Tag: women

Women, Men and Angels: A Personal Statement by Subhuti

Introduction by Parami
In 1994, a book called ‘Women, Men and Angels’ was published, with the subtitle: ‘An Inquiry into the Relative Spiritual Aptitudes of Men and Women’. It was written by Subhuti, a senior Triratna Order Member, with the intention of elaborating on an impression or ‘idea’ that had originally come from Sangharakshita. While I am sure this was not Subhuti’s intention, the book had a painful effect on many people – especially women – even causing some to...

Finding Out More About Early Buddhist Women

With this post we present another fine review by Sarah Clelland of a recent work of scholarship on women monastics in early Buddhism.

Alice Collett, Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History, Oxford University Press, India, 2016

Review by Sarah Clelland

In Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns Alice Collett, now lecturer at Nālanda University in India, explores changing attitudes to women in Buddhism through the stories of six early nuns: Dhammadinnā, Khemā, Kisāgotamī, Paṭācārā, Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā and Uppalavaṇṇā. In the first half...

What was it like for early Buddhist women?

Here, Dharmacārinī Vajratārā reviews a collection of scholarly essays exploring how it was for women in early Buddhism – at a time before feminism when nevertheless women were taken seriously as dharma practitioners.

Women in Early Indian Buddhism: Comparative Textual Studies

essays by various scholars, edited and introduced by Alice Collett

Oxford University Press, USA, 2014, 274pp., hback and ebook

Reviewed by Vajratārā

What were the attitudes towards women in early Indian Buddhism? Does textual analysis of early Buddhist texts corroborate the idea that early Buddhists saw women...

Ordinations at Akashavana

We are delighted to announce that the following women were publicly ordained at Akashavana, Spain, on Friday 16th September:

Public preceptor: Padmasuri

Claire Brown becomes Amrtavani (the third ‘a’ is long as is the final ‘i’).
Sanskrit name meaning: ‘She who plays the music of the deathless’, or ‘She whose song is limitless’
Westernised spelling: Amritavani
Private preceptor: Dhatvisvari

Anneke Dekker becomes Maitridaya (second ‘i’ is long as are second and third ‘a’).
Sanskrit name meaning: ‘Giver of maitri’
...