Bhikkhuni

Ordination

The rules governing the monastic life or Vinaya diversified gradually after the death of the Buddha, while remaining basically close. Buddhism theravada follows the Vinaya Pitaka , the current Mahayana the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya or Dharmagupta Vinaya (CH: sìfēnlǜ 四分律), and the Buddhism Tibetan the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya . The summary below corresponds to ordination according to the current Dharmagupta .

Specificities of female ordination are the longer duration of the obligatory noviciate and double ordination by the sanghas of the two sexes. According to the tradition, the noviciate of at least two years was forced to allow them to determine with more certainty if they were made or not for the monastic life.

The moniales start theoretically by being sramanerika and observe the ten precepts. They must in theory obtain the assent of their parents and their husband, although it is not always any more the case when this requirement contravenes the local laws concerning the freedom of religion. At eighteen years, they start one second stage of noviciate and become siksamana for two years, adding six rules to the ten precepts of origin. In fact, nowadays much enter the orders at eighteen years last and thus become directly siksamana without passing by the stage of samanerika. During these two years, the beginner is under the responsibility of formative called a upadhyayini . Its training course completed successfully, it is ordered in theory by ten moniales being at least twelve years old of seniority, then by monks. Nevertheless, the lines of Chinese origin consider ordination by monks only valid also, though disadvised if one can call upon moniales. This specificity could contribute to the survival of the bhikkhunis in China during the periods of eclipse of Buddhism, whereas in the countries theravada where it is impossible to order a woman without having ten moniales tested, the disappearance of the last bhikkhunis sri lankaises at the time of a war at the 11th century involved the extinction of the order.

The rules imposed on the moniales, defined by the Patimokkha, are more numerous than for the monks (from 84 to 111 of more). The Vinaya Pitaka imposes 311 of them, the Dharmagupta 348 and the Mulasarvastivada 364.

Birth of the female sangha

Although the Buddhist sangha is officially the first monastic community appeared in India which one preserves the rules, other sects must have ascetics women. Some of them are seen allotting the bad role of temptress of the Buddha in accounts of plots aiming at dirtying the school of wise of Shakyas. The current jaïn, in particular, claims to have had before Buddhism of the nuns, whose tradition remains nowadays.

The monastic community of the women was born officially when the Buddha returned for the first time to Kapilavastu after its illumination. His/her aunt awaited it to ask him to receive it like bhikkhuni with five hundred ladies Shakya and Koliyas whose husbands were on the point of becoming disciples of Gautama. First of all reticent, the Buddha would have ended up accepting in front of the insistence of the women who followed it to foot until Vaisali, and the encouragements of Ananda which would have obliged it to recognize that the sex was not a factor in the spiritual progression. Gautama nevertheless would have predicted that its teaching would die out earlier because of presence of the women. The legend sees (undoubtedly wrongly) in Bhadda Kaccana (Bhadra), one of the five hundred first bhikkhunis, the woman of the Buddha.

See: Birth of the female sangha

It posed as condition which they accept the eight following rules:

a moniale is always inclined in front of a monk, even if it has been bhikkhuni for hundred years and that he has just been ordered.
a moniale should not pass the retirement of the rain season in a district where there is no monk.
the dates of the Uposatha S are determined by the monks; at the time of the uposathas of half-month, the moniales must require of the monks to address a sermon to them.
At the end of the rain season, the moniales must be confessed in front of the assembled monks and moniales.
a moniale having made an serious error must be disciplined (manatta) by the monks and the moniales.
a moniale must observe the precepts (of beginner) during two years place of for the monks before being able to be ordered by the moniales and the monks.
a moniale should never say evil of a monk or insult it.
a moniale cannot make reproaches with a monk, but a monk can make him reproaches.

So certain rules can be explained by the need to protect the moniales or to give more social weight to their sangha by attaching it to that of the monks, others, in particular the first and the last, made show Gautama of sexism. The explanations generally suggested by those which refuse to consider a guilty Buddha of discrimination are that they could be added or modified by monks misogynists at the time of the councils, where the women were not allowed, or that Gautama estimated that without them, the bhikkhunis would not be accepted by a company persuaded of female inferiority.

First bhikkhunis

According to the sources, many women joined the sangha and became Arahant. The Khuddaka Nikaya contains the Therigatha , collection of religious poems reporting the circumstances of their illumination, and the Theriapadana , collection of biographies. One can quote among them Prajapati Gautami, Uppalavanna and Khema, quoted like both bhikkhunis principal, Kisagotami, Patacara, Soma, Ubbiri, Vasitthi. Like the monks, they came from various horizons: courtesans (Ambapali and Vimala), princesses (Sumeda and Sela), girls the noble ones or commercial rich person (Bhadda Kundalkesa, Sujata and Anopama), girls of the poor Brahman S (Chanda) or even serfs (Punnika).

A list quotes twelve with each one of them its strong point:

Khema, first érudite and wise;
Bhadra (sometimes identified with Yashodhara), first for the miracles (mahasiddhi);
Gautami, first for holiness;
Sakula, first for perspicacity;
Dharmadina, first teaching and missionary;
Uppalavanna, first for the realization;
Bhadra Kundali, first for psychic faculties;
Nanda, first of the moniales of the forest;
Bhadra Kapila, first for the recall of the former lives;
Patacara, first for the maintenance of the Vinaya (discipline);
Sigalakamatra, first of those which reached the illumination by the faith;
Sonya, diligent; having raised ten children, it had entered the orders late and practiced day and night, repeating: “I must endeavor to make up for my lost time. ”;

Establishment in Sri Lanka and disappearance

Around 250 front J.C., at the time of Ashoka, his/her son and Mahinda missionary founded a community of men to the Sri Lanka. The queen Cancelled and her following wishing to enter the orders, Mahinda made come her Sanghamitta sister, who arrived with eleven others bhikkhunis. They ordered the first moniales island, and the community took root. Nevertheless, at the 11th century, the moniales were exterminated at the same time as the monks by the invaders Chola S. the Indian bhikkhunis, already far from many at the 3rd century, had disappeared meanwhile with the passing from Buddhism.

Cholas driven out, Sri Lankais sought to reconstitute their monastic community. They succeeded in making come some monks from Burma, but no moniale. The ordination of the women by the sanghas of the two sexes being prescribed in the vinaya, it became impossible to order news bhikkhunis; thus they disappeared from Buddhism Theravada.

Mahayana

The female sangha of the areas Mahayana developed in China, then widespread in Korea and with the Vietnam, with a sporadic presence with the Japan. It is only the sangha still laying out authentic moniales of big number, whose majority are currently with Taiwan. There was very few authentic bikkhunis in Japan, and the communities of nuns are there in near total of the laymen having made wish follow the ten precepts and the precepts of Bodhisattva. According to the Short history of the monks of the dynasty Song , the first Chinese nun mentioned lived under the Hans and was called Apan, but as the monastic codes vinaya had not been translated yet, it cannot have been a bhikkhuni. Jingjian (淨檢), first bhikkhuni, girl of magistrate and young widow, had been born in 291; she had taken for Master the monk Fashi (法始) and was accepted like beginner at the same time as twenty-four partners by Jnânagira of the Cachemire. This one had not wanted to further go because without moniales, ordination supplements seemed impossible to him. However, the mention of a double ordination by the sanghas of the two sexes was not regarded as an obligation by all the Chinese monks, much being prevailed of the example of Mahaprajapati Gautami which had been ordered by the Buddha alone. As Jingjian obtained it finally to its upasampada monks alone, at the same time as three other young women.

The first double ordination

In 429, a foreign boat approached in Jiankang (建康), current Nankin, capital of the Song of the South. On its board eight bhikkhunis sri lankaises were which settled with the monastery of the Claire blessing. When they learned how the local moniales were ordered, they announced their surprise to the bhikkhuni Sengguo (僧果) and proposed to him to make him a upasampada according to the rules sri lankaises. Sengguo discussed it with its Master vinaya Gunavarman, which reaffirmed the validity of Chinese ordination, while conceding that to be made order one second time could to only be him beneficial. He asked nevertheless so that the foreign moniales learn Chinese first of all. Four years after, the boat returned with eleven bhikkhunis which ordered Sengguo and his/her partners in 434 with the monastery of Nanlin (南林寺).

The Récit of the ordination of the nuns for its part makes come fifteen bhikkhunis from India, specifying that five of them died at the time of the crossing of the mountains, three of cold and two fallen in a chasm. It is nevertheless about an isolated account dating from the 17th century, and the version sri lankaise with the favor of the historians.

The work Biographies of the moniales allotted to Baochang (寶唱) (495 - 528) contains the notes of sixty-five nuns. Although less important numerically than the male community (a moniale for five monks according to a census dating from the Song), the female sangha continued to grow according to the progression of Buddhism. Only the male Masters had their biography in official annals, but one finds frequent mentions of moniales in the documents of the successive centuries; it is known that some were Masters in schools of the current Chan.

At the XXe century, between the Fifties and Sixties, the Buddhist orders disappeared almost completely from China with the come to power of the communist . The moniales had folded up the first in Taiwan at the end of the Forties, which enabled them to be established well in the island. They helped the monks in their installation when they immigrated in their turn, reversing for a time the usual situation of the female sangha assisted by the male sangha. With the beginning of the year 2000, one counted in Taiwan more than 60.000 moniales mahayana, that is to say three times more than their male counterparts. A third of them has less thirty-five years and has a professional or university diploma. They are active in various fields, of purely religious with the social one. Among the pionnières, one can quote Maître Zheng Yan (證嚴法師), founder of the ONG Tzu-Chi (1966), of a hospital and a medical school, nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1993, and Main Xiao Yun (曉雲法師), founder of the university Huafan (華梵大學).

The Chinese transcription of bikkhuni is bǐqiūní (比丘尼); they are also called nígū (尼姑), more general term which includes also the not ordered beginners and nuns. The monasteries female often bore the name of ān (庵).

Other nuns

Tibet

In the Buddhism Tibetan, there exists since centuries of the nuns who do not receive however complete ordination, the bhikkhunis having already disappeared from India and the Nepal when Buddhism penetrated with the Tibet. The reintroduction of the full ordination for the nuns in the schools of the Bouddhisme Tibetan was with the day order of an international congress which was held in Hamburg in July 2007

Thus, with the Tibet, before the Chinese invasion of 1959, the number of nuns were of 27.000 whereas there were approximately 592.000 monks. There exists a feminist form of movement in Buddhism, and the 14 {{E}} Dalaï Lama declared:

There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism which is connected to the deity Tārā. According to its worship of the Bodhicitta, the motivation of the Bodhisattva, it observed the situation of the beings endeavouring to reach the full awakening and it noticed that few people reached the state of Buddha as a woman. Also, Tārā was made a promise (she said herself to itself): I developed the bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lives along the way, I swear to reappear as a woman, and in my last life, when I reach the state of Buddha, there too, I will be a woman.

Japan

In Japan, the nuns are in their large majority of the not ordered women who made wish follow the ten precepts and the precepts of Bodhisattva. In spite of humble and difficult beginnings, they nevertheless could settle in monasteries, acquire a formation and obtain the support of laic, particularly as from the moment when the Japanese State authorized the marriage of the monks, diverting many men of the assiduous religious practice to make owners of temples of them. Some even became Masters Zen.

Areas theravada

In the countries of South Asia (Myanmar, Kampuchea, Laos, Sri Lanka, Thailand) and at the theravada of the Vietnam and the Nepal, where the bhikkhunis are non-existent, one finds, particularly since the 19th century, of the women which turn to the life of ascetic and make wish follow rules of variable number, alive either in community, or separately. They are called anagarikas (wandering) or thilashins (morals) in Myanmar and Nepal, dasasilmatas (wandering) in Sri Lanka and maechis in Thailand, and wear dresses of different color according to the area. In the majority of the countries, their statute is dubious because it do not belong to any of the four categories of large the sangha defined by the Buddha (monks and moniales, laic of the two sexes). They do not receive, contrary to the monks, any assistance of the State, and very little of the laymen who prefer to support the experienced monks. Thus, the maechis inhabitants of Thailand, 14.700 in 1997, are at the same time deprived of the right to vote like the monks, but deprived by the Buddhist authorities of the right to teach the Dharma and to achieve the ritual ones. The nuns theravada having received a formation and rounds towards the social service more easily find a support while melting of the nursery schools, the kindergartens or the support centers for the women. Those which would like to concentrate on the religious practice meet many difficulties on the other hand. They live independent in a great destitution, or become dependant on the temples where they render services of intendance. The lack of official statute makes that it is easy with beggars to be made pass for nuns, still lowering their image. Some efforts were made in Myanmar and Sri Lanka to try to cure this problem.

Re-creation of the order

Vajrayana

The proposal to order bhikkhunis (gelongmas) in Buddhism Tibetan meets little open opposition. The Dalai Lama proposed first of all to improve quality of teaching in the monasteries of women, and indicated that the bhikkhunis of the Western countries perhaps were best placed to make evolve/move the situation. A committee made up of Jampa Tsedroen, Tenzin Palmo, Pema Chodron, Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Thubten Chodron, advised by Heng Ching Shih, moniale Taiwanese, started its work in spring 2006. Around an international association women, Carola Roloff is implied in a development of the women in Buddhism.,

Theravada

In the areas theravada, there exists a strong opposition to the resurrection of the female order. It is true that historically, the bhikkhunis had real presence only in Sri Lanka, moreover first country to have them réadmises. The objections are partly nuns, based on a fatalistic vision of Buddhism, which considers that this one is in a phase of decline, whose early disappearance of the moniales is a natural demonstration; the monks will disappear in their turn, bringing the eclipse of the doctrines, followed by its revival announced by the advent of Maitreya, next the Bouddha. Accordingly, ressusciter the order of the women would go against this inevitable course of the things and would constitute a bad Karma which would do nothing but delay the arrival of a new era. The other reasons before very social, are based on the reserve to call in question a male privilege, and, ironically, the observation of the generally insufficient quality of the male sangha, much by deducing that it would be even more difficult to guarantee that of a female sangha been subject to eighty-four additional rules. Suction the bhikkhunis can hardly count on the support of the women, little mobilized by a claim which relates to naturally only one minority. As for the nuns, they think of being likely more to rather improve their situation by claiming a recognition of their statute together with rights than by ressuscitant the order of the bhikkhunis.

Sri Lanka was distinguished by accepting bhikkhunis since 1998. This year, twenty women were ordered with Bodh-Gaya by monks mahayana and theravada and moniales mahayana whose line went back to bhikkhunis sri lankaises. Ten had preceded them in 1996, but the opposition remained strong then, the government sri even lankais having posed for condition with the International Conference holding on Buddhism with Colombo into 1998 that the question of the ordination of the women is not mentioned. The situation could be changed through negotiations and thanks to the support of important monks. In 2004, one counted of them in Sri Lanka 400 bhikkhunis and 800 srananerikas. In Burma, two moniales ordered in 2003 were accepted.

In Thailand the opposition remains very strong. Already in 1927, the politician progressist Narin Bhasit (Narin Klueng) had made order his/her two daughters Sara and Chongdi, and build Wat Nariwong to be a female monastery. The government quickly ordered of it the closing and the reference of the moniales to the civil life. Refusing to obey, the girls of Narin Klueng were stopped and défroquées in prison. A law prohibiting to order women had passed in 1928. Nevertheless, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, whose mother had already scandalized by proclaiming bhikkhuni, was recently ordered (2001) under the name of Dhammananda, involving a new wave of protests.

The Western ones interested by the monachism theravada also test difficulties of being integrated as well as the male candidates. Some started an independent way, like Allemande Ayya Khema (1923 - 1997), founder of the House of the Buddhist women in Sri Lanka, or English Aree Chaisatien. Nevertheless, since the appearance of the bhikkhunis sri lankaises making ordinations possible, some projects of monasteries started, such Metta Vihara, German monastery of forest.

References

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