Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c25.36

c25.36

**Women in Buddhist Education.** In concluding this account of the system of Buddhist education as organized and imparted by the monasteries or Saṁghas, we have to refer to the position accorded in it to the women. The Bhikkhus could not help coming into contact with women in their begging rounds. In Hindu households, the women had the management in their own hands and would dole out alms to beggars. We have already referred to a passage [*Chullav.*, iv, 4, 6] describing how a householder with his wife and children would receive and serve the Bhikkhus with food. Another passage [ib., viii, 5, 2] lays down the correct behaviour of the Bhikkhu towards "the woman who is giving the food". And yet the very scheme and philosophy of life proposed by Buddhism would only regard women as objects to be shunned by the religeux. It was only after the double pressure of his foster-mother, Mahāpajāpatī, and his favourite disciple, Ānanda, that the Buddha, with considerable reluctance and misgivings, consented to admit women as his disciples on their renouncing the world and householder's state [*Chullav.*, x, 1]. But the rules laid down for regulating their life betray at every step the mental and moral inferiority attributed to the other sex. They keep the nuns in a condition of complete sub-ordination to the monks. The first of the Eight Chief Rules for them ordains that "a Bhikkhunī even of a hundred years' standing" must look up to a Bhikkhu "if only just initiated" [ib.]. Under other rules, the Order of nuns could not complete any transaction unless it was confirmed by the Chapter of the monks, while, as regards the ordination of a nun, the probationary period is made as long as two years, after which the Ordination has to be sanctioned by both the Saṁghas of Nuns and Monks. Other rules enjoined strict separation between monks and nuns. A monk specially selected by the brotherhood was to impart instruction and admonition to the nuns twice every month in the presence of another monk. The discipline and duties of daily life were the same for nuns as for monks except that the solitary life was practically forbidden them.