Women in Early Indian Buddhism: Comparative Textual Studies

289 Pages·2013·1.535 MB·English

by  Alice Collett

Women in Early Indian Buddhism
SOUTH ASIA RESEARCH
SERIES EDITOR
Martha Selby
A Publication Series of
The University of Texas South Asia Institute
and
Oxford University Press
THE EARLY UPANISADS BETWEEN THE EMPIRES
Annotated Text and Translation Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE
Patrick Olivelle Patrick Olivelle
INDIAN EPIGRAPHY MANAGING MONKS
A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Administrators and Administrative
Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo- Roles in Indian Buddhist Monasticism
Aryan Languages Jonathan A. Silk
Richard Salomon
SIVA IN TROUBLE
A DICTIONARY OF OLD MARATHI Festivals and Rituals at the Pasupati-
S. G. Tulpule and Anne Feldhaus natha Temple of Deopatan
Axel Michaels
DONORS, DEVOTEES, AND
DAUGHTERS OF GOD A PRIEST’S GUIDE FOR THE
Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu GREAT FESTIVAL
Leslie C. Orr Aghorasiva’s Mahotsavavidhi
Richard H. Davis
JIMUTAVAHANA’S DAYABHAGA
The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal DHARMA
Edited and Translated with an Intro- Its Early History in Law, Religion, and
duction and Notes by Ludo Rocher Narrative
Alf Hiltebeitel
A PORTRAIT OF THE HINDUS
Balthazar Solvyns & the European POETRY OF KINGS
Image of India 1740-1824 The Classical Hindi Literature of
Robert L. Hardgrave Mughal India
Allison Busch
MANU’S CODE OF LAW
A Critical Edition and Translation of THE RISE OF A FOLK GOD
the Manava-Dharmasastra Viṭṭhal of Pandharpur
Patrick Olivelle Ramchandra Chintaman Dhere
Translated by Anne Feldhaus
NECTAR GAZE AND POISON
BREATH WOMEN IN EARLY INDIAN
An Analysis and Translation of the Raj- BUDDHISM
asthani Oral Narrative of Devnarayan Comparative Textual Studies
Aditya Malik Edited by Alice Collett
Women
in Early Indian
Buddhism
Comparative Textual Studies
z
Edited by
ALICE COLLETT
1
1

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Women in early Indian Buddhism : comparative textual studies / [edited by] Alice Collett.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–19–932604–4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Women in Buddhism—Comparative
studies. 2. Buddhism—India—History. 3. Buddhism—Sacred books. 4. Buddhist
literature—History and criticism. I. Collett, Alice, editor of compilation.
BQ4570.W6W64 2013
294.3082’0934—dc23
2013004852
9780199326044
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Contributors vii
A Note on Non-English Words x
Abbreviations xi
Introduction — alice collett 1
1. The Bajaur Collection of Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts: Mahāprajāpatī
Gautamī and the Order of Nuns in a Gandhāran Version of the
Dakṣiṇāvibhaṅgasūtra — ingo strauch 17
2. The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments: Behind the Birch
Bark Curtain— timothy lenz 46
3. Pāli Vinaya : Reconceptualizing Female Sexuality in Early
Buddhism— alice collett 62
4. Mahāsāṅghika-Lokottaravāda Bhikṣuṇī Vinaya :
The Intersection of Womanly Virtue and Buddhist
Asceticism— amy paris langenberg 80
5. Aṅguttara-nikāya/Ekottarika-āgama : Outstanding Bhikkhunīs
in the Ekottarika - āgama — bhikkhu anālayo 97
6. Saṃyutta-nikāya/Saṃyukta-āgama : Defying Māra— Bhikkhunī s
in the Saṃyukta-āgama — bhikkhu anālayo 116
7. Therīgāthā : Nandā, Female Sibling of
Gotama Buddha—a lice collett 140
8. Apadāna: Therī-apadāna : Wives of the Saints: Marriage and
Kamma in the Path to Arahantship— jonathan s. walters 160
vi Contents
9. A vadānaśataka : The Role of Brahmanical Marriage
in a Buddhist Text— karen muldoon-hules 192
10. Dhammapada-aṭṭhakathā/Saddharmaratnāvaliya :
Women in Medieval South Asian Buddhist
Societies— ranjini obeyesekere 221
Bibliography 247
Index 267
Contributors
Bhikkhu Anālayo completed a Ph.D. on the S atipaṭṭhanasutta at the
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 2000 and a habilitation re-
search through a comparative study of the M ajjhima-nikāya in the
light of its Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan parallels at the University
of Marburg in 2007. At present he is a professor of Buddhist Studies
at the Sri Lanka International Academy in Pallekele. He teaches at
the Center for Buddhist Studies of the University of Hamburg and
researches at the Dharma Drum Buddhist College in Taiwan. His
main research area is early Buddhism and in particular the topics
“Chinese Āgamas ,” “Meditation,” and “Women in Buddhism.”
Alice Collett is currently a Fellow of the Arts and Humanities Council
of Great Britain (AHRC) and Lecturer at York St John University. She
received her M.A. from the University of Bristol in 1999 and her
Ph.D. from Cardiff University in 2004. Since then she has worked
in diff erent universities in North America and the United Kingdom
and published several articles on women in early Indian Buddhism,
including two that look at reception history and review the modern
scholarly debate on the subject. She is currently working on a mono-
graph entitled P āli Biographies of Buddhist Nuns , for which she is in
receipt of an Arts and Humanities Research Council award.
Amy Paris Langenberg is Instructor of Religion at Auburn Univer-
sity, where she also teaches in the Women’s Studies Program. She
holds a 2008 Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Columbia University
and has taught at Brown University, Brandeis University, and Dart-
mouth College. Her research interests include Buddhist law, the in-
tersection of aesthetics and religion, Buddhism and medicine, and
the gender history of Indian Buddhism. She is currently working on
a project concerning Indian Buddhist understandings, ritualization,
and critiques of human fertility.
viii Contributors
Timothy Lenz is an Acting Associate Professor in the Department of
Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington,
working on the Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project, headed by Rich-
ard Salomon. He received a B.A. in Music and Religion from West-
ern Michigan University (1979), pursued Asian Studies at the Uni-
versity of Michigan (1980–1987) and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in
Asian Languages and Literature from the University of Washington
(1994, 1999). His main research interests are in Sanskrit and Prakrit
language and literature, narrative traditions, Gandhāran Buddhist
language and literature, and canon formation and transmission.
He is the author of A New Version of the Gāndhārī Dharmapada and
a Collection of Previous Birth Stories: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Frag-
ments 16 + 25, Gandhāran Buddhist Texts 3 (2003) and Gandhāran
Avadānas: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments 1–3 and 21 and Supple-
mentary Fragments A–C, Gandhāran Buddhist Texts 6 (2010).
Karen Muldoon-Hules fi nished her Ph.D. in Asian Languages and
Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2011. Her re-
search focuses on north Indian Buddhist narrative literature and the
interaction of Buddhism and Hinduism in classical India, particu-
larly with regard to women and marriage. She is currently a visiting
lecturer for UCLA and an instructor for UCLA Extension.
Ranjini Obeyesekere obtained her Ph.D. in English Literature from
the University of Washington, Seattle, taught in the English Depart-
ments at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and after moving
to the United States, at the University of California, San Diego. For
the last ten years she was a Lecturer in Anthropology at Princeton
University where she taught courses in South Asian Literature and
Culture. She has published extensively in foreign and local journals,
and has translated Sinhala prose and poetry for anthologies. Her
published books include: A Treasure in the Forest and Other Stories ,
1969; Sinhala Writing and the New Critics , 1974; A Grief Ago , 1991;
Jewels of the Doctrine: Translations from the Saddharmaratnāvaliya ,
1991; S ri Lankan Theatre in a Time of Terror: Political Satire in a Per-
mitted Space, 1999; and Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories from the
Saddharmaratnāvaliya , 2001. She is presently editor of a translation
of the 14th-century text of the Sinhala Jataka Stories of which the fi rst
volume of two hundred stories is complete and awaiting publication.
Now retired, she lives in Kandy and Manhattan.
Contributors ix
Ingo Strauch (Lausanne) is Professor for Sanskrit and Buddhist Stud-
ies at the University of Lausanne. He studied Indology and Iranian
Languages at Humboldt University Berlin, Moscow State University,
and at Freie Universität Berlin, where he also received his Ph.D. de-
gree (2000) and his habilitation (2011). His research focuses on the
history and culture of Buddhism in South Asia, ancient and early me-
dieval Indian history and Indian epigraphy. Since 2005 he has been
working on early Buddhist manuscripts from Gandhāra.
Jonathan S. Walters is Professor of Religion, George Hudson Ball En-
dowed Chair of Humanities, and currently Director of Global Studies
at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, USA. He earned his
B.A. in History and Religion at Bowdoin College (1983) and his A.M.
(1986) and Ph.D. (1992) in the History of Religions at the Univer-
sity of Chicago Divinity School. Prior to his appointment at Whit-
man he taught Pāli at Northwestern University (1987–88) and the
University of Chicago (1989–90), and Comparative Religions at the
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (1990–91). He is the author of
The History of Kelaniya (1996), F inding Buddhists in Global History
(1998), and more than twenty book chapters and journal articles on
various periods and issues in Indian and Sri Lankan Buddhist history
and culture, in addition to numerous reviews, encyclopedia entries,
and special projects. He is also the co-author (with Ronald Inden and
Daud Ali) of Q uerying the Medieval: Texts and the History of Practices
in South Asia (2000) and the co-editor (with John Holt and Jacob
Kinnard) of C onstituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the
Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia (2003). He is currently
translating the Pāli Apadāna into English verse, which will be the
fi rst-ever complete translation of this important canonical text into a
Western language.