Women and Enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism

Le Ngoc Bich Ly

I. Introduction

This paper attempts to investigate the Theravada Buddhist teaching on women’s

ineligibility for enlightenment, the formation and interpretations of it from different

perspectives within the tradition, and my personal reflection on the issue.

II. Theravada Buddhist Teaching of Women’s Enlightenment

In order to have the whole picture of the Theravada views on women’s enlightenment, it

is important that we understand the meaning of enlightenment and how the doctrine of

women’s ineligibility for enlightenment is developed from its first utterance by the Buddha

(?) to the present Theravada Buddhist community.

1. The meaning of enlightenment

In Buddhism, enlightenment is the English translation of the Pali word “nibbana” or

“nirvana” in Sanskrit. In a negative language, nibbana means the ‘extinction’ of desire,

hatred, and illusion1. In a positive language, nibbana is “a mental experience in which

ignorance, attachment, desire and suffering are replaced by intuitive insight, purity of mind

and conduct, and absolute peace of mind.”2 This reality, discovered and taught by the Buddha

over 2,500 years ago, will be realized in anyone who is willing to live out the Four Noble

Truths. According to this definition, nibbana or enlightenment transcends gender and classes.

2. The Buddha’s view of women’s enlightenment

When addressing the question of women’s ability for enlightenment, the Buddha’s view

is both positive and negative. Positively the Buddha acknowledged, without hesitation, the

equality of men and women in attaining nibbana when Ananda asked him if women are able
1
Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (revised edition) (London and Bedford: the Gorden Fraser
Gallery Ltd., 1978), p.37.
2
Saeng Chandngarm (compiler), Basic Buddhism (Chiang Mai: Mahamakut Buddhist University: Lanna
Campus), p.70.
1
to be enlightened. The Buddha even praised female above male when he comforted king

Pasenadi, who was disappointed because his queen gave birth to a girl baby3:

“A woman child, O lord of men, may prove

Even a better offspring than a male.

For she may grow up wise and virtuous…”

The Buddha actually ordained and praised at least 13 women, who were fully
enlightened. Among them, the Buddha’s own aunt and step-mother was the founder of the
bhikkhuni order.4 During the Buddha’s life time, his transgendered and trans-caste message
gave women freedom and equal rights with men to pursue the spiritual path of nibbana. They
could freely travel wherever the Buddha preached and supported him generously, while
women in that Indian society had no chance to attain salvation because the belief of the time
was that being born as a woman was the result of bad karma and therefore ineligible for
moksa. Women and daughters were forbidden to learn the Vedas but only men and sons.
Women could only gain salvation in a future life when they were born as a male. So this life,
they needed to advance their good karma by obeying and worshipping their husband 5. All this
evidence shows that the Buddha had a very revolutionary view of women during his lifetime.

However, the Buddha also displayed a negative attitude on women’s pursuit of

enlightenment. This is seen in his hesitation to admit his aunty and step-mother Gotami
Pajapati to the monastic order though she insisted on it and followed him for a long distance.
He eventually accepted her, after Ananda’s intervention, but then imposed on her eight
weighty rules, the Gurudharma. These rules clearly show the inferiority of bhikkhunis to
bhikkhus. For example, senior nuns must pay homage to new monks; a nun cannot lead the
Buddhist community; she is not allowed to admonish improper behavior in a monk while a
monk has the right to do so. Then the Buddha lamented that the longevity of the Sangha
would be shortened by 500 years because of the admission of women to the Sangha.6

Although this passage mainly shows the Buddha’s discouragement of women joining the
monastic order, it was relevant to women’s pursuit of enlightenment at that time because of at
least two reasons. First, renunciation and becoming a monk were an important step to attain
enlightenment since this was the common practice of the Buddha’s time. Second, ordination
would bring a person full rights to learn and practice the Dhamma directly and more deeply
3
Saeng Chandngarm (compiler), Basic Buddhism, p.101.
4
Dhammanada Bhikkhuni, A Difference Voice (Bangkok: Thai Tibet Center, 2010), p.42.
5
Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions (Tennessee: Abingdon, 1979), pp.45-46.
6
Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism (California: Parallax Press, 1991), p.27-30.
2
with the Buddha or his qualified disciples. Joining the Buddha’s sangha was both a religious
and political declaration of women that from now on the cultural and religious prejudices of
the Indian society had no power over their lives. A clear cut with the old oppressive system
was a necessary step of the beginning of a new way of life.

There was no clear explanation why the Buddha did so. The feminist Buddhist
perspective points it to the socio-cultural context of the Buddha’s time. For example, the
Buddhist feminist scholar Chatsumarn explains that the early Buddhists maintained a forest-
dwelling life, which was dangerous for women. There was a case that a bhikkhuni was raped.
Another reason was that only qualified monks were allowed to teach bhikkhunis. There might
not be many available qualified monks. Imposing the weighty rules on the nuns was the
Buddha’s strategy to have the sangha accept women into the order since these men still
maintained the Indian values. It was not the Buddha’s intention to subordinate women and
actually he established rules to forbid the monks to abuse their privilege and power to
subordinate the nuns. Due to these external disadvantages, the Buddha hesitated to admit
them to the order7.

However, the Theravada tradition seems to justify this by referring to women’s

ineligibility for enlightenment. The often quoted texts by the Theravada tradition against
women’s ability for enlightenment are that “It is impossible, monk, it cannot come to pass
that a woman should be a Buddha who is a fully Enlightened One…” The Buddha also said
that “Womenfolk are uncontrolled, Ananda. Womenfolk are envious, Ananda. Womenfolk are
greedy Ananda. Womenfolk are weak in wisdom, Ananda. That is the reason, that is the
cause why womenfolk do not sit in a court of justice, do not embark on business, do not reach
the essence of the deed.” 8 This is a completely different and contradictory view with what
the Buddha had had and done, as having been discussed before. It is very hard to understand
how this biased view existed in the Buddha, who was already enlightened and who was
extremely against the caste system and the belief of elite salvation of his time. These
controversial texts will be discussed in detail in the later part of this paper. Unfortunately
these negative teachings later became the foundation of the Theravada doctrine regarding
women’s pursuit of enlightenment and ordination.

3. The development of the Theravada teachings of women’s ineligibility for

enlightenment

7
Ibid., p.28.
8
Saeng Chandngarm (compiler), Basic Buddhism, p.100.
3
 The development of the Theravada Buddhist doctrine of women’s ineligibility for

enlightenment can be inferred from a summary done by a Japanese Buddhist scholar,

Kajiyama Yuichi, quoted by Chatsumarn, as the following9:

1). Primitive Buddhism under Gautama and his direct disciples made no
distinction between men and women with regard to emancipation, despite the prevalence of
societal discrimination against women in ancient India.

2). By comparing various Pali and Chinese sources, it appears that the dictum
that a woman is incapable of becoming a Buddha probably arose around the first century
B.C.

3). Just before the beginning of the Christian Era, a new movement developed in
which Aksobhya Buddha and Amitabha Buddha, sympathizing with the predicament of
women, vowed to save them: Aksobhya by removing all physical and social difficulties of
women in his Buddha Land; Amitabha by transforming women into men on their birth in
his Western Paradise.

4). Early Mahayana sutras, such as The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines,
the Lotus Sutra, and the Pure Land Sutra, developed the idea that a woman can be
enlightened by transforming herself into a male.

5). The mature philosophy of emptiness and Buddha nature in all sentient
beings, represented in the Vimalakirti Nirdesa, Srimaladevi, and other sutras, declares that a
woman can be enlightened just as she is, as a woman.

This shows that the idea of women’s ineligibility for enlightenment is a later development and is

a matter of interest of a specific group instead of timeless truth for Buddhists since the other groups of

Buddhism or Mahayana tradition, which are the majority, have a different point of view from that of

the Theravada tradition.

By the time of the canonical literature (2 nd century BC.), Theravada Buddhism was deeply

influenced by the Hindu culture, which the Buddha had struggled to eliminate. Specifically, the

negative view of women became dominant. Buddhist females were seen as obstacles to the purity of

the monks. They were portrayed as sexually ravenous, greedy, envious, stupid and generally

repulsive. This is clearly seen in the Theravada story of the Buddha’s life which depicts

women seductive and disgusting corpse-like dancers, and daughters of the Devil Mara, who

9
Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism, p. 27.
4
always appeared to seduce and prevent the Buddha from achieving perfection. This reflects

the Manu’s code in Hinduism10:

“It is the nature of women to seduce men…; for that reason the wise are never unguarded…
For women are able to lead astray in (this) world not only a fool, but even a learned man, and
(to make) him a slave of desire and anger. One should not sit in a lonely place with one’s
mother, sister or daughter; for the senses are powerful, and master even a learned master.”

Early Theravadins even equated women’s desire and productive becoming with samsara,

which endlessly distributed life-force. For Theravada Buddhism, samsara is the enemy and

trap, so is femaleness. This can be seen in the dialogue between the Buddha and Ananda:11

“How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard to womankind?”

“As not seeing them, Ananda”
“But if we should see them, what are we to do?”
“No talking, Ananda”
“But if they should speak to us, Lord, what are we to do?”
“Keep awake, Ananda.”

Consequently sexual abstinence instead of a good life became the main focus of monastic

life. Eventually Theravada Buddhism came to mirror Hindu beliefs that women are of lower

birth. Nuns were not allowed to interpret the Dhamma. They were taught to believe that good

works would help them to be reborn as men and therefore have better opportunities to attain

enlightenment in the next life. For example, Buddha’s mother, who died 7 days after his

birth, was reborn as a male god; the Buddha had never been reborn as a female.12

Therefore, from the time of the Buddha to the present, the view of women’s ability for

enlightenment has shifted dramatically in the Theravada tradition. Women have changed

their religious status from equal with to inferior to men, from eligible to ineligible for

enlightenment. Women have been deprived of the religious power and rights to access the

Dhamma and also human liberation, which are now monopolized by the Sangha which is

composed of monks only. As a result of this, nibbana has become more and more difficult to

10
Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions, pp. 52-53.
11
Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions, p. 52.
12
Ibid., p.50.
5
attain and limited to highly advanced practitioners instead of being accessible to everyone as

it was in the time of the Buddha. It has also become more legalistic and bureaucratic because

attaining nibbana requires a person to be ordained as monks and practice the Eightfold Paths

correctly.

III. Different Interpretations of the Theravada Teaching of Women’s

Enlightenment within This Tradition

There are different interpretations of the teaching of women’s enlightenment within the

Theravada tradition itself, but generally the tendency is more and more democratic and anti-

traditional.

1. Contemporary Theravada interpretations

Generally, the myths about women’s ineligibility for Buddhahood have been preached

and emphasized in the teachings of Theravada Buddhism up to this modern time. For

example, Buddhadasa, a venerable monk from Thailand, after quoting the Buddha’s saying

that “It is not possible for a woman to become a Buddha but it is quite possible for a Man to

become so”, strongly states that the attempt to give women the same office (ordination and

enlightenment) as men is against nature and that “woman is not composed of the required

caliber – both in physique and in will-power.” He even said that “woman is a product of

man”13.

However, perhaps later in his life, Buddhadasa recognized his bias towards women, so he

gave a new interpretation of enlightenment which completely contradicts his above view,

seen in his “chit wang” doctrine, according to Peter A. Jackson14:

13
The Venerable Bhikkhu Buddhadasa Indapanno, Christianity and Buddhism: Sinclaire Thompson Memorial
Lecture. Fifth series, p.88.
14
Peter A. Jackson. Buddhadasa: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand (Chiang Mai:
Silkworm Books, 2003), p.143.

6
 “Buddhadasa’s view of the universal relevance of nibbana contrasts sharply with the
traditional Thai view that striving for ultimate salvation is an activity appropriate only for
spiritually advanced monks. He denies that it is first necessary to be a monk in order to become
a saint. He says that “an arahant has transcended monkhood and laity alike.”

Another prominent interpretation of the message of transgendered here and now

enlightenment for the mass is also found in the Theravada tradition in Burma. The venerable

Mahasi Sayadaw has developed vipassana meditation method for the laity to approach

enlightenment in the mist of this worldly life since 1950. This has formed a New Laity

movement in Burma of which women participants are the majority since this method

combines both temporary renunciation and integration into the world.15

Both Buddhadasa’s “chit wang” doctrine and Mahasi Sayadaw’s vipassana meditation for

laity have shown a new trend of understanding the Buddha’s message of enlightenment in

this modern time. This trend moves away from the traditional interpretation but it is actually

a restoration of the original movement initiated by the Buddha in this new context.

Enlightenment is accessible for everyone here and now in the midst of this worldly life.

Enlightenment is not for one’s end but for a deeper engagement in the world. Ordination has

shifted its substance from being an essential step to attain nibbana into an office or title

which has nothing to do with enlightenment.

2. Buddhist women’s reinterpretation of the tradition

In addition to interpretations by the Theravada monks, well-educated and devoted

Buddhist women have started to reinterpret the tradition. Recently an outstanding female

Buddhist scholar and also a Theravada ordained Bhikkhuni, Ven. Dhammananda from

Thailand, has made use of her academic ability, Buddhist knowledge and support from

international Buddhist communities to publish a number of books, organize and take part in

Buddhist conferences around the world as part of her struggle for the recognition of Thai

15
Ingrid Jordt, Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power
(Ohio University press, 2007), pp.158-159.
7
bhikkhunis. I would like to use her work as a representation of the women’ new interpretation

of the Theravada tradition concerning the issue of women’s ineligibility for enlightenment. 16

(Since the scope of this paper is limited to the issue of enlightenment, I am not going to

include her interpretations of women’s ordination. Another reason is that, according to the

contemporary understanding of enlightenment, ordination has more to do with the restoration

of the tradition, gender equality and religious rights or power than with the nature of nibbana.

Details of the debate of women’s ordination can be referred to from the works of

Dhammanada Bikkhuni)

For bhikkhuni Dhammananda, the Buddha’s teaching should be understood at two levels.

The first level deals with the nature of the spiritual path which is free from contextual and

gender bias. At this level, enlightenment is accessible to all sentient beings without any

discrimination. The second level deals with the mundane, which is affected by the social

context. For this level, examination is needed to discover the origins of gender bias.

According to her, there are many suspicious elements about the background of the texts in

which the Buddha said that “a woman cannot become a Buddha” because “they are selfish,

poor in wisdom, unable to assume a seat in the assembly and cannot travel to distant land”.

Firstly, the Buddhist texts as we know today were not written until three hundred years after

the Buddha’s passing away. They were recorded by the monks only in a foreign language

(Pali) in a foreign place (Sri Lanka) to the origin of Buddhism. Secondly, right at the First

Council (three months after the Buddha’s parinirvana), the bhikkhu Sangha already showed

prejudices toward the bhikkhuni Sangha by not inviting any bhikkhunis to join the council

and accusing Ananda of encouraging the Buddha to accept women to the order. Therefore,

the authenticity of the texts is suspected.

16
See Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism, p. 22-34, and Dhammanada Bhikkhuni, A Difference
Voice, pp.65-73, and Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, Beyond Gender , pp.20-23, 32-38 .

8
 From the Buddha’s time to the time the texts were written down, it was inevitable for

Buddhism to take in the Indian culture which was extremely oppressive to women (I have

already mentioned in the second part of this paper). In this sense, the Buddhist teachings

mirror exactly the Indian view, so the texts were probably a later addition not the words of

the Buddha. In other words, they were words put in the mouth of the Buddha.

This view is also consistent with the Buddhist scholar Alan Sponberg’s analysis of the

early Buddhist texts. He suggests that the early Buddhist canon does not display a single but

multi-voices. He identifies at least four attitudes, three occurring in the early canon, and four

representing, in part, a later attempt to resolve the inconsistency and tension among the first

three. The first three attitudes are: soteriological inclusiveness, institutional androcentrism,

and ascetic misogyny; the fourth is soteriological androgyny.

Soteriological inclusiveness is the most basic and distinctively Buddhist attitude

regarding the Buddhist attitude towards women’s status, which acknowledges that one’s sex,

like one’s caste, presents no barrier to one’s attaining the Buddhist goal of liberation from

suffering. This view was clearly seen in the Buddha’s message of transgender and trans-caste

enlightenment and his recognition of women’s capability for nibbana.

The second attitude, institutional androcentrism, developed later especially in the Vinaya

or texts about monastic order. After the passing away of the Buddha, the sangha became

more institutionalized and shifted from religious wanderers to monastic residence. Social

acceptability became an important issue. So the attitude of the sangha is that ‘women can

pursue a full-time spiritual career but only within a carefully regulated institutional structure

which preserves and reinforces the conventionally accepted social standards of male

superiority and female subordination.’ This attitude is seen in the story that the Buddha

9
refused his step-mother to join the order and then imposed on her the eight weighty rules after

accepting her.

The third attitude, ascetic misogyny, has its root in the ascetic tradition before the

Buddha, but was the last of the three to emerge in the literature. It shows hostility to women

and views them as threat to male celibacy. This attitude displays more a personal and

individual concern than a directly institutional one. As the Sangha became autonomous and

disintegrated with the world and the Buddhist laity, the issue of celibacy became the most

important matter. This is reflected in the texts in which the Buddha viewed women as

ineligible for Buddhahood and greedy, stupid, and dangerous for monks’ perfection.

The fourth attitude, soteriological androgyny, developed by fractions of Mahayana

Buddhism, especially the philosophy of emptiness, emerged in the literature between the

sixth and seventh centuries, as an attempt to reaffirm the early principle of soteriological

inclusiveness. Women are acknowledged to be eligible for enlightenment just as who they

are17.

Another interpretation, which is loyal to the authenticity of the texts, is that the Buddha

was not free from the social conditions of his time though he was enlightened. It seems that

Buddhist feminist scholars such as Boonsue Kornvibha and also Chatsumarn or

Dhammanada Bikkhuni acknowledge this possibility 18. The Buddha was a historic man who

was born and brought up in the Indian culture, so it was inevitable that he still kept some

traditional values. This is also possible since the Buddha is the only one among religious

founders, ‘who did not claim to be other than a human being, pure and simple’ 19. Perhaps the

Buddha was also a controversial person like Buddhadasa in Thailand.

17
Alan Sponberg, “Attitude toward women and the feminine in early Buddhism” in Jose Ignacio Cabezon (ed.),
Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (U.S.: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp.3-27
18
Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism, p. 25.
19
Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p.1.
10
IV. Personal Reflection

While the Theravada monks like Buddhadasa and Mahasi Sayadaw are dealing with the

nature of enlightenment and somehow accept the biased texts against women or leave them

unresolved; Buddhist feminists such as Chatsumarn are going a bit further by

demythologizing the biased texts. However, I do not think that Buddhist feminists like

Chatsuman have gone far enough since she has traced the root cause of it up to the Indian

culture. But what caused this phenomenon in the Indian culture and in cultures before it?

What is the root cause of anti-women attitude in all world religions? When did it start?

The oppressive and hostile elements toward women are found in all world religions not

only Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a common phenomenon in all religions. Women are

always excluded from the pursuit of salvation and their images are even distorted. For

example, in Judeo-Christian Scripture, women are portrayed as the tempter of men and the

cause of men’s fall. Their salvation is attained through their marriage with a man and bearing

children. They are taught to be quiet and fully submissive to their husband or worship their

husbands as gods (1 Timothy 2:11-15).

I have found the works of Merlin Stone in When God was a Woman (1976) and Denise

Lardner Carmody in Women and World Religions (1979) very useful for addressing the

question of what caused the anti-women attitude in all world religions. They have made some

weighty remarks about this issue.

Firstly, archaeological, mythological and historical evidence have clearly proved that all

prehistoric religions were associated with female goddesses. Goddess worship flourished for

thousands of years even back to the Neolithic communities of about 7000 BC, some to the

Upper Paleolithic cultures of about 25,000 BC long before all patriarchal religions emerged.

The appearance of male deities was a recent phenomenon started with the invasion and

migration of the Aryans by 2400 BC to the Near and Middle East 20 Before world religions,
20
Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman (US: A Harvest/HBJ Book, 1976), pp.9-10, 62-69.
11
women were considered sacred in their being because they could produce life, so being a

woman was a good way to be human21. Men became insignificant and women became

important figures in the society and family. That means there was a time that god was a

woman and women were crowned.

Secondly, for thousands of years both religions existed together among neighboring

communities. Evidence from archaeology, mythology and history have all revealed that

female religion was the “the victim of centuries of continual persecution and suppression by

the advocates of the newer religions which held male deities as supreme.” The Judeo-

Christian Bible is full of evidence about the destruction of goddess worship in the

neighboring countries by Israel who worship Yahweh as a male god. From here new myths

were created.22

Thirdly, to completely eliminate the female religion, advocates of the later male deities

invented and imposed new ideology in all aspects of life – education, law, literature,

economics, philosophy, psychology, media and general social attitudes upon even the non-

religious people of today23. In other words, new ideology of male superiority and female

subordination, goddess worship as evil and disgusting were invented. For thousands of years,

this ideology was absorbed and taken for granted.

According to M. and M. Vaerting in The Dominant Sex, quoted by Merlin Stone, that ‘the

sex of the deity was determined by the sex of those who were in power’ 24. The domination of

male over female is projected to the level of the supreme. In return, religion was to justify

this projection. Therefore, the oppressive and hostile elements in all religions had to do with

the misuse of power to maintain the privilege and power of the dominators. For example, in

the prehistoric time, women and men lived in harmony and cooperation because both sexes

had their own spheres of power: men hunting and women gathering. However, when

21
Denise Lardner Carmody, Women and World Religions, p. 157.
22
Marlin Stone, When God as a Woman, p.xiii.
23
Ibid., p.xxv.
24
Marlin Stone, When God as a Woman, p.31.
12
agriculture and trade developed, people lived concentrating in big cities. Men and women

shared the same spheres of power: religion, politics, economics, education and so on. Now

the clash of powers created tension and insecurity. The outcome was that the stronger would

take over the weaker.

Although these feminist works are under much criticism by other scholars, such as Judith

Plaskow in Blaming Jews for Inventing Patriarchy and Cynthia Eller in The Myth of

Matriarchal Prehistory,25 due to its political purpose and lack of well-founded evidence, at

least it gives a comprehensive theoretical explanation of the phenomenon. Whether women in

the pre-patriarchal period dominated men or not needs more research and evidence. However,

either female or male domination is the fall of humanity. The Buddha and Jesus tried to

liberate human beings out of the greed of power by awakening the mind to look at life

realistically or by the power of love to serve others. As time went by, religions could not

prevent the greed of power from creeping in and eventually controlling religion to serve the

self-interest of an elite group. I agree with both authors that the past is a lesson to learn and

correct the mistakes and the future vision should be that both men and women live in equal

and healthy coexistence with mutual love, respect and service26.

The first task of peace-building is to liberate women from all the distortions and

stereotypes and men from self-exaltation and abusive attitude embedded in the religious

system. This is enlightenment and salvation because it frees women from the twofold fear

and bondage imposed upon them by the religious teachings and also their own belief in such

distorted teachings. It also frees men from the illusion, disease and greed of being superior to

the other half of humanity. Complete healing and restoration cannot take place if the truth of

root cause of the issue is not exposed.

Bibliography

25
www.lilith.org/shop/download/v07i00_1980-05.pdf and http://goo.gl/e8bgz (10/04/2012)
26
Marlin Stone, p.241 and Denise Lardner Carmody, p.167.
13
Bhikkhuni, Dhammanada. A Difference Voice. Bangkok: Thai Tibet Center, 2010.

__________________ . Beyond Gender. Chiang Mai: Wanida Press, 2007.

Cabezon, Jose Ignacio (ed.), Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. U.S.: State University of New

York Press, 1992.

Carmody, Denise Lardner. Women and World Religions. Tennessee: Abingdon, 1979.

Chandngarm, Saeng, (compiler), Basic Buddhism. Chiang Mai: Mahamakut Buddhist

University: Lanna Campus.

Indapanno, The Venerable Bhikkhu Buddhadasa. Christianity and Buddhism: Sinclaire

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Jackson, Peter A. Buddhadasa: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand.

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Jordt, Ingrid. Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural

Construction of Power. Ohio University press, 2007.

Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. Thai Women in Buddhism. California: Parallax Press, 1991.

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Gorden Fraser Gallery Ltd., 1978.

Stone, Merlin. When God was a Woman. US: A Harvest/HBJ Book, 1976.

Website sources:

www.lilith.org/shop/download/v07i00_1980-05.pdf

http://goo.gl/e8bgz

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