here that Caroline Rhys Davids saw the instances of religious realization and sub-sequent changes of behaviour in the developed narratives addressing such issues as the adoption of a kind of rationalism. For a reasoning feminist, learning to deal with life in ways other than conditioned emo-tionality, and learning to see beyond and live beyond societal obsessions with female beauty are simply natural and pragmatic inclinations.

As well as the above, the freedom from the domestic responsibilities expressed by the women of the Th erīgāthā commentary appears to reso-nate strongly. Th e nuns do often speak of their release from domesticity as a freedom, and their expressions can be confl ated with feminist con-cerns. A hermeneutic of resonance, in recognition of their struggle, reads into these stories of female renouncers, tales of sisters who have broken the chains of domesticity. Women who have redefi ned “the female” as agentive and non-domestic, have transcended the social construction of

7) See Pruitt 1997: Bhaddā Kundalakesā 132–43 and Nanduttarā 114–17.8) Pruitt 1997: Kisāgotamī 222–32 and Khemā 164–76.

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“the female” and “domestic” as identical and/or interchangeable. And such a reading is not without substance. Although it is a religiously motivated separation of “woman” from “domestic,” nevertheless, with, historically, such a paucity of cases of such separation being made, the new woman embraced by, engendered by and indeed known because of early Buddhism is politically signifi cant for feminists.

Th e apparent emphasis on intellect, along with the separation of the social construction of woman from roles of domesticity obviously reso-nates with Caroline Rhys Davids’ personal struggles, in this period of her life, to be an independent woman with little need for a man to sup-port her, and little desire to be married and swallowed up by the duties incumbent in socially constructed female roles.

Gender-Construct Hermeneutics

Th is sections begins the elucidation of a central dichotomy between, on the one hand, hermeneutics circumscribed around gender constructs and hermeneutics which focus on female experience, or the idea of female experience. Th is is a point I return to more fully in the fi nal sec-tion. Th is section is concerned with the dynamic between author and text more concretely, both with regards to construction of meaning from the content of the text and, more implicitly than explicitly in this section, in relation to (more broadly) choice of texts to be studied.

Liz Wilson’s book Charming Cadavers focuses on representations of women in Post-Aśokan Buddhist hagiographic literature, although she does also make use of a broader range of texts, both early and Mahāyānist. Wilson argues that textual expressions concerning the female body demonstrate an intense misogyny meted out towards women, as women are viewed more as object/body than as subject/self. One example she uses is the story of one Śubhā from the Th erīgāthā and Th erīgāthā com-mentary in which Śubhā removes her eye to give it to a stranger who has become enamoured with her and does not listen when she attempts to teach him about the dangers of sensual pleasure. Wilson uses exam-ples such as this story to highlight what she considers to be gender constructs which delimit women, their bodies (and body parts), as vile, decaying, septic, skeletal, carnal, or corpse-like. Other examples she

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uses include rotting female corpses that are used as heuristic devices to teach (men) about the dangers of infatuation. Wilson’s work can be situated within a sub-fi eld of feminist studies which focuses on dis-courses and disclosures concerning the body as a measure of women’s place within a community/culture/tradition. With regards to Śubhā, a story from the Th erīgāthā commentary, rather than focusing here on the female as agent, Śubhā as an active participant in the narrative dem-onstrating to the youth who approaches her doctrinal teaching about worldly beauty, sensual pleasure and attachment (things the youth real-izes as a result of her act), Wilson concentrates rather on female-as-construct and concept. Śubhā’s removal of her own eye is a symbol of her deleterious relationship to her body/self. Śubhā represents the concept of the female, the construct of female-as-body/female-as-vile. Extraction of meaning from the text is cemented, by Wilson, around representation of women rather than around exposition of doctrine or dramatization of experience. Also, Wilson rather overemphasizes the apparent negative portrayals of women she fi nds and essentially extrap-olates from her sources to construct an overarching view of women in early and medieval Buddhism that is one-sided and unbalanced. Wil-son says, “it is always the man who sees and the women who is seen, the man who speaks and the woman who is spoken about” (Wilson 1996:4). Countering this, the mere existence of the Th erīgāthā, a text she uses, should in itself preclude such statements from being made about early Buddhism, leaving aside for a moment other texts in the same or a similar vein. Wilson also notes that her book

suggests that Buddhist women living in South Asia in the fi rst millennium of the Common Era were subordinated to men not so much by rules that enshrine male privilege and circumscribe women’s rights but representational practices that would make it diffi cult for a woman to imagine herself following in the footsteps of the highly revered Buddhist saints. (Wilson 1996:4)

Wilson’s positioning of women as disenabled by the literature occludes the evidence of the broad range of available source materials that posi-tion some women, either through their status as disciples or nuns or by their communities, as capable, competent, and able to practice and attain high states of religiosity. In texts other than those studied by

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Wilson, there is evidence that many women, in the early period at least, did indeed follow in the footsteps of the Buddha (even if not of later “Buddhist saints”).9

Serinity Young, in a similar vein, in her book Courtesans and Tantric Consorts (2004), suggests that certain descriptions of women in texts which recount the life story of the Buddha function to cast women as a synonym for the conditioned world.10 In discussing gender issues in the life story, Young can be positioned within an ongoing debate. Certain events within the life story have attracted the attention of feminists; particularly Prince Siddhārtha’s “abandoning” of his wife and child, and elements of the episode known as the eve of departure. In chapter one of her book, Young discusses the eve of departure. Young divides her discussion largely between Aśvaghosa’s Buddhacarita and the Lalita-vistasūtra. Th e eve of departure, in both texts, is focused around the women in the inner chambers (antampura) or, as Young terms them, harem women. On the eve of his departure from the palace, in the Buddhacarita, Prince Siddhārtha is caused, by the gods, to see through the beauty of the harem women, who here function, argues Young, as an expression of the conditioned world; beautiful and seductive yet illusory and transient. Th e women fall asleep and fall into distorted and contorted poses, in which they reveal themselves to be in reality hid-eous and unsightly. In discussing this episode, Young notes that, “[w]hat began as a symbolic use of women to represent the worldly life and sexuality actually perpetuated the prevailing negative views about women. . . .” (Young 2004:5). In accord with the crucial role of renun-ciation within the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha-to-be is portrayed several times in the life story as the quintessential renouncer. In turning away from his worldly life, the young prince renounces both his wife (and newborn) and the beautiful female artisans and dancers of his court. As Young notes, this appears primarily as an expression of the central doctrine of renunciation and “may have been meant to inspire men to imitate the Buddha and turn away from the average woman.”

9) See below for a list of texts which record accounts and stories of such women.10) Young’s book in not primarily concerned with women in early Indian Buddhism, although she does, at certain points, discuss texts from this period. In the fi rst part of chapter one she gives over some space to a discussion of Aśvaghosa’s Buddhacarita.

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Although, she goes on to say, it “carried with it the seeds of a wholesale rejection of women” (Young 2004:5).

Th ese seeds of the wholesale rejection of women, in texts that recount the life story, manifest, according to Young, in the way in which these events (as recorded in the texts) project attitudes and assumptions about women into the tradition which function to both perpetuate traditional societal negative views of women and engender what we might want to term a “Buddhist view of women.” According to Young, the “Buddha’s biographies use women’s bodies to represent that which opposes salva-tion” (Young 2004:8–9). Women are equated with sexuality, and seen as objects to the path of liberation, as they pull men back from the path. Women are equated with the conditioned world and not seen as subjects who are enabled to tread the path to liberation, but as hindrances to the male adept. Within this purview, texts such as the Buddhacarita function to promote disgust in the female body, and emphasize that Buddhist teachings are directed towards men.

Whilst there is undoubtedly some truth to Young’s claims, she rather tends to present the situation as bleaker than is actually the case. Per-haps obviously, other texts counter this “Buddhist view of women” as hindrances to the male on the path by recounting the lives and experi-ences of women who walked in the footsteps of the Buddha. To estab-lish her point, Young talks at some length about the namelessness and facelessness of the harem women, and the impact of the promotion of woman as (unnamed) object rather than agentive subject. In a note, she quotes Mieke Bal who says that namelessness “eliminates them [the nameless ones] from the historical narrative as utterly forgettable” (Young 2004:18). However, although it is the case that in the Buddha-carita passage we do fi nd a group of unnamed harem women, it is also the case that, from Indian Buddhist history we have extant the names of many women. For example, authorship is attributed, by name, to most of the Th erīgāthā poems. Th ere are extant forty apadānas which tell the stories of named female disciples of the Buddha. Th ere are, in the Anguttara Nikāya, two lists of pre-eminent women, one of lay women and one of nuns, all of whom are named. Th e Samyutta Nikāya contains a chapter devoted to a group of nuns, again, each one of whom is named. Th e Avadānaśataka contains more than ten stories which have eponymous female protagonists. Th us, whilst it is the case that, on

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some occasions, the literature does describe groups of unnamed women (and, incidentally, groups of unnamed men), this is certainly not always the case. Th e textual record holds the names of many women from early Buddhist history. While Wilson and Young aim to present their own fi ndings, borne from the study of certain texts, as broadly applicable such broader application is not altogether appropriate. Indeed, the fact that so many texts bearing women’s names have come down to us from Buddhist history is itself quite remarkable.

Comparativist Hermeneutics

Th is section deals with the generation of meaning through comparative analysis, which there has been, historically, rather a lack of. In this sec-tion I focus on vinaya literature. With regards to vinaya literature there has been a signifi cant shift in the last two decades towards a more com-parativist approach.

Although (usually the Pali) vinaya literature is perhaps the most referred to set of texts within the debate on early Indian Buddhism and gender, much of the work, until recently, was not comparative in nature. A signifi cant amount of the writing on the vinaya in the fi eld would be of the nature of assessing (or attempting to assess) the validity of the (Pali) passage on the garudhammas/gurudharmas, and its meaning for the debate. However, in these cases, the garudhammas/gurudharmas would usually be understood to be standard, that is, there was one list of eight special rules that applied to all potential nuns. However, both with regards to the garudhammas/gurudharmas and other sections of the vinaya which focus on rules for members of the female sangha, there is variation within the tradition, and this is something that has been com-ing to light more and more over the last two decades, through com-parative work.

Th e 1970s and 1980s saw a resurgence of interest in the Buddhism and gender debate as a result of second-wave feminism. Certain scholars publishing in the fi eld during this period, many of whom were femi-nists, approached the study of sex and gender in Buddhism from a broad interdisciplinary humanities background, which informed both theo-retical perspectives and methodologies. Th is work appears to have been happening in isolation from the work of philologists and textual schol-

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ars of Indic languages. As early as 1920, textual scholars would publish editions and translations, with comment, of nuns’ vinaya texts, or frag-ments of such texts, from diff erent traditions. However, those publish-ing in the fi eld in the seventies and eighties would discuss the eight rules recorded in vinaya literature for nuns as if they were somewhat invariant. Nancy Auer Falk, for example, writes in 1989:

Th e monastic Rule became one of the most stable features of the Buddhist tradi-tion: although Buddhism developed many diff erent sects and sometimes very diff erent interpretations of the Buddha’s teaching, the provisions of the Rule remained basically constant. (Falk 1989:158–59)

Following this she introduces and records the eight rules for nuns from the Pali Cullavagga and presents them as the list rather than a list. She makes no mention of any variation to the list. Also, Rita Gross, in her book Buddhism After Patriarchy (1991), presents the eight rules as one constant list and she discusses the implications and ramifi cations of this list. In her footnote she does acknowledge that this is the list as it appears in the Pali and, as an alternative, she directs her reader to the list in “a Sanskrit vinaya” (Gross 1991:36 and 320 n.11).

Th e list in the Sanskrit vinaya that Gross points her reader to is Wilson’s translation of Ridding’s and la Vallée Poussin’s edition of a Sanskrit fragment of a bhiksunī vinaya text published in 1920.11 Along-side this edition are other editions, sometimes with comment, which were published either prior to or during the seventies and eighties. Th ese include Waldschmidt’s publication of fragments of the bhiksunī vinaya of the Sarvāstivādin school (1926), Gustav Roth’s publication of a Sanskrit edition of the Mahāsāmghika-Lokottaravādin bhiksunī vinaya (1970), De Jong’s “Notes on the Bhiksunī-Vinaya of the Mahāsāmghikas” (1974) and Hirakawa’s English translation of the Chi-nese Mahāsāmghika bhiksunī vinaya (1982).12 Had those working in the humanities on Buddhism and gender been aware of this textual scholarship, their discussions could have been greatly enhanced by, for

11) Ridding and la Vallée Poussin 1920. Th e translation is in Paul 1979:80–94.12) As well as these, published in Varanasi in 1984, was Kabilsingh’s comparative study of nuns’ pātimokkhas. Th is is both a translation and also includes some (feminist) analysis.

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example, knowing that in Roth’s Sanskrit edition of the Mahāsāmghika-Lokottaravādin bhiksunī vinaya (as he notes in his introduction) the section on Mahāprajāpatī and the eight gurudharmas is placed just before the nuns’ prātimoksavibhanga, not, as it is in the Pali vinaya, in a quite diff erent section (Roth 1970:xxix). Also, the work of the theorists could have been augmented not only by broader knowledge of the eight special rules as expressed in other vinayas, but also by work on other aspects of vinaya literature. In a very short section of a longer article on the prātimoksa published in the 1970s, Charles Prebish exposes poten-tial variation of views about women through analysis of the variant use of one word within a rule. He highlights how the inclusion or exclusion of this word — drstvā — in expressions of the rule in diff erent vinaya texts could suggest diff ering views about female upāsikās within four of the early Indian schools.13 In his discussion, which is detailed below,

13) Prebish 1974. Prebish’s observation is as follows: “Coming now to the second topic, that of the upāsikā, we must examine the aniyata dharmas. Both of these rules are similar so I shall reproduce the critical passage only from the fi rst. Th e translation for the Mahāsāmghika and the Th eravādin text is as follows: ‘Whatever monk, should sit down with a woman, one with the other, in secret, on a concealed, convenient seat, and a trustworthy upāsikā, having seen that one should accuse him according to one or another of three dharmas: (either) with a pārājika, samghāvaśesa, or pāyantika dharma. . . .’ For the Sarvāstivādin and the Mūlasarvāstivādin versions, the gerund drstvā, ‘having seen,’ has been deleted, otherwise reading identically. Th e remainder of the rule in each version goes on to explain that the monk should be dealt with accord-ing to the dictate of the upāsikā in question. Th e intention of the rule is clear enough: the seat is convenient and suitable for sexual intercourse, and should the monk indulge, he is charged with a pārājika dharma; if he remains chaste, he is charged with one of the lesser off enses. However, the substance of this rule is not the issue on which we should focus our attention. Th e Buddha’s publicly announced distrust of women is widely acknowledged, and that such a rule exists at all is truly remarkable. Th e key point is that in the Mahāsāmghika and Th eravādin versions, the upāsikā, no matter how trustworthy, must bring her charge only on the basis of personal, eyewitness tes-timony. Anything short of that seems not to be admitted as suffi cient grounds for such an accusation. Th e Sarvāstivādin and Mūlasarvāstivādin versions have nothing to say with regard to the off ense being witnessed. Th e upāsikā’s charge against the bhiksu is accepted simply on the basis of her word, trustworthy though it may be, laying open the very real possibility of the admissibility of hearsay evidence, a notion strongly deprecated by the Buddha himself. Can the omission of drstvā in the versions noted be an oversight or error on the part of the respective compilers? Perhaps, but I think not. Rather, it seems to indicate, and further research will be necessary to validate this thesis, a gradual upgrading of the status of upāsikās, a process which puts considerable

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Prebish argues that the exclusion of the word drstvā (“having seen”) in two of the vinayas suggest that the word of the female upāsikā, in these instances, is worth more. When drstvā is included, the upāsikā needs to have personally witnessed the event which appears as a transgression by the monk. Th e exclusion of the word suggests more trust in the word of the upāsikā; it does not matter whether she has seen the event or not, if she accuses a monk of such behaviour, her word is taken seriously.

Prebish’s observation of the variant use of one word and its potential implications for views of women demonstrates well the potential insights that can be gained from such analysis. Th us, the construction of meaning through comparative analysis that yield such potential fruits easily abates many of the primary concerns of those who, in the seven-ties, eighties and early nineties, aspired to challenge the perceived hege-mony of the vinaya. Th e non-application of comparative hermeneutics, in this instance, contrary to the perceived desires of those publishing in the seventies and eighties, many of whom were feminists, resulted in a reinforcement of the very thing they sought to challenge- the authority and infl uence of the vinaya.

Th e last two decades have seen a renewal of interest in both bhikkhunī/bhiksunī vinayas and in comparative study of them. From the nineties onwards, more work has been published that both makes some of the bhikkhunī/bhiksunī vinaya literature available for the fi rst time in Euro-pean languages and includes detailed study and comparative analysis of the various vinayas.14 Such work includes, for example, comparisons between Pali and extant Sanskrit vinayas, as well as comparisons between Pali, Sanskrit and vinayas extant only in Chinese or Tibetan. Some are primarily translations with selected analysis, others focus on comparing vinayas of diff erent schools, whilst others compare the rules for nuns with rules for monks. Two examples of such work are In Young Chung’s comparative study and Ann Heirmann’s comprehensive and systematic translation of the Chinese Dharmaguptaka bhiksunīvibhanga. In Young

time between the fi nalization of the two sets of Prātimoksa Sūtras: the Mahāsāmghika and Th eravādin being early and the Mūlasarvāstivādin and Sarvāstivādin being late” (176). Th is article re-appears more recently in Williams 2005:257–71.14) Such work includes Nolot’s French translation of Roth’s edition of the Mahā-sāmghika-Lokottaravādin bhiksunī vinaya (Nolot 1991) and Wijayaratna’s (1991), Hüsken’s (1997a and 1997b), Clarke’s (2000) and Shih’s (2000) comparative studies. Also see Kabilsingh (1991) and Tsomo (1996).

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Chung, in a long article in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, compares the Pali with the Chinese prātimoksa (Chung 1999). In her article, Chung challenges assumptions about the garudhammas/gurudharmas. She begins with a review of views concerning the eight special rules for prospective nuns of those writers of the seventies and eighties mentioned above. In Young Chung consolidated the position of certain of these writers that the rules may have interpolated at some time during the history of the tradition giving reasons, borne out of her comparative study, that sup-port the argument for interpolation. Th e most obvious reason for this assertion being that the garudhammas/gurudharmas mention the proba-tionary period for noviciates wishing to join the Order, which had not come into eff ect during the life of the Buddha.

Heirmann, in her translation and accompanying study of the Chi-nese Dharmaguptaka bhiksunīvibhanga, by including partial compari-son with other sets of garudhammas/gurudharmas, reveals something of the variation between traditions (Heirmann 2002). Heirmann’s work is on the Dharmaguptaka vinaya translated from the Chinese. Heirmann records the eight rules as stated in the Dharmaguptaka bhiksunīvibhanga, and in endnotes records variation in the rules between diff erent schools. For example, according to the Chinese Dharmaguptaka bhiksunīvibhanga, the third rule is as follows:

A bhiksunī may not punish a bhiksu, nor prevent him from joining the ceremonies of the order (such as the posadha or pravārana). A bhiksunī may not admonish a bhiksu, whereas a bhiksu may admonish a bhiksunī. (Heirmann 2002:64)

Heirmann notes that this rule does not appear in other vinayas in this same form. She notes that the Pali vinaya, the Mahāsāmghika-Lokottaravādin and the Sarvāstivādin vinaya have the following variations:

Pali vinaya: “Nuns should ask for the date of the posadha ceremony; they should also ask the monks for instruction.”Mahāsāmghika-Lokottaravādin vinayas: “Nuns should not receive gifts before these gifts have been presented to the monks.”Sarvāstivādin vinaya: “Nuns must ask the monks for instruction in sūtra, vinaya and abhidharma.”15

15) Heirmann 2002:96. For the Pali Vinaya, Heirmann uses Oldenberg’s edition, and the translations by Rhys Davids and Oldenberg and Horner. For the Mahāsāmghika-

A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117 105

Although this one example indicates a fair amount of diff erence between traditions, it must be noted that this is sometimes because the rules appear in a diff erent order.

Chung’s and Heirmann’s work provide examples of some of the prof-its of detailed comparative study. Although this is an area that in the last two decades has attracted the attention it deserves, there has not yet been a detailed comprehensive study of the implications for sex and gender in early Buddhism of the diff erences either within the content of the list of eight rules between Sanskrit, Pali and other versions and, more broadly (as highlighted by Prebish), of both minor and major variation within the vinaya literature concerned with women. Obvi-ously more such analysis is needed, however, comparative study of this literature to date has certainly contributed greatly to advancing our understanding of women in early Indian Buddhism.

Revisionist Strategies

Hermeneutics per se, the construction of meaning and signifi cance of the text, is conditioned by choice: the choice of which texts to study. Th at choice is itself conditioned by many other factors, one of which being the way meaning has been constructed around the idea of a text. Th us, if value has been accorded certain texts, and not others, this can aff ect the extent to which texts are studied. So this last section, then, is not simply about the hermeneutics of texts, but also about the construc-tion of meaning, signifi cance and value in relation to individual texts.

Aff ecting the choice of texts to be studied, we see emerging through the debate, as it proceeds over the last hundred or so years, the same issues that have aff ected our engagement with the Buddhist tradition more generally. Th erefore, orientalism, the emphasis on Pali, Protes-tant-infl uenced perspectives, etc. are all party to and at times aff ecting which texts are chosen to be studied with the aim of contributing to the gender debate.16 Here, a taxonomy of value can be seen emerging

Lokottaravādins she uses Roth 1970 and the French translation by Nolot 1991 and for the Sarvāstivādin she uses the Chinese Shih-sung Lu.16) For further discussion of the infl uences on the Buddhism and gender debate (per-taining to early Indian Buddhism) see Collett 2006.

106 A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117

by which some texts have been overvalued and other sidelined or ignored.17

Th e (Pali) vinaya and the Th erīgāthā have, historically, received most attention, and became the textual centre of the debate. To date, there have been many books and articles on the Th erīgāthā, both academic and popular, and, as we have seen, a great deal of work both specifi cally on the vinaya, and also discussion of the vinaya (particularly the Pali Cullavagga) has been central to the debate on sex and gender in early Indian Buddhism.18 In contrast, other texts have been either wholly or partially ignored. Apart for Caroline Rhys Davids’ 1893 article, there are no others exclusively on the Th erīgāthā commentary. Also from the nineteenth century, an article by Mabel Bode (1893), which is, in eff ect, a translation, prefaced by a short introduction, is the only writing on the lists of pre-eminent women in the Anguttara Nikāya which are expanded into stories of women’s lives in the Manorathapūranī. Th ere are no books or articles on the bhikkhunī chapter in the Samyutta Nikāya (although a brief introduction to the online translation by Bhik-khu Bodhi), only one on a story from the Avadānaśataka and one that is a partial discussion of certain of the women in the text, none on the stories of women in the Divyāvadāna and only two articles (one discur-sive article and one translation with an introduction) on one of the forty bhikkhunī Apadānas (Walters).19 As well, there are four general, more wide-ranging books on the debate (Horner, Gross, Wilson, Young).20 Of the four books, Horner focuses on the Pail literature, Rita Gross does not confi ne herself to early Buddhism, Wilson concentrates on later hagiographic literature, and Serinity Young focuses in on the

17) My use of the word “texts” here needs to be understood to sometimes be referring to “sets of texts” and at other times to “sections of texts.”18) See for examples of discursive analysis on the Th erīgāthā: Sharma 1977, Miller 1981, Lang 1986, Murcott 1993, Lienhard 1975, Rajapakse 1995, Ratwatte 1983, Blackstone 1998, and Banks Findly 2000; on the vinaya: Talim 1965, Falk 1974, Willis 1985, Shih 2000 and on both: Church 1975, Sharma 1978, Barnes 1987 and Falk 1989.19) http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/nunsuttas, Durt 2005, Skilling 2001a, and Walters 1994 and 1995.20) Horner 1930, Gross 1991, Wilson 1996, Young 2004. Th ere are also articles such as Sponberg 1992 and Skilling 2001(a and b) which discuss a range of textual material, Sponberg focusing on Pali sources, and Skilling drawing from a range of sources.

A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117 107

theme of sexuality particularly in tantric and Tibetan Buddhism. Some of these lesser-known texts from the early Indian period are briefl y dis-cussed or referred to in the four books, however there remains an imbal-ance with regards to simply which texts have been studied.

Not only have certain texts, historically, been over-emphasised and over-studied but, alongside this, certain themes have also prevailed. Interestingly, although the vinaya and Th erīgāthā have formed the tex-tual centre of the debate, it is the attitudes to women of the vinaya that have prevailed on the level of theory. If we focus in with the vinaya on the infamous passages in the Cullavagga, as is most often done, these two centrepoints — the Cullavagga and Th erīgāthā — could be pre-sented as opposite ends of a spectrum, with regards to standpoint on gender. Th e Pali Cullavagga advances, in its present form, an undeni-able subjugation of the female to the male, whilst the Th erīgāthā must undoubtedly be read as the opposite, accounts of capable, independent women who attained to advanced states of religious experience within the dispensation of the Buddha. Th e Cullavagga is comment about women, and perhaps we can assume comment made by monks, the Th erīgāthā, on the other hand, is, potentially, women’s own experience.21 On the level of theory, the conceptualisation of a non-agentive, con-trolled and subjugated woman has prevailed historically in scholarly discourse on women in early Indian Buddhism, and this over and above arguments for agentive, active, religiously capable and adept women. When more agentive women are acknowledged, this has often been only with an accompanying understanding that women were allowed some freedoms within their confi nement. Th at is, women existing under the overarching view of women as naturally of a lower order to men could and did exercise a certain degree of initiative and religious aptitude. Th us, the themes in the Cullavagga have prevailed, either as axiomatic or by being assumed to override other/lesser assertions. As a general trend, there has been more weight given over to attitudes towards women (and this most likely being male attitudes to women) than to women’s own experience (or the recounting of women’s own apparent experience). Not only has this been the case with regards to texts that

21) Blackstone makes a convincing argument for female authorship of the Th erīgāthā in Blackstone 1998.

108 A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117

have been studied, but also certain of the texts mentioned above that (apparently) detail women’s lives and female experience appear to have been sometimes passed over in the debate in favour of discussions of attitudes to women.

I will give an example of this through a brief look at the issue of female sexuality. A general theory of female sexuality seemingly encased in early Indian Buddhism is advanced along the lines that women are positioned as sexual predators, existing in their tempting and tempestu-ous forms to lure men away from the good path through their some-times insatiable sexual appetites. Such a theory is advanced by Gross, in order to critique it, by Sponberg, in order to nuance it, and by Serinity Young, in order to develop it. However, what is found in the Samyutta Nikāya chapter on Buddhist nuns, by way of example, a chapter not mentioned by Gross, Sponberg or Young, countervails the prevailing view. In this chapter, Māra approaches certain women, and, on each occasion, the nun successfully “recognizes” Māra and defeats him. On three occasions, Māra tries to tempt the female through sexual seduc-tion, either directly off ering himself, or, as in these verses to Ālavikā, through exhortations to her to avail herself of life’s pleasures whilst she is still able:

Th ere is no escape from the world, so what will you do with your solitude?You should enjoy the delights of sensual pleasure, do not be remorseful later.

And Ālavikā’s terse reply begins:

Sensual pleasures are like sword stakes, the aggregates the executioner’s block.What you call delight in sensual pleasure has become non-delight for me.22

In another story, Māra, disguised, approaches the nun Vijayā. He says to her:

22) Samyutta Nikāya 5.1.162 Natthi nissaranam loke kim vivekena kāhasi bhuñjassu kāmaratiyo māhu pacchānutāpinī ’ti . . . sattisūlūpamā kāmā khandhāsam adhikut t anā yam tvam kāmaratim brūsi arati mayha sā ahū ’ti.

A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117 109

You are young and beautiful, and I a young man.Come, noble woman, let us rejoice with the music of a fi vefold ensemble.

Vijayā begins her reply with these words:

Forms, sounds, tastes, scents, and tactile objects that are pleasing to the mind,I give them back to you, Māra, I am not in need of them.23

Within the Buddhism and gender debate there has been much discus-sion of the issue of female sexual seduction and of the portrayal of women as seductresses. We fi nd many examples of women who try to seduce or lure men away from the path in the early literature. Perhaps the best-known example of this are the daughters of Māra who, accord-ing to many versions of the life story, attempt to seduce Prince Siddhārtha seated in meditation under the bodhi tree. Peppered throughout the literature are accounts of women using their “womanly wiles” (itthikutta) such as the wife of Vīra in the Th eragāthā commen-tary, who initially attempts to lure him back from going forth, but is soon persuaded to go forth herself.24 Also, we fi nd many examples in the Th eragāthā in which men position women as the snare of Māra, as temptresses attempting to seduce them away from their chosen path. As Lang summarizes of some such verses in the Th eragāthā:

[Certain] verses share the same cluster of images: man as the hunted prey, Lord Death as the hunter, and a woman as the baited snare. Wife, dancer, or harlot- each woman is condemned in the same terms: “Lord Death’s Snare.” (Lang 1986:71)

Alongside this we see women also referring to themselves in these same terms. Th e former courtesan, Vimalā, for example, in the Th erīgāthā describes her earlier life:

23) Samyutta Nikāya 5.4.165 Daharā tvam rūpavatã ahañca daharo susu pañcaangikena turiyena ehayyebhiramāmase ’ti . . . rūpā saddā rasā gandhā phot t habbā ca manoramā niyyatayāmi tuyheva māra nāham tenatthikā.24) Th eragāthā commentary as cited in Horner 1930:182.

110 A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117

Intoxicated because of my complexion, form, beauty and fameand proud due to my youth, I despised others.Having decorated this body, well painted, enticing fools, I stood at the brothel door as a hunter having laid out a snare.25

In the Th erīgāthā Vimalā is describes as a ganikā. Ganikās were the highest class of courtesans, often skilled in the arts, wealthy and able to set their fee so high that many could not aff ord them (Bhattacharji 1987). Also, ganikās often had servants and would entertain kings. Despite Vimalā potentially having some control and certain freedoms within her life of sexual prostitution due to her status, nevertheless, she defi ned herself not in relation to her own sexuality, but in relation to that of her male clients. She is a temptress seeking to entrap men, essen-tially a manipulator; one who manipulates the sexual desires of the men she entices. In the Th erīgāthā commentary, it is suggested that Vimalā is led to the view she expresses by the harsh teaching of an unnamed monk, who convinces her that the human body is nothing but a “heap of sores” and a “bag of dung” (Pruitt 1997:100–4). In the story, Vimalā, as the women in the examples above, is positioned as the quintessential female temptress, becoming enamoured with the monk, going to his dwelling place and attempting to seduce him.

Stephanie Jamison makes a convincing argument as to the socio-religious origins of the view of women as sexual aggressors within the Brahmanic tradition. Jamison suggests that such view arose as a resolu-tion of tension born from confl icting expectations placed on the twice-born male. She argues that a system that expects males to actively uphold ascetic ideals whilst as the same time requires them to produce off spring generates consternation about male sexuality. She says:

Th e ideal situation for a man who has both goals is to practice his asceticism (an individual and private pursuit) actively, as it were, but to acquire sons from sexual activity in which he is a passive and accidental participant. Th us, this ideal male fi gure is the victim of sex, never seeking it or even welcoming it when it is off ered. But, then, for sex to take place at all, we need an aggressor, and who is left? (Jamison 1996:16)

25) Th erīgāthā 5.2 Mattā vannena rūpena sobhaggena yasena ca yobbanena cuppatthaddhā aññāsamatimaññiham vibhūsetvā imam kāyam sucittam bālalāpanam at t hāsim vesidvā-ramhi luddo pāsamivodiya.

A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117 111

Whilst it may be the case that Jamison’s insightful assertion for the unusual positioning of women as sexual aggressors within the ancient context of the Brahmanic tradition could be considered (more broadly) to have had some infl uence on the acceptance of such views within early Buddhism, it can be seen only as a general rule, to which there are obvious exceptions.26

Within the context of early Buddhism, Sponberg notes that the posi-tioning of women as sexual aggressors can be seen as an aspect of vari-ous views expressed about women, some more positive than others. He makes a case that the idea of women as sexual predators can be juxta-posed with other similar expressions pertaining to the monks wrestling with their abstention from engagement in sexual activity. He draws out this point with the following passage from the Anguttara Nikāya:

Monks, 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 eff ort . . . as a woman’s form. Monks, whosoever clings to a woman’s form — infat-uated, greedy, fettered, enslaved, enthralled — for many a long day shall grieve, snared by the charms of a woman’s form. . . .

Monks, a woman, even when going along, will stop to ensnare the heart of a man; whether standing, sitting, lying down, laughing, talking or singing, weep-ing, stricken or dying, a woman will stop to ensnare the heart of a man. . . . Verily, one may say of womanhood: it is wholly a snare of [the Tempter] Māra. (Spon-berg 1992:20, translating Anguttara Nikāya III 67–68)

Sponberg draws out the nuances of diff erence between the two para-graphs, which he describes as “a move from psychological astuteness to psychopathological misogyny” (1992:20). Whilst the fi rst paragraph situates the basis of the problem within the male psyche, and warns monks against becoming intoxicated, in the second paragraph, women themselves have become the problem; they have become (again) “the snare of Māra.” Th e Samyutta Nikāya verses, however, turn all this on its head. Far from women being themselves the snare of Māra, instead,

26) Th is is the case both within Brahmanism and outside of it. For example, the con-doning of sexual assault in the Brhadāranyakaupanisad dismisses the possibility of such a view as all encompassing. In the Brhadāranyakaupanisad it states that the best time to have sex with a woman is following her menses, and, if she is not amenable to it, that one should beat her with a stick or one’s fi sts and overpower her. Brhadāranya-kaupanisad 6.4.12.

112 A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117

Māra is himself attempting to ensnare them. In contrast to the general trends in the literature described above, in the Samyutta Nikāya Māra is representative of male sexuality, which is positioned as a potential dan-ger for the women he approaches. Appealing to (what in the verses is portrayed as) their natural female sexual desire, Māra is attempting to seduce the nuns away from the good path. It could be argued that the verses are as they are because of the view of insatiable female sexuality, that is, women are sexual aggressors with voracious appetites and as such, in such a context, enticement to sexual pleasures would be a fi t-ting ruse for Māra. However, this is in no way implied by the verses, especially as the women give such immediate and unremitting rebukes to “the evil one.” Instead, in an instance of the sort of similitude that would be expected under a purview of sexual equality, as the female form is seen as a snare of Māra for men, so a sexual male is a snare of Māra for women.

Engaging with a text that includes one of the rare examples of wom-en’s experience of their own sexuality, rather than being concerned with how women stand in relation to male sexuality (whether this is expressed by men or women) can highlight otherwise occluded aspects of female experience. Ālavikā and Vijayā express their relationship to their own sexuality, a relationship which they seek — successfully — to transcend. Re-engaging, then, with the texts that highlight women’s experience adds, as this example shows, diff erent dimensions to the debate.

Th is brief discussion of some of the verses of the bhikkhunī-samyutta of the Samyutta Nikāya demonstrates how detailed study of the named women from the history of early Indian Buddhism can contribute to our understanding of women in early Indian Buddhism. A focus on female experience can enable a fl eshing out and fuller envisaging of the women known of from early on in the modern scholarly debate, but not studied individually. Many of these women are mentioned by Horner, and stories of certain of them were published in translation by Bode over a hundred years ago. However, detailed and comparative study of their individual stories has yet to begin in earnest. Even the story of the well-known Dhammadinnā has received little attention. Th ese stories, such as, for example, the story of Bhaddā Kundalakesā provides grounds for further investigation.27 Bhaddā Kundalakesā’s story

27) Th ere are verses attributed to Bhaddā Kun d alakesā in the Th erīgāthā (4.9) and her

A. Collett / Numen 56 (2009) 91–117 113

challenges ideas about women’s right to choose (outside of the svayamvara) whom they marry. Bhaddā Kundalakesā demands that she is allowed to take the hand of a thief she becomes enamoured with, a wish granted by her parents. Secondly, the story reveals female initiate, in Bhaddā’s outwitting of her husband as he attempts to rob her. Wise to his inten-tion, she conspires to throw him off a cliff . Further to this, as men-tioned earlier, Bhaddā later renounces the household life to go forth as a Jain, during which time she becomes highly skilled in debate. Th is aspect of her story is pertinent to the issue raised within the study of not only early Indian Buddhism but contemporaneous traditions as well; the issue of women’s engagement in intellectual debate. Shifting attention to the, often detailed, accounts of the lives of these women, and by so doing drawing attention to (potentially) female experience can add new dimensions to the debate. A focus on texts which recount such stories can provide new ground for interpretation.

In conclusion, this article has attempted to present hermeneutical strategies that have been utilised in our engagement with issues of sex and gender in early Indian Buddhist texts and to suggest others for the future. Certain strategies are highlights with regards to one particular author, whilst others are advanced through a study of the relationship between author/text/reader, and, more broadly still, concerning the con-struction of meaning around texts. I conclude with revisionist strategies and on the advocacy of a shift in focus with regards to both texts that have been considered to be central to the debate on women in early Indian Buddhism and themes that have been considered as centrally important. Much good work has been done in the fi eld, but there is still much more to be done, and it is certainly possible to write something more of a wom-en’s history from this period which has not, as yet, been done.

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