Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia

This book presents gender as a framework to offer unique insights into the sociocultural foundations of Buddhism. Moving away from dominant discourses that discuss women as a single monolithic, homogenous category - thus rendering them invisible within the broader religious discourse - this monograph examines their sustained role in the larger context of South Asian Buddhism and reaffirms their agency. It highlights the multiple roles played by women as patrons, practitioners, lay and monastic members, and the like within Buddhism. The volume also investigates the individual experiences of the members, and their equations and relationships at different levels - with the Samgha at large with their own respective Bhiksu or Bhiksuni Samgha, with the laity and with members of the same gender (both lay and monastic). It rereads, reconfigures and reassesses historical data to arrive at a new understanding of Buddhism and the social matrix within which it developed and flourished. This new edition draws on recent archaeological data from ancient Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka and recently compiled ethnographic data from convents in Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, India. It assesses whether the working model formulated for the identification of gendered structures at sites in India holds good for sites across South Asia and highlights the presence of women within the monastic circles in varied roles. Bringing together archaeological, epigraphic, art historical, literary, as well as ethnographic data, this volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars of Buddhism, gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion and South Asian studies.

Dr. Garima Kaushik is an archaeologist with over two decades of research and field experience in South and Southeast Asian archaeology, specialising in Archaeology of Religion and the Archaeology of Religion and Early Buddhism in South Asia. She is among the founding faculty of the School of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions at Nalanda University, where she helped shape the academic framework of Buddhist archaeological studies. Her acclaimed monograph Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia: Rediscovering the Invisible Believers (Routledge, 2016) remains a pioneering work on women in early monastic Buddhism. The first edition of this book, published in 2016, received generous scholarly attention for foregrounding women's presence in early Buddhist archaeology. This second edition expands upon that groundwork with new evidence and interpretive perspectives. As part of her professional and academic engagements, Dr. Kaushik has represented India at several international forums, including the ASEAN-ndia Cultural Exchange and SAARC programmes, contributing to cross-cultural dialogues on heritage and archaeology. Dr. Kaushik has conducted extensive excavations and field surveys at key sites including Adi Badri, Dholavira, Sravasti, and Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. She is currently employed in the capacity of Deputy Superintending Archaeologist with the Archaeological Survey of India.

List of figures x List of tables xii Preface xiii Acknowledgements xv List of abbreviations xvii List of diacritical marks xviii Introduction 1 1 Sacred spaces and the feminine in Buddhism 16 2 Locating the bhikkhuni: identifying nunneries 38 3 Exploring women's space: conflict between the social and the asocial worlds 91 4 Women as patrons 136 5 Gendered survey of Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka 202 Conclusion 258 Bibliography 272 Index 281