On Gendered Discourse and the Maintenance of Boundaries: A Feminist Analysis of the Bhikkhuni Order in Indian Buddhism

Abstract

By analyzing the creation, manifestation, and decline of the bhikkhuni (nun) order in Indian Buddhism, this paper attempts to assess the precarious position of the almswoman in ancient Indian society, This study asserts that the peripheral and often nonexistent role of the bhikkhuni in Buddhism's textual and historical development is a product of both masculinist biases to the composition, redaction and codification of Buddhist texts, as well as androcentric and patriarchal biases within the Buddhist sangha and larger Indian community. Underlying this feminist analysis is the notion that the roles and contributions of renunciant women in Buddhism s development were by no means marginal, trivial, or benign. This paper examines the following: the creation of the first Buddhist nuns' order, the consequences of the Eight Special Rules imposed upon nuns, the significance of female renunciation in ancient India, the threat of androgyny posed by nuns and monks, speculations as to why the bhikkhuni order suffered virtual extinction, and finally, the theoretical implications of the sex/gender prerequisites for a bhikkhuni initiate as set forth in the Vinaya (The Book of the Discipline). Using the case of the first Buddhist nuns as a model for feminist inquiry, this study demonstrates that permitting women to enter a traditionally male sphere without altering the basic structure and ideologies of the phallocentric institution, does not guarantee women's Freedom from sex/gender oppression.