[Buddha-l] women & , er, religion

[Jayarava]

--- On Wed, 22/7/09, Margaret Gouin <gouin.me at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry, this is a bit late but before the FWBO discussion jkirk mentioned
> about Tibetan nuns working in the fields etc...

A welcome return from my point of view. 

> The fully-ordained female sangha was never established in Tibet. I don't 
> know why, but it would be interesting to try to find out the reason.

I wonder if it is simple as that the men who ran the Buddhist enterprise by that time did not want women to have the high status - with it's consequent access to resources and power - that came with being a "fully ordained" monk. Even when women did get vinaya style ordinations, they were kept at the lowest possible rung on the status ladder.

It would be interesting to see whether those schools which abandoned vinaya style monasticism - like in the Tendai school for instance - there was any difference. Some Japanese Empresses seemed to have joined monasteries - I wonder what kind of ordination was involved there? Ryōkan is said to have been tended by the 'nun' Teishin before he died in 1831. Wonder what ordination she had...

Jayarava