(Download) "Separate But Equal: Property Rights and the Legal Independence of Buddhist Nuns and Monks in Early North India (Report)" by The Journal of the American Oriental Society # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Separate But Equal: Property Rights and the Legal Independence of Buddhist Nuns and Monks in Early North India (Report)
- Author : The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 253 KB
Description
--for Patrick Olivelle, who has been in all but the conventional sense a dharmabhrair-- Virtually nothing is known about the relationships in early India between actual Buddhist male monasteries (viharas) and female nunneries (varsakas, upassayas) as institutions. (1) Certainly the enormous Buddhist monastic literature now contains provisions that would have rendered nuns ritually and hierarchically subservient to and dependent on monks, and this is especially the case in regard to the promulgation of the notorious eight gurudharmas, or "heavy rules of conduct," incumbent on nuns alone. (2) But even this particular piece of male craftsmanship did not address such issues as the administrative and legal relationships between monks and nuns, or vihara and varsaka. Indeed, in spite of the fact that any treatment of such issues would be of considerable interest not just for the study of the Indian Buddhist nun, but also for the history of women in early India, and for the study of Indian law, nothing yet seems to have been noted in the literature that would bear on these points. This situation alone would seem to justify simply presenting--in as economical a fashion as possible--a series of short texts from a Buddhist monastic code (vinaya) that does in fact directly address the property rights and legal independence and separation of nuns and nunneries and monks and monasteries. Such a presentation, moreover, is made even more suitable by the fact that these texts, while never as detailed as one might like, are so clear that they require little commentary.