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Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t2: The Order of Nuns

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t2

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The Order of Nuns

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We have already undertaken in a previous passage (p. 164, seq.) to show the position of women in Buddha’s teaching. We saw with what decided antipathy Buddha’s disciples stood aloof from the female sex, and how admission to the Order was conceded to women only with reluctance and under conditions which involved their absolute subjection to the monks. The social law of the Indians also kept woman all her life long in complete dependence. “In childhood,” says an oft-quoted sentence in the Institutes of Manu, “let her be subjected to the will of her father; in adult life to the will of the man who has led her home; to her son’s will, when her husband has died; a woman is not permitted to enjoy independence.” The rules which Buddhist Church-law lays down for the spiritual life of nuns might pass for an amplification of this position of Manu; as the wife is placed under the guardianship of her husband, the mother under the guardianship of her sons, so the Order of nuns* is placed under the guardianship of the Order of monks.

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∗ The nuns constitute by themselves an Order of their own (Bhikkhunî-sangha), which is co-ordinate with, or rather subordinate to, the Order of

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To a certain extent the fundamental law for the Order of the nuns is contained in the "eight high ordinances," which Buddha is said to have enjoined on the first nuns at their ordination.*

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"A nun," so run these propositions, "if she have been ordained even a hundred years ago, must bow most reverentially before every monk, even though he be ordained only on this day, rise in his presence, raise her clasped hands, duly honour him. This rule shall she observe, esteem sacred, keep, respect, and through her whole life not transgress."

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"A nun is not permitted to pass the rainy season in any district in which monks are not residing. This rule also shall she observe, esteem sacred, &c.

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"The nuns are to go once in the half-month to the monks for two things: they are to ask for the confessional ceremony,† and to apply to the monks for the preaching (of the sacred word). This rule also, &c.

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† The nuns have to observe the half-monthly confessional ceremony, with an extended liturgy of confession corresponding to the special circumstances of the Order of the nuns. It is incumbent on the monks to impart instruction to them regarding this ceremony, as well as regarding the atonement of any transgressions committed.—*Cullavagga*, x, 6.

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"At the end of the rainy season the nuns are to give the the monks (Bhikkhusangha). The two Orders are together denominated "the two-sided Order" (ubhatosangha). The two-sided Order represents, however, no particular unifying organism: the term is only a collective expression, which amounts merely to "the Order of monks and the Order of nuns." The two-sided Order nowhere appears acting on a common platform. If a layman gives garments to the two-sided Order, all members, monks and nuns, do not obtain equal shares, but one-half belongs to the Order of monks, the other half to the Order of nuns. "Even if there be many monks there and only one nun, she obtains the half."—*Mahâvagga*, viii, 32.

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∗ "Cullavagga," x, 1, 4.

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threefold invitation to both sides of the Order:* (to accuse them of the crime) if anyone has seen, or has heard of anything, or has any suspicion against them. This rule also, &c.

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“A nun who has been guilty of a grave offence must submit herself to a half-monthly discipline of penance before both sides of the Order. This rule also, &c.

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“Ordination is to be applied for from both sides of the Order only when the postulante has lived for a probationary period of two years in the six rules.† This rule also, &c.

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† Vide infra, n. §.

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“Under no circumstances is a nun to revile or scold a monk. This rule also, &c.

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“From this day forward is the path of speech against the monks closed to the nuns. Yet is not the path of speech against the nuns closed to the monks.‡ This rule also,” &c.

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‡ The meaning of this expression cannot be that the nun is not allowed to speak to the monk at all. It is probably meant that the nun is not allowed to charge a monk with an offence, to hold him to penance therefor, eventually to veto his participation in the ceremonies of the confession and invitation (cf. “Cull.” x, 20).

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The eight “high ordinances” show clearly enough the subordination in which the Order of nuns is kept to the monks. None of the more important transactions required by the rules of the Order could be completed by the nuns, which did not require to be submitted for confirmation by the chapter of the monks. If a maiden or a woman, who desires to obtain the initiations, has kept the vow of the “six rules”§ through a probationary period of two years, and has obtained ordination from the Order of nuns, she is still regarded as only "ordained on one side," and not fully accredited, as long as she has not appeared before the chapter of monks and in its presence gone through the whole ceremony of ordination anew. In the same way the confessional observances and invitation ceremonies of the nuns' Order, the atonement for transgressions, and the settlement of differences of all kinds, are subject to control and partly to confirmation by the monks' Order. Every half-month the nuns betake themselves to the monk, who has been named to them by a resolution of the brotherhood, to receive his spiritual instruction and admonition. In the presence of another monk, that monk sits waiting the nuns, and when they have made their appearance, bowed themselves to the ground, and sat down before him, he speaks to them of the eight high ordinances, and expounds to them, either by way of sermon or by question and answer, what he deems profitable of the teaching and maxims of Buddha.*

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∗ When the nuns have finished the celebration of the invitation among themselves (vide supra, p. 364), they send a messenger to the monks on the following day, who conveys to them in the name of the nuns the invitation, to state to the nuns any offence of theirs, seen, heard, or suspected. A corresponding invitation of the monks to the nuns does not follow (loc. cit. x, 19).

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§ She has to promise expressly: “I undertake, as an inviolable vow, to

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That, as for the rest, strict separation prevailed between monks and nuns, is self-apparent. Even the monk, who had to preach to the nuns, was not allowed to set foot in the nunnery, except when one of the sisters lay ill and required his consolation. To make a journey with a nun, to go aboard

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abstain from killing any living creature during two years"—in the same way she then vows not to steal, to commit no unchastity, not to lie, to drink no intoxicating beverages, and not to eat at the forbidden hours (i.e., between noon and the break of dawn next day).

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∗ That these discourses do not represent the particular scholastic traditions of the sacred texts within the Order of nuns and that the latter was formed chiefly through nun-teachers, follows from the circumstances of the case, and is confirmed, e.g., by the statements in 18th cap. of the Dîpavaṃsa. "Cullavagga," x, 8, when properly understood is not contradictory of this.

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the same boat with her, to sit with her alone and without witness, was strictly forbidden to the monks. The daily life, the religious exercises of the nuns were not essentially different from those of the monks, except that solitude, in which the latter found so rich a source of spiritual joys, if not absolutely forbidden to the nuns, was at least restricted and was necessarily so: to live in forest hermitages was forbidden them; they took up their abode rather within the walls of the village or town, in huts or nunneries, by twos or in greater numbers, for a sister was not allowed to live alone. From such places they made their begging excursions and set out also on those greater pilgrimages which were deemed for them as well as for the monks a necessary element of ascetic life. In number they were apparently far behind the monks,* and therefore it is to be doubted also, whether at any time there was inherent in the spiritual sisterhood a degree of influence which could be felt, bearing on the Buddhist community as a whole. The thoughts and forms of life of Buddhism had been thought out and moulded solely by men and for men.

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