By Susan Murcott
First Buddhist Women is a readable, contemporary translation of and commentary on the enlightenment verses of the first female disciples of the Buddha. Through the study of the Therigatha, the earliest-known collection of women’s religious poetry, the book explores Buddhism’s 2,600-year-long liberal attitude toward women. Utilizing commentary and storytelling, author Susan Murcott traces the journey of wives, mothers, teachers, courtesans, prostitutes, and wanderers who became leaders in the Buddhist community, acquiring roles that even today are rarely filled by women in other, patriarchal religions.
“…energetic and vividly detailed poems of women on the road to enlightenment and independence. —Tricycle
“At last, an intelligent feminist scholar is tackling the subject with sincerity and insight. Susan Murcott took the Therigatha—songs of the nuns from the time of the historical Buddha, and explores the political, social, and cultural climate. She explains the history. She asks the right questions, the ones I wanted answers to anyway. Her astute analysis helped me understand what made the nun’s order what it was. Her translations are simultaneously down-to-earth and mystical. But best of all, she brings the nuns to life. She retells the stories of their lives in detail and re-translates their poems and songs of awakening.”
Diana Winston, author of Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens
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At the time the Buddha set up his Order of Bhikkhus, there was in Indian society the widespread but groundless belief that woman is inferior to man. The position which the woman lost under the dominance of the Brahmanas [ i.e. the literature and the literary tradition which went by that name ] had not yet been retrieved. The brahmins of the day evidently showed little sympathy for her sad lot. Altekar describes the position of woman in India at the time as follows: ‘ The prohibition of Upanayana amounted to spiritual disenfranchisement of women and produced a disastrous effect upon their general position in society. It reduced them to the status of Sudras… What, however, did infinite harm to women was the theory that they were ineligible for them [Vedic sacrifices] because they were of the status of the Sudras. Henceforward they began to be bracketed with Sudras and other backward classes in society. This we find to be the case even in the Bhagavadgita IX.32. [.Altekar, A.S.,The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization, p.204 f.]. In the Manusmrti we witness the cruel infliction of domestic subservience on woman. The road to heaven is barred to her and there is hard bargaining with her for the offer of an alternative route. Matrimony and obedience to the husband are the only means whereby a woman can hope to reach heaven.