Women in Buddhism - Women in Early Buddhism

Women in Early Buddhism

The founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha, permitted women to join his monastic community and fully participate in it, although there were certain provisos or garudhammas. As Susan Murcott comments, "The nun's sangha was a radical experiment for its time." Dr. Mettanando Bhikkhu says of the First Buddhist council:

Perhaps Mahakassappa and the bhikkhus of that time were jealous of the bhikkhunis being more popular and doing more teaching and social work than the bhikkhus. Their anti-women prejudice became institutionalized at that time with the eight garudhammas, the eight weighty restrictions. We must discontinue that prejudice.

According to Ajahn Sujato, the early texts state that the most severe of the garudhammas, which states that every nun must bow to every monk, was instituted by the Buddha because of the customs of the time, and modern scholars doubt that the rule even goes back to the Buddha at all. Furthermore, an identical rule is found in Jainism.

According to Diana Paul, the traditional view of women in Early Buddhism is that they are inferior. Rita Gross agrees that "a misogynist strain is found in early Indian Buddhism. But the presence of some clearly misogynist doctrines does not mean that the whole of ancient Indian Buddhism was misogynist". The mix of positive attitudes to femininity with blatantly negative sentiment has led many writers to characterise early Buddhism's attitude to women as deeply ambivalent.

Some commentators on the Aganna-Sutta from the Pāli Canon, a record of the teachings of Gautama Buddha, interpret it as showing women as responsible for the downfall of the human race. However, Buddhist interpretation is generally that it shows lust in general, rather than women, as causing the downfall.

However, despite some less positive images of women in Early Buddhism, there are also examples in the Pali Canon which suggest that the very concept of gender differentiation can serve as a hindrance to attaining nirvana, or enlightenment. For example, in the Bhikkhuni-samyutta, found in the Sagatha-vagga of the Samyutta Nikaya, gender discrimination is stated to be the work of Mara, a personification of temptation from the Buddhist spiritual path. In the Soma Sutta, the bhikkhuni Soma states: "Anyone who thinks 'I'm a woman' or 'a man' or 'Am I anything at all?' — that's who Mara's fit to address", linking gender neutrality to the Buddhist concept of anatta, or "not-self", a strategy the Buddha taught for release from suffering. In a sutta titled "Bondage", the Buddha states that when either a man or a woman clings to gender identity, that person is in bondage.