Garima Kaushik - Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia: Rediscovering the invisible believers

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Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia

This book uses 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 Bhiku or Bhikun Samgha, with the laity, and with members of the same gender (both lay and monastic). It rereads, reconfigures and reassesses historical data in order to arrive at a new understanding of Buddhism and the social matrix within which it developed and flourished.

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.

Garima Kaushik is assistant archaeologist in the Chandigarh Circle of the Archaeological Survey of India. She has excavated at a number of important historic and protohistoric archaeological sites in the country including Sravasti, Dholavira, Govishana and Adi Badri. She has been actively involved in academic as well as field research on early Buddhist historical sites for over 15 years.

Archaeology and Religion in South Asia

Series Editor: H IMANSHU P RABHA R AY , Chairperson, National Monuments Authority

Editorial Board: G AVIN F LOOD , Academic Director, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies; J ESSICA F RAZIER , Academic Administrator, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies; J ULIA S HAW , Institute of Archaeology, University College, London; S HAILENDRA B HANDARE , Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; D EVANGANA D ESAI , Asiatic Society, Mumbai; V IDULA J AISWAL , Jnana Pravaha, Varanasi, former professor, Banaras Hindu University.

This Series, in association with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, reflects on the complex relationship between religion and society through new perspectives and advances in archaeology. It looks at this critical interface to provide alternative understandings of communities, beliefs, cultural systems, sacred sites, ritual practices, food habits, dietary modifications, power and agents of political legitimisation. The books in the Series underline the importance of archaeological evidence in the production of knowledge of the past. They also emphasise that a systematic study of religion requires engagement with a diverse range of sources such as inscriptions, iconography, numismatics and architectural remains.

Also in this Series

Negotiating Cultural Identity: Landscapes in Early Medieval South Asian History
Editor: Himanshu Prabha Ray
ISBN 978-1-138-82252-8

Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia
Garima Kaushik
ISBN 978-1-138-10001-5

First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Garima Kaushik

The right of Garima Kaushik to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-1-138-10001-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-65788-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Berling
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For Sensei

Contents

Map of Buddhist sites in South Asia

Figures

Tables

Site plans

Plates

A s a student of Archaeology and History I have always been fascinated by the countless number of Buddhist sites, spread across the Indian subcontinent. These archaeological sites are brought alive by the evidence and narratives about the monasteries and the monks who inhabited them. However, I have always been intrigued by the almost complete absence of evidence that marks the presence of women or more accurately the presence of female Buddhist renunciants or bhikuns at these sites. Hundreds of Buddhist sites with no clue about the other half of the Buddhist population at these sites seemed illogical. It was this fact that led to the start of this work as a PhD thesis. With time I realised there is more than just the evidence of Buddhist nunneries that indicate the presence of female patrons within a sacred Buddhist landscape; and this work came to identify and analyse the different types of architecture that have been found to have association with the feminine in varied contexts. In my opinion, it is time we moved on from the simplistic classification of Buddhist sites simply as stpa and vihra sites to a more comprehensive examination of the sites.

I would like to express my gratitude to many people who saw me through this book; to all those who provided support, talked things over, read, offered suggestions, allowed me to quote their remarks and assisted in the editing, proofreading and design. Special thanks to Dr H. P. Ray, my editor, mentor and supervisor. Thank you, Maam, for your constant support through the years. Your encouragement and guidance at every step helped to make this book a reality.

I would like to thank Mily for encouraging me time and again to publish my work and for her timely advice, both professional and personal, and my family for their support and encouragement. Above all, I want to thank my husband Akshat for managing both home and work so that I could work on the book and my babies Rig and Anooshna for putting up with my erratic schedules, for all those lost weekends and for all the time it took me away from them. It has been a long and difficult journey for them.

Thanks are due to Kapil Kaushik for helping with the photographs and R. K. Dalal for helping with the drawings. Thanks to Aakash Chakrabarty and the Routledge India team for their support.

Last but not the least, my thanks and apologies to all those who have been with me over the course of the years and whose names I have failed to mention.

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