By MISS I. B. HORNER, M.A., Ph.D.,
Hony. Secretary, Pali Text Society, England.
THE vitality of Early Buddhism is among its most impressive features. It is one for which women, whether still leading the household life or having gone forth into the Order of nuns, were in no small degree responsible. The Teacher’s gift of Dhamma was for all alike: for monks and nuns, for men and women lay followers, and for members of other sects (Samyutta, iv. 314-316). All who heard it had the chance to master it and apply it in their present life; called sandiṭṭhika, it is for the here and now; called akalika, its fruits are immediate. Leading onwards to nibbana, its great liberating effect is testified to again and again in the venerable and unique collection of verses known as the Therīgāthā (translated as Psalms of the sisters by Mrs. Rhys Davids), in many of which the “authors”, who were nuns, rejoice over their new-found freedom. This was not merely a freedom from the shackles and burdens of life in the world. It was the positive freedom of a mind that has seen things as they really are, thus becoming immune to their pains and pleasures. Women could, and did. rise to the topmost heights if, like men, they were willing to train.
This was a point conceded by Gotama to Ananda as he was championing Mahapajāpatī’s plea that women be allowed to go forth from home into homelessness in the Dhamma and discipline proclaimed by the Tathagata (Vinaya, ii. 254). That women could become firmly established in the way to Arahantship and in arahantship itself would seem to imply that mastery in one of the approaches, namely meditation, was needed, such as the bhikkhuni Sona secured: “Training myself, the deva-vision pure, I know my former ‘habitations’. I develop (meditation on) the “Signless, my mind one-pointed, well concentrated” (Therigatha, 105, 106). It is therefore not surprising to find that the Etad Aggas name two women as ‘chief’ in meditative powers: the nun Nanda and the lay-woman disciple Uttara Nandamātā.
As a measure of protection from human and non-human dangers, nuns were not allowed to live in the forest alone. They were thus not able, as were monks, either to wrap themselves in solitary meditation, or to meet alone all the forms of fear and dread that haunt the forest-dweller until, by the practice of self-control, he has attained to equanimity or evenness of mind. And this was perhaps the greatest handicap that nuns had to surmount. Besides this, they had eighty-four more Vinaya rules to observe than had the monks; and some of the regular proceedings of the Order were more complicated for nuns, for example Ordination, which had to take place first before an Order of nuns and then before an Order of monks. Moreover, nuns had to pay continual deference to monks, even if these were only newly ordained. Their discipline was indeed searching. Yet many of the recorded cases of backsliding among nuns, and which gave rise to the formulation of a rule, can be paralleled by the monks’ behaviour, and could not possibly be described as worse.
Moreover, except for the notorious trouble-makers, such as the nun called Thullananda or the group of six nuns (the counterpart of the group of six monks), few nuns seem to have complained of their life in the Order. Even although “women get things with difficulty” (Vinaya, iii. 208, iv. 175), and never as much as the monks as typified by Visakha’s one boon for nuns out of eight boons (Vinaya, i. 293)-far from being depressed, the nuns, especially the theris of the Therigatha, radiate a splendid joy and a deep satisfaction in being daughters of the Sakyan, Sakyadhitä, with all the potentialities this implies for developing to the full the culmination of the Brahmacariya. In the words ascribed to Punnika: “Today am I a brahman in very truth, of threefold wisdom, endowed with knowledge. learned and washen” (Therigätha, 251). Or, as one might perhaps say, as summarised by the Alavite nun: “There is an escape in the world, well attained by me through wisdom” (Samyutta, i. 128). In these matters there is, as expressed by the bhikkhuni Soma, no difference between men and women: “What can this woman’s nature signify when the mind is well concentrated, when there is knowledge, and when there is insight into the perfect Dhamma?” (Samyutta, i. 129).
Thus, much was done for women by opening the Order to them; much was done by nuns in individual spiritual development and attainment, as well as in teaching, preaching and debating; and much was done by the devout women lay followers to support with liberality nuns as well as monks. In the life of religion woman has proved her strength.
The Order of nuns can perhaps never be re-formed, as there are now no properly ordained nuns who can give valid ordination to others. But if it could exist again, not only would the field for merit in the world be widened, but the possibilities for the higher attainments of mind and spirit, of concentration and Wisdom (pañña), be broadened. Women are capable (bhabbo matugamo) of these attainments, attainments which today, no less than in times gone by, are of solid value to human development and to the happiness that is apart from the so-called happiness derived from the five senses.
Source: Maha Bodhi Society of India, Diamond Jubilee Souvenir – 1891-1951
