Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women. A Comparative Analysis of the Chinese Dharmagupta and the Tibetan Mulasarvastivada Bhiksuni Pratimoksa Sutras

by Karma Lekshe Tsomo

This study is an investigation of the moral precepts and codes of everyday conduct by which ordained women regulated their lives. It takes as its basis the Bhikṣuṇī Prātimokṣa Sūtras of the Dharmagupta school, preserved in Chinese translation, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda school, preserved in Tibetan translation.

For over two thousand years, Buddhist nuns have quietly embodied specific moral and spiritual values on their path to enlightenment. Contemplative communities offered women both an alternative lifestyle and an avenue for education. Numbering as many as one million at certain periods of history, they have exerted powerful, if often unacknowledged, influence on Asian societies.

Sisters in Solitude documents the earliest recorded system of ethics formulated especially for women and presents the first English translations of the original texts. An essential sourcebook for studies on women's religious history and feminist ethics, it details the monastic guidelines that link Buddhist nuns of the different traditions. The texts it contains unite women of many cultures.

198 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

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According to Indian and Tibetan scholars, the early Buddhist community split into eighteen schools, each with a distinctive, though closely related, rendering of the Pratimoksa precepts. Three of these have continued until the present day as active schools of Vinaya or monastic discipline: the Dharmagupta school of the Chinese canon, the Mulasarvastivadin school of the Tibetan canon, and the Theravadin school of the Pali canon. The Dharmagupta school is currently practiced in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam; the Mulasarvastivada is practiced in Bhutan, Mongolia, Nepal, Tibet, and the Himalayan border areas of India; the Theravada (also known as Sthaviravada) is practiced in Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

For example, the rule against sleeping in a place with laypeople for more than two nights was not set forth, as might be supposed, out of an elitist attitude on the part of the Sangha but, on the contrary, to avoid humiliation at the hands of laypeople. The incident that precipitated drafting the precept reveals no moral fault on the part of the Sangha but only their humanity: When some laypeople shared sleeping quarters with some monks and viewed them sleeping, they criticized them as "careless, thoughtless, naked, mumbling, snoring." Because such perceived breaches of etiquette make mendicants vulnerable to reproach by the laity, the precepts are as much to protect the Sangha from the criticism of the laity as from their own human foibles.

If a bhiksuni holds an umbrella, she commits a payantika.

Further research will show, for example, whether or not the rules were recited bimonthly as prescribed and whether ordination followed the established format and prerequisites. Historical and sociological studies will reveal which monastic procedures and rules were emphasized and which were allowed to lapse with the passage of time. The Bhiksuni Sangha still flourishes in Korea and Taiwan and is making a comeback in China and Vietnam, so the possibility for such research remains. By investigating Buddhist monastic communities in existence today, we can learn how closely daily practice matches the normative standards set forth in the texts. Although bhiksuni ordination was not available to Japanese and Tibetan nuns, nevertheless we may study the extent to which these exemplary standards of monastic behavior are understood and reflected in monastic life in those countries today.
One fertile field for exploration is the feasibility of practicing the precepts purely in the present day. In the modern context, against the background of twentieth-century Western culture, some of the rules set forth for the nuns appear quaint, especially the prohibition against riding elephants. Others seem archaic, unrealistic, or nonsensical. For example, except in a few traditionally Buddhist countries, it is virtually impossible to survive without handling money, which is the modern equivalent of handling silver or gold. This is especially true for nuns, because they are less likely than monks to have their needs provided by a laity which values them less. To avoid handling money is even more difficult to practice for nuns living in Western countries, where mendicancy is socially unacceptable. Although in some environments living by alms may be possible, such a lifestyle is generally unappreciated, impractical, and may even be dangerous.
Another precept that is particularly difficult for Western nuns is to avoid touching or sitting alone with a male. Even though certain of the Pratimoksa precepts reflect ethical principles that may be considered universal, such as to refrain from taking human life, other precepts may be culture specific.