Women and Enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism

Le Ngoc Bich Ly

I. Introduction

This paper attempts to investigate the Theravada Buddhist

teaching on women’s ineligibility for enlightenment, the

formation and interpretations of it from different

perspectives within the tradition, and my personal reflection

on the issue.

II. Theravada Buddhist Teaching of Women’s Enlightenment

In order to have the whole picture of the Theravada views on

women’s enlightenment, it is important that we understand the

meaning of enlightenment and how the doctrine of women’s

ineligibility for enlightenment is developed from its first

utterance by the Buddha (?) to the present Theravada Buddhist

community.

1. The meaning of enlightenment

In Buddhism, enlightenment is the English translation of the

Pali word “nibbana” or “nirvana” in Sanskrit. In a negative

language, nibbana means the ‘extinction’ of desire, hatred,

and illusion1. In a positive language, nibbana is “a mental

1 Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (revised edition) (London and Bedford: the Gorden Fraser Gallery Ltd., 1978), p.37.

1

experience in which ignorance, attachment, desire and

suffering are replaced by intuitive insight, purity of mind

and conduct, and absolute peace of mind.”2 This reality,

discovered and taught by the Buddha over 2,500 years ago, will

be realized in anyone who is willing to live out the Four

Noble Truths. According to this definition, nibbana or

enlightenment transcends gender and classes.

2. The Buddha’s view of women’s enlightenment

When addressing the question of women’s ability for

enlightenment, the Buddha’s view is both positive and

negative. Positively the Buddha acknowledged, without

hesitation, the equality of men and women in attaining nibbana

when Ananda asked him if women are able to be enlightened. The

Buddha even praised female above male when he comforted king

Pasenadi, who was disappointed because his queen gave birth to

a girl baby3:

“A woman child, O lord of men, may prove

Even a better offspring than a male.

For she may grow up wise and virtuous…”

The Buddha actually ordained and praised at least 13 women,

who were fully enlightened. Among them, the Buddha’s own aunt2 Saeng Chandngarm (compiler), Basic Buddhism (Chiang Mai: Mahamakut BuddhistUniversity: Lanna Campus), p.70. 3 Saeng Chandngarm (compiler), Basic Buddhism, p.101.

2

and step-mother was the founder of the bhikkhuni order.4 During

the Buddha’s life time, his transgendered and trans-caste

message gave women freedom and equal rights with men to pursue

the spiritual path of nibbana. They could freely travel

wherever the Buddha preached and supported him generously,

while women in that Indian society had no chance to attain

salvation because the belief of the time was that being born

as a woman was the result of bad karma and therefore

ineligible for moksa. Women and daughters were forbidden to

learn the Vedas but only men and sons. Women could only gain

salvation in a future life when they were born as a male. So

this life, they needed to advance their good karma by obeying

and worshipping their husband5. All this evidence shows that

the Buddha had a very revolutionary view of women during his

lifetime.

However, the Buddha also displayed a negative attitude on

women’s pursuit of enlightenment. This is seen in his

hesitation to admit his aunty and step-mother Gotami Pajapati

to the monastic order though she insisted on it and followed

him for a long distance. He eventually accepted her, after

Ananda’s intervention, but then imposed on her eight weighty

rules, the Gurudharma. These rules clearly show the

inferiority of bhikkhunis to bhikkhus. For example, senior

nuns must pay homage to new monks; a nun cannot lead the

Buddhist community; she is not allowed to admonish improper

behavior in a monk while a monk has the right to do so. Then

the Buddha lamented that the longevity of the Sangha would be

4 Dhammanada Bhikkhuni, A Difference Voice (Bangkok: Thai Tibet Center, 2010), p.42.5 Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions (Tennessee: Abingdon, 1979), pp.45-46.

3

shortened by 500 years because of the admission of women to

the Sangha.6

Although this passage mainly shows the Buddha’s

discouragement of women joining the monastic order, it was

relevant to women’s pursuit of enlightenment at that time

because of at least two reasons. First, renunciation and

becoming a monk were an important step to attain enlightenment

since this was the common practice of the Buddha’s time.

Second, ordination would bring a person full rights to learn

and practice the Dhamma directly and more deeply with the

Buddha or his qualified disciples. Joining the Buddha’s sangha

was both a religious and political declaration of women that

from now on the cultural and religious prejudices of the

Indian society had no power over their lives. A clear cut with

the old oppressive system was a necessary step of the

beginning of a new way of life.

There was no clear explanation why the Buddha did so. The

feminist Buddhist perspective points it to the socio-cultural

context of the Buddha’s time. For example, the Buddhist

feminist scholar Chatsumarn explains that the early Buddhists

maintained a forest-dwelling life, which was dangerous for

women. There was a case that a bhikkhuni was raped. Another

reason was that only qualified monks were allowed to teach

bhikkhunis. There might not be many available qualified monks.

Imposing the weighty rules on the nuns was the Buddha’s

strategy to have the sangha accept women into the order since

these men still maintained the Indian values. It was not the

Buddha’s intention to subordinate women and actually he6 Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism (California: Parallax Press, 1991), p.27-30.

4

established rules to forbid the monks to abuse their privilege

and power to subordinate the nuns. Due to these external

disadvantages, the Buddha hesitated to admit them to the

order7.

However, the Theravada tradition seems to justify this by

referring to women’s ineligibility for enlightenment. The

often quoted texts by the Theravada tradition against women’s

ability for enlightenment are that “It is impossible, monk, it cannot

come to pass that a woman should be a Buddha who is a fully Enlightened One…”

The Buddha also said that “Womenfolk are uncontrolled, Ananda.

Womenfolk are envious, Ananda. Womenfolk are greedy Ananda. Womenfolk are

weak in wisdom, Ananda. That is the reason, that is the cause why womenfolk do not

sit in a court of justice, do not embark on business, do not reach the essence of the

deed.” 8 This is a completely different and contradictory view

with what the Buddha had had and done, as having been

discussed before. It is very hard to understand how this

biased view existed in the Buddha, who was already enlightened

and who was extremely against the caste system and the belief

of elite salvation of his time. These controversial texts will

be discussed in detail in the later part of this paper.

Unfortunately these negative teachings later became the

foundation of the Theravada doctrine regarding women’s pursuit

of enlightenment and ordination.

3. The development of the Theravada teachings of women’s ineligibility for

enlightenment

7 Ibid., p.28.8 Saeng Chandngarm (compiler), Basic Buddhism, p.100.

5

The development of the Theravada Buddhist doctrine of

women’s ineligibility for enlightenment can be inferred from a

summary done by a Japanese Buddhist scholar, Kajiyama Yuichi,

quoted by Chatsumarn, as the following9:

1). Primitive Buddhism under Gautama and his direct

disciples made no distinction between men and women with

regard to emancipation, despite the prevalence of societal

discrimination against women in ancient India.

2). By comparing various Pali and Chinese sources, it

appears that the dictum that a woman is incapable of becoming

a Buddha probably arose around the first century B.C.

3). Just before the beginning of the Christian Era, a

new movement developed in which Aksobhya Buddha and Amitabha

Buddha, sympathizing with the predicament of women, vowed to

save them: Aksobhya by removing all physical and social

difficulties of women in his Buddha Land; Amitabha by

transforming women into men on their birth in his Western

Paradise.

4). Early Mahayana sutras, such as The Perfection of

Wisdom in 8,000 Lines, the Lotus Sutra, and the Pure Land

Sutra, developed the idea that a woman can be enlightened by

transforming herself into a male.

5). The mature philosophy of emptiness and Buddha

nature in all sentient beings, represented in the Vimalakirti

Nirdesa, Srimaladevi, and other sutras, declares that a woman

can be enlightened just as she is, as a woman.

This shows that the idea of women’s ineligibility for

enlightenment is a later development and is a matter of interest of

a specific group instead of timeless truth for Buddhists since the9 Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism, p. 27.

6

other groups of Buddhism or Mahayana tradition, which are the

majority, have a different point of view from that of the Theravada

tradition.

By the time of the canonical literature (2nd century BC.),

Theravada Buddhism was deeply influenced by the Hindu culture, which

the Buddha had struggled to eliminate. Specifically, the negative

view of women became dominant. Buddhist females were seen as

obstacles to the purity of the monks. They were portrayed as

sexually ravenous, greedy, envious, stupid and generally

repulsive. This is clearly seen in the Theravada story of the

Buddha’s life which depicts women seductive and disgusting

corpse-like dancers, and daughters of the Devil Mara, who

always appeared to seduce and prevent the Buddha from

achieving perfection. This reflects the Manu’s code in

Hinduism10:

“It is the nature of women to seduce men…; for that reason

the wise are never unguarded… For women are able to lead astray

in (this) world not only a fool, but even a learned man, and (to

make) him a slave of desire and anger. One should not sit in a

lonely place with one’s mother, sister or daughter; for the

senses are powerful, and master even a learned master.”

Early Theravadins even equated women’s desire and

productive becoming with samsara, which endlessly distributed

life-force. For Theravada Buddhism, samsara is the enemy and

10 Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions, pp. 52-53.7

trap, so is femaleness. This can be seen in the dialogue

between the Buddha and Ananda:11

“How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard to womankind?”

“As not seeing them, Ananda”

“But if we should see them, what are we to do?”

“No talking, Ananda”

“But if they should speak to us, Lord, what are we to do?”

“Keep awake, Ananda.”

Consequently sexual abstinence instead of a good life

became the main focus of monastic life. Eventually Theravada

Buddhism came to mirror Hindu beliefs that women are of lower

birth. Nuns were not allowed to interpret the Dhamma. They

were taught to believe that good works would help them to be

reborn as men and therefore have better opportunities to

attain enlightenment in the next life. For example, Buddha’s

mother, who died 7 days after his birth, was reborn as a male

god; the Buddha had never been reborn as a female.12

Therefore, from the time of the Buddha to the present, the

view of women’s ability for enlightenment has shifted

dramatically in the Theravada tradition. Women have changed

their religious status from equal with to inferior to men,

from eligible to ineligible for enlightenment. Women have been

11 Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions, p. 52.12 Ibid., p.50.

8

deprived of the religious power and rights to access the

Dhamma and also human liberation, which are now monopolized by

the Sangha which is composed of monks only. As a result of

this, nibbana has become more and more difficult to attain and

limited to highly advanced practitioners instead of being

accessible to everyone as it was in the time of the Buddha. It

has also become more legalistic and bureaucratic because

attaining nibbana requires a person to be ordained as monks

and practice the Eightfold Paths correctly.

III. Different Interpretations of the Theravada Teaching of

Women’s Enlightenment within This Tradition

There are different interpretations of the teaching of

women’s enlightenment within the Theravada tradition itself,

but generally the tendency is more and more democratic and

anti-traditional.

1. Contemporary Theravada interpretations

Generally, the myths about women’s ineligibility for

Buddhahood have been preached and emphasized in the teachings

of Theravada Buddhism up to this modern time. For example,

Buddhadasa, a venerable monk from Thailand, after quoting the

Buddha’s saying that “It is not possible for a woman to become

9

a Buddha but it is quite possible for a Man to become so”,

strongly states that the attempt to give women the same office

(ordination and enlightenment) as men is against nature and

that “woman is not composed of the required caliber – both in

physique and in will-power.” He even said that “woman is a

product of man”13.

However, perhaps later in his life, Buddhadasa recognized

his bias towards women, so he gave a new interpretation of

enlightenment which completely contradicts his above view,

seen in his “chit wang” doctrine, according to Peter A.

Jackson14:

“Buddhadasa’s view of the universal relevance of nibbana

contrasts sharply with the traditional Thai view that striving

for ultimate salvation is an activity appropriate only for

spiritually advanced monks. He denies that it is first

necessary to be a monk in order to become a saint. He says that

“an arahant has transcended monkhood and laity alike.”

Another prominent interpretation of the message of

transgendered here and now enlightenment for the mass is also

found in the Theravada tradition in Burma. The venerable

Mahasi Sayadaw has developed vipassana meditation method for13 The Venerable Bhikkhu Buddhadasa Indapanno, Christianity and Buddhism: Sinclaire Thompson Memorial Lecture. Fifth series, p.88.14 Peter A. Jackson. Buddhadasa: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2003), p.143.

10

the laity to approach enlightenment in the mist of this

worldly life since 1950. This has formed a New Laity movement

in Burma of which women participants are the majority since

this method combines both temporary renunciation and

integration into the world.15

Both Buddhadasa’s “chit wang” doctrine and Mahasi Sayadaw’s

vipassana meditation for laity have shown a new trend of

understanding the Buddha’s message of enlightenment in this

modern time. This trend moves away from the traditional

interpretation but it is actually a restoration of the

original movement initiated by the Buddha in this new context.

Enlightenment is accessible for everyone here and now in the

midst of this worldly life. Enlightenment is not for one’s end

but for a deeper engagement in the world. Ordination has

shifted its substance from being an essential step to attain

nibbana into an office or title which has nothing to do with

enlightenment.

2. Buddhist women’s reinterpretation of the tradition

In addition to interpretations by the Theravada monks, well-

educated and devoted Buddhist women have started to

reinterpret the tradition. Recently an outstanding female15 Ingrid Jordt, Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power (Ohio University press, 2007), pp.158-159.

11

Buddhist scholar and also a Theravada ordained Bhikkhuni, Ven.

Dhammananda from Thailand, has made use of her academic

ability, Buddhist knowledge and support from international

Buddhist communities to publish a number of books, organize

and take part in Buddhist conferences around the world as part

of her struggle for the recognition of Thai bhikkhunis. I

would like to use her work as a representation of the women’

new interpretation of the Theravada tradition concerning the

issue of women’s ineligibility for enlightenment.16 (Since the

scope of this paper is limited to the issue of enlightenment,

I am not going to include her interpretations of women’s

ordination. Another reason is that, according to the

contemporary understanding of enlightenment, ordination has

more to do with the restoration of the tradition, gender

equality and religious rights or power than with the nature of

nibbana. Details of the debate of women’s ordination can be

referred to from the works of Dhammanada Bikkhuni)

For bhikkhuni Dhammananda, the Buddha’s teaching should be

understood at two levels. The first level deals with the

nature of the spiritual path which is free from contextual and

16 See Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism, p. 22-34, and Dhammanada Bhikkhuni, A Difference Voice, pp.65-73, and Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, Beyond Gender , pp.20-23, 32-38 .

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gender bias. At this level, enlightenment is accessible to all

sentient beings without any discrimination. The second level

deals with the mundane, which is affected by the social

context. For this level, examination is needed to discover

the origins of gender bias.

According to her, there are many suspicious elements about

the background of the texts in which the Buddha said that “a

woman cannot become a Buddha” because “they are selfish, poor

in wisdom, unable to assume a seat in the assembly and cannot

travel to distant land”. Firstly, the Buddhist texts as we

know today were not written until three hundred years after

the Buddha’s passing away. They were recorded by the monks

only in a foreign language (Pali) in a foreign place (Sri

Lanka) to the origin of Buddhism. Secondly, right at the First

Council (three months after the Buddha’s parinirvana), the

bhikkhu Sangha already showed prejudices toward the bhikkhuni

Sangha by not inviting any bhikkhunis to join the council and

accusing Ananda of encouraging the Buddha to accept women to

the order. Therefore, the authenticity of the texts is

suspected.

From the Buddha’s time to the time the texts were written

down, it was inevitable for Buddhism to take in the Indian

13

culture which was extremely oppressive to women (I have

already mentioned in the second part of this paper). In this

sense, the Buddhist teachings mirror exactly the Indian view,

so the texts were probably a later addition not the words of

the Buddha. In other words, they were words put in the mouth

of the Buddha.

This view is also consistent with the Buddhist scholar Alan

Sponberg’s analysis of the early Buddhist texts. He suggests

that the early Buddhist canon does not display a single but

multi-voices. He identifies at least four attitudes, three

occurring in the early canon, and four representing, in part,

a later attempt to resolve the inconsistency and tension among

the first three. The first three attitudes are: soteriological

inclusiveness, institutional androcentrism, and ascetic

misogyny; the fourth is soteriological androgyny.

Soteriological inclusiveness is the most basic and

distinctively Buddhist attitude regarding the Buddhist

attitude towards women’s status, which acknowledges that one’s

sex, like one’s caste, presents no barrier to one’s attaining

the Buddhist goal of liberation from suffering. This view was

clearly seen in the Buddha’s message of transgender and trans-

14

caste enlightenment and his recognition of women’s capability

for nibbana.

The second attitude, institutional androcentrism, developed

later especially in the Vinaya or texts about monastic order.

After the passing away of the Buddha, the sangha became more

institutionalized and shifted from religious wanderers to

monastic residence. Social acceptability became an important

issue. So the attitude of the sangha is that ‘women can pursue

a full-time spiritual career but only within a carefully

regulated institutional structure which preserves and

reinforces the conventionally accepted social standards of

male superiority and female subordination.’ This attitude is

seen in the story that the Buddha refused his step-mother to

join the order and then imposed on her the eight weighty rules

after accepting her.

The third attitude, ascetic misogyny, has its root in the

ascetic tradition before the Buddha, but was the last of the

three to emerge in the literature. It shows hostility to women

and views them as threat to male celibacy. This attitude

displays more a personal and individual concern than a

directly institutional one. As the Sangha became autonomous15

and disintegrated with the world and the Buddhist laity, the

issue of celibacy became the most important matter. This is

reflected in the texts in which the Buddha viewed women as

ineligible for Buddhahood and greedy, stupid, and dangerous

for monks’ perfection.

The fourth attitude, soteriological androgyny, developed by

fractions of Mahayana Buddhism, especially the philosophy of

emptiness, emerged in the literature between the sixth and

seventh centuries, as an attempt to reaffirm the early

principle of soteriological inclusiveness. Women are

acknowledged to be eligible for enlightenment just as who they

are17.

Another interpretation, which is loyal to the authenticity

of the texts, is that the Buddha was not free from the social

conditions of his time though he was enlightened. It seems

that Buddhist feminist scholars such as Boonsue Kornvibha and

also Chatsumarn or Dhammanada Bikkhuni acknowledge this

possibility18. The Buddha was a historic man who was born and

brought up in the Indian culture, so it was inevitable that he

17 Alan Sponberg, “Attitude toward women and the feminine in early Buddhism”in Jose Ignacio Cabezon (ed.), Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (U.S.: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp.3-2718 Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism, p. 25.

16

still kept some traditional values. This is also possible

since the Buddha is the only one among religious founders,

‘who did not claim to be other than a human being, pure and

simple’19. Perhaps the Buddha was also a controversial person

like Buddhadasa in Thailand.

IV. Personal Reflection

While the Theravada monks like Buddhadasa and Mahasi Sayadaw

are dealing with the nature of enlightenment and somehow

accept the biased texts against women or leave them

unresolved; Buddhist feminists such as Chatsumarn are going a

bit further by demythologizing the biased texts. However, I do

not think that Buddhist feminists like Chatsuman have gone far

enough since she has traced the root cause of it up to the

Indian culture. But what caused this phenomenon in the Indian

culture and in cultures before it? What is the root cause of

anti-women attitude in all world religions? When did it start?

The oppressive and hostile elements toward women are found

in all world religions not only Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a

common phenomenon in all religions. Women are always excluded

from the pursuit of salvation and their images are even

distorted. For example, in Judeo-Christian Scripture, women

19 Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p.1.17

are portrayed as the tempter of men and the cause of men’s

fall. Their salvation is attained through their marriage with

a man and bearing children. They are taught to be quiet and

fully submissive to their husband or worship their husbands as

gods (1 Timothy 2:11-15).

I have found the works of Merlin Stone in When God was a

Woman (1976) and Denise Lardner Carmody in Women and World

Religions (1979) very useful for addressing the question of what

caused the anti-women attitude in all world religions. They

have made some weighty remarks about this issue.

Firstly, archaeological, mythological and historical

evidence have clearly proved that all prehistoric religions

were associated with female goddesses. Goddess worship

flourished for thousands of years even back to the Neolithic

communities of about 7000 BC, some to the Upper Paleolithic

cultures of about 25,000 BC long before all patriarchal

religions emerged. The appearance of male deities was a recent

phenomenon started with the invasion and migration of the

Aryans by 2400 BC to the Near and Middle East20 Before world

religions, women were considered sacred in their being because

they could produce life, so being a woman was a good way to be

20 Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman (US: A Harvest/HBJ Book, 1976), pp.9-10, 62-69.

18

human21. Men became insignificant and women became important

figures in the society and family. That means there was a time

that god was a woman and women were crowned.

Secondly, for thousands of years both religions existed

together among neighboring communities. Evidence from

archaeology, mythology and history have all revealed that

female religion was the “the victim of centuries of continual

persecution and suppression by the advocates of the newer

religions which held male deities as supreme.” The Judeo-

Christian Bible is full of evidence about the destruction of

goddess worship in the neighboring countries by Israel who

worship Yahweh as a male god. From here new myths were

created.22

Thirdly, to completely eliminate the female religion,

advocates of the later male deities invented and imposed new

ideology in all aspects of life – education, law, literature,

economics, philosophy, psychology, media and general social

attitudes upon even the non-religious people of today23. In

other words, new ideology of male superiority and female

subordination, goddess worship as evil and disgusting were

21 Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions, p. 157.22 Marlin Stone, When God as a Woman, p.xiii.23 Ibid., p.xxv.

19

invented. For thousands of years, this ideology was absorbed

and taken for granted.

According to M. and M. Vaerting in The Dominant Sex, quoted by

Merlin Stone, that ‘the sex of the deity was determined by the

sex of those who were in power’24. The domination of male over

female is projected to the level of the supreme. In return,

religion was to justify this projection. Therefore, the

oppressive and hostile elements in all religions had to do

with the misuse of power to maintain the privilege and power

of the dominators. For example, in the prehistoric time, women

and men lived in harmony and cooperation because both sexes

had their own spheres of power: men hunting and women

gathering. However, when agriculture and trade developed,

people lived concentrating in big cities. Men and women shared

the same spheres of power: religion, politics, economics,

education and so on. Now the clash of powers created tension

and insecurity. The outcome was that the stronger would take

over the weaker.

Although these feminist works are under much criticism by

other scholars, such as Judith Plaskow in Blaming Jews for Inventing

Patriarchy and Cynthia Eller in The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory,25 due24 Marlin Stone, When God as a Woman, p.31.25 www.lilith.org/shop/download/v07i00_1980-05.pdf and http://goo.gl/e8bgz (10/04/2012)

20

to its political purpose and lack of well-founded evidence, at

least it gives a comprehensive theoretical explanation of the

phenomenon. Whether women in the pre-patriarchal period

dominated men or not needs more research and evidence.

However, either female or male domination is the fall of

humanity. The Buddha and Jesus tried to liberate human beings

out of the greed of power by awakening the mind to look at

life realistically or by the power of love to serve others. As

time went by, religions could not prevent the greed of power

from creeping in and eventually controlling religion to serve

the self-interest of an elite group. I agree with both authors

that the past is a lesson to learn and correct the mistakes

and the future vision should be that both men and women live

in equal and healthy coexistence with mutual love, respect and

service26.

The first task of peace-building is to liberate women from

all the distortions and stereotypes and men from self-

exaltation and abusive attitude embedded in the religious

system. This is enlightenment and salvation because it frees

women from the twofold fear and bondage imposed upon them by

the religious teachings and also their own belief in such

distorted teachings. It also frees men from the illusion,26 Marlin Stone, p.241 and Denise Lardner Carmody, p.167.

21

disease and greed of being superior to the other half of

humanity. Complete healing and restoration cannot take place

if the truth of root cause of the issue is not exposed.

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