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Two-day International Conference on

BUDDHISM IN EAST ASIA: TRADITIONS, CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

Sub Theme:- 1.Spread of Buddhism in China, Korea and Japan

Abstract

Lineal Interrelationship of the Order of Buddhist Nuns (Bhiku/Bhikku

Sagha) between Sri Lanka and East Asia : Past and Present

Bakamoone Indaratana

Research Scholar,

Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies,

Jawaharlal Nehru University,

New Delhi, 110067.

indaratanab@yahoo.com

Sri Lanka being considered to be the seat of Theravada Buddhism after its collapsed

in India. Monks and nuns from Sri Lanka have had played an important role in dissemination

of the message and the Order of both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism throughout Asia. It

was Sri Lankan Buddhist nuns who introduced the Order of nuns into China in 433 AD.

There are historical evidences that the Order of Buddhist nuns survived and thrived in

India for fifteen centuries. During the third century BC, the Sanghamitr, the daughter of

Emperor Aoka, visited Sri Lanka in order to conduct the ordination of Queen Anul and

hundreds of Sri Lankan women who wished to become nuns. Arriving from India with a

sapling of the bodhi tree, she established theBhikuSagha that continued to flourish until

the fall of Anurdhapura Kingdom (1017 AD). That leads disappearance of Order from Sri

Lankan landscape and discontinuity. Hence, following ten centuries there was no trace of

Theravdin Bhikkhuni-s anywhere

According to the historical evidences from both China and Sri Lanka, the lineage of

full ordination for nuns was transmitted to China in the fifth century AD, when a bhiku

named Devasar set out on a two-year journey to Nanjing. In the year 433 AD, she and her

companions conducted a bhiku ordination ceremony for hundreds of Chinese nuns. This

was the beginning of theBhikuSagha in China that in the latter periods spread to Korea,

Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan, and still alive even present day.

Until recently, full bhikkhu ordination was not available to nuns in the Theravada

tradition. In the absence of the bhikkhuni order, a movement of ten-precept nuns (dasa-sl-

mt) began in Sri Lanka. In the past few decades, Buddhist women from Sri Lanka and other

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countries have begun to revive the BhikuSagha in their own traditions by receiving full

ordination from the bhiku lineages that have continued in those countries over the

centuries.

As a solution for the re-establishment ofBhikuSagha, some argued that Chinese

nuns received higher ordination from Sri Lankan nuns and had been established on a firm

vinaya footing and therefore can now confer higher ordination upon Sri Lankan nuns today.

Accordingly, Mahabodhi Society of India came forward with the assistance of the

World Sangha Council and Sakyadhita International Organization of Buddhist Women and

held an ordination ceremony on 8.12.1996 at Saranath Temple, India. At this ceremony, 11

selected Sinhalese dasa-sl-mt-s were ordained fully as bhikkhu-s by a team of Theravda

monks in concert with a quorum of Korean Nuns. Thus for the first time nearly after thousand

odd years the Theravda BhikkhuOrder was revived in India. And in 1998, twenty women

from Sri Lanka received it in Bodhgaya, India, from Chinese bhiku-s and bhiku-s. The

bhiku ordination was given in Sri Lanka in 1998. However this restoration of Order of

nuns was a matter of controversial among the Theravdins as the Theravada and Mahayana

have been separated for thousands of years and many doctrinal differences divide the two

traditions.

This paper will trace the history of introduction of the Order of Buddhist Nuns by Sri

Lankan nuns to China and its latter formations in Korea, Japan and Taiwan. It will also

attempt to explore the lineal relationship of the present Order of Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka

in particular, and in other Theravda countries with East Asian Buddhist nuns. In the process

of reading the paper will chat how the Theravda bhiku tradition got transformed into

Mahyana Buddhism and how it underwent a cycle of restoration within the Theravda

tradition.