Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t3: Women
Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t3
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Women
c8.s1.t3.1
Buddha and his disciples did not and could not fail to come into contact with women: every begging excursion,* every repast at the house of a lay-member, at which the female members of the household appeared with the master of the house and listened after the repast to spiritual instruction, necessarily involved such meetings. The seclusion of women from the outer world, which later custom has enjoined, was quite unheard of in ancient India; women took their share in the intellectual life of the people, and the most delicate and tenderest of the epic poems of the Indians show us how well they could understand and appreciate true womanhood.
c8.s1.t3.2
But was it possible for a mind like Buddha, who in the severe determination of renunciation had torn himself away from all that is attractive and lovely in this world, was he given the faculty to understand and to value woman's nature? And were those ideals, which evoked the exertions of Buddha's disciples, calculated in their impersonal transcendentalism, to kindle and satisfy women's hearts, to be even realized in their rigorous and stern consequences by womanly feeling?
c8.s1.t3.3
∗ It was, as a rule, women who, in the houses of the laity, answered the monks who went on begging excursions, and handed them food into their bowls.—Cullavagga, viii, 5, 2.
c8.s1.t3.4
Women are to the Buddhist of all the snares which the tempter has spread for men, the most dangerous; in women are embodied all the powers of infatuation, which bind the mind of the world. The ancient story books of the Buddhists are full of narratives and illustrations of the incorrigible artifice of women. "Unfathomably deep, like a fish's course in the water," the moral of one such history runs, "is the character of women, robbers with many artifices, with whom truth is hard to find, to whom a lie is like the truth and the truth like a lie."—"Master," Buddha is asked by Ânanda, "how shall we behave before women?"—"You should shun their gaze, Ânanda."—"But if we do see them, master, what then are we to do?"—"Not speak to them, Ânanda."—"But if we do speak to them, master, what then?"—"Then you must watch over yourselves, Ânanda."
c8.s1.t3.5
We are told, and some trustworthy memory may possibly be at the bottom of this tradition, that for a long time only men were permitted to be received into Buddha's order, and that it was only with grave misgiving that Buddha yielded to the pressure of his foster-mother, Mahâpâjâpatî, to receive women also as his disciples.* "As in a field of rice, Ânanda, which is in full vigour, the disease breaks out which is called mildew,—then the vigour of that field of rice continues no longer,—so also, Ânanda, if women be admitted in a doctrine and to an order to renounce the world and go into homelessness, holy living does not last long.—If, Ânanda, in the doctrine and the order, which the Perfect One has founded, it were not conceded to women to go out from their homes into homelessness, holy living would remain preserved, Ânanda, for a long time; the pure doctrine would abide for a thousand years. But now, Ânanda, that, in the doctrine and order, which the Perfect One has founded, women renounce the world and go into homelessness, under these circumstances, Ânanda, holy living will not be long preserved; only five hundred years, Ânanda, will the doctrine of the truth abide.”
c8.s1.t3.6
∗ "Cullavagga," x, 1. Agreeably to this, nuns do not appear as disciples in the narratives of Buddha's first experiences as a teacher.—The confessional formulary, "Pâtimokkha," notably one of the oldest literary monuments of Buddhism, mentions the nuns at every step, and king Asoka also remembers them in the Edict of Bairât.
c8.s1.t3.7
The narratives of the sacred writings, accordingly, unmistakably keep the female disciples, who have donned the garb of nuns, at a certain distance from the master, both in spiritual offices and in daily life. Buddhism has not had a Mary of Bethany. Buddha announces the rules, which he lays down for the order of nuns, to the monks and merely causes them to reach the nuns through them: and these regulations keep the nuns as regards the monks in perfectly submissive subjection: throughout they are treated merely as a tolerated, and reluctantly tolerated, element in the Church. Not one of the female disciples is near the master when he is dying, and it is made a matter of reproach to Ânanda, that he has granted access to Buddha’s corpse to women, whose tears bedewed the corpse. “O Kriton, let some one lead this woman home,” says Socrates, when Xanthippe appears in his prison to take a last farewell of him.
c8.s1.t3.8
Thus, between the spirit, which animated Buddha and Buddha's disciples, and that which woman's nature is and gives and seeks, there was a fundamental difference, which could not be reconciled. But instead we find the women of India all the more zealously engaged as fellow-labourers through charity, assistance, and service, in those practical spheres which the young Church opened up for religious usefulness. The stupendous munificence, which met the Buddhist order at every step, proceeded in great measure, perhaps in the greatest measure, from women.
c8.s1.t3.9
In the sacred texts the type of a female votary of Buddha, as she ought to be, with her indefatigable zeal as a giver and as a helper, is the honourable matron Visâkhâ. She is a rich citizen commoner at Sâvatthi, the chief town of Kosala, the mother of many blooming children, the grandmother of countless grandchildren. Every one invites Visâkhâ to sacrificial ceremonies and banquets, and has the dishes offered to her first; a guest like her brings luck to the house. It is Visâkhâ, who is represented to have made the first liberal preparations on a large scale to provide for Buddha's disciples who came to Sâvatthi, the chief necessaries of life. I here insert the narrative in point;* it gives at once an intelligible picture of what people in the young brotherhood thought as to giving and receiving and as to which of the two is the more blessed: the only benefactor, who must be thanked, is not he who gives anything to Buddha and his order, but Buddha who accepts the gift and thereby puts the giver in the position to practice the virtue of charity and to become partaker of that reward, which is promised to this virtue.
c8.s1.t3.10
Buddha is one day dining with his disciples at Visâkhâ's.
c8.s1.t3.11
∗ "Mahâvagga," viii, 15.
c8.s1.t3.12
After dinner Visâkhâ approaches him and says: "Eight requests, sire, I make of the Exalted One"—"The Perfect, Visâkhâ, are too exalted to be able to grant every wish."—"What is allowable, sire, and what is unblamable."—"Then speak, Visâkhâ."
c8.s1.t3.13
"I desire as long as I live, sire, to give the brotherhood clothes for the rainy season, to give food to stranger monks who arrive here, to give food to monks who are passing through, to give food to sick brethren, to give food to the attendants on the sick, to give medicine to the sick, to distribute a daily dole of cooked rice, to give bathing dresses to the sisterhood of nuns."
c8.s1.t3.14
"What object hast thou in view, Visâkhâ, that thou approachest the Perfect One with these eight wishes?"
c8.s1.t3.15
(Visâkhâ now explains her several wishes. So she says:)
c8.s1.t3.16
"A monk, O sire, who comes from foreign parts, does not know the streets and lanes and he goes about weary to collect alms. When he has partaken of the food which I shall provide for the monks who arrive, he may then, when he has inquired the ways and the streets, go out refreshed to collect alms. This end, O sire, I have in view: therefore I desire as long as I live to give food to monks when they arrive.—And again, sire, a monk who is travelling through will, if he has to seek for food for himself, fall behind his caravan, or will arrive late when he intends to rest, and he will walk on his journey wearily. If he has partaken of the food which I shall have provided for monks who are passing through, he will not fall behind his caravan, and he will arrive in proper time at the place where he intends to rest, and he will walk on his journey refreshed. This object I have in view, sire; therefore I desire, as long as I live, to give food to the monks who are passing through.—It has happened, sire, that nuns were bathing naked together in the river Aciravatî (Rapti) at the same bathing place with prostitutes. The prostitutes, sire, mocked the nuns, saying: ‘Most respected ones, what do you need of your holy life, as long as you are young? Is it not proper to gratify desire? When you are old you may begin a holy life, so both will be yours, this life and that which is to come.’ When the nuns, sire, were thus mocked by the prostitutes, they were put out of temper. Improper, sire, is nakedness for a woman, obscene and objectionable. This, sire, I consider; therefore I desire, as long as I live, to provide bathing-dresses for the sisterhood of nuns.”
c8.s1.t3.17
And Buddha says: “Good, Visâkhâ! thou doest well, that thou, seeking this reward, askest the Perfect One for these eight wishes. I grant thee these eight wishes, Visâkhâ.”
c8.s1.t3.18
Then the Holy One praised Visâkhâ, the mother of Migâra, in these words:
c8.s1.t3.19
“Who gives food and drink with generous readiness,
The follower of the Holy One, rich in virtues,
Who, without grudging, gives gifts for the reward of heaven,
Who puts an end to pain, is ever intent on bringing joy,
Obtains the reward of a heavenly life.
She walks the shining, commendable path,
Free from pain, she joyfully reaps for a very long period
The reward of good deeds in the happy realm of heaven above.”
c8.s1.t3.20
Pictures like this of Visâkhâ, benefactresses of the Church, with their inexhaustible religious zeal, and their not less inexhaustible resources of money, are certainly, if anything ever was, drawn from the life of India in those days: they cannot be left out of sight, if we desire to get an idea of the actors who made the oldest Buddhist community what it was.
Linked texts (2)
- Cullavagga — Pāli
- Vinayapiṭaka — Pāli