In response to repeated pleas from Ananda the Buddha
at last gave permission for women to enter the
Sangha and an order of Bhikkhuni or Sisters was
founded. But his permission was given reluctantly
and safeguarded by regulations which made it clear
that the eldest ordained sister must behave with
extreme humility even to the most junior monk.
But this gave them their
chance to show their worth and, as Mrs. Rhys Davids comments, 'it is clear that, by
intellectual and moral eminence, a sister might
claim equality with the highest of the fraternity'.
The claim was made good in the Psalms of the Sisters
in which the songs of those who attained to Arahantship are preserved. This fact, generally
ignored, shows that the attainment of Nirvana is
possible in this life even to women.
Although there are Myanmar nuns
who live a semi-monastic life, a half-way
house between the old Order of Sisters and the
domestic life common to most women. They wear a
special robe of their own, possess a certain amount
of property, do their own marketing and domestic
work. They are not held in anything like as much
esteem as the monks. A Burmese saying runs : 'Only
if you have lost your child, or your husband has
left you, or you have failed in trade, or got badly
into debt, will you become a nun.'
As to
Buddhism Women
of
Myanmar or Burma generally, theoretically
their only hope is to be reborn as men so that they
may become monks and so attain Nirvana. But in
practice the women of Burma are the freest of all
the women in the East, and although tacitly paying
lip service to the superiority of men (the Myanmar
or Burmese
woman always addresses her husband or any other man
as shin, lord), yet they are very much the equal
companions of men.
In Buddhist Law if husband and
wife separate each takes the dowry brought by him or
her to the marriage, together with half the increase
that has been added during the years they have lived
together.
The Burmese women
are intelligent and
capable ; many friendly observers regard them as
having more backbone and character than the men.
They take an active share in the management of the
home, much of the petty trade of the country is in
their capable hands, while in the villages they
share with their men-folk the work of planting and
harvesting.
As in the West, the women are the chief supporters
of religion. They are much more regular in their
visits to the pagoda, more often in prayer before
the images of the Buddha, more generous in the daily
support of the monks. |
