Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t2.23

c10.t2.23

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.