The Embodiment of Buddhist History: Interpretive Methods and Models of Sāsana Decline in Burmese Debates about Female Higher Ordination
Tony Scott
Religions December 23, 2022 DOI: 10.3390/rel14010031 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | The paper argues that mid-twentieth-century Burmese debates over reviving the Theravāda nuns' order, led by monks Mingun Jetavana Sayadaw and Ashin Ādiccavaṃsa, turned on competing models of sāsana history. Both monks used the Milindapañha to frame the era as one of emancipatory promise centered on lay vipassanā meditation, especially by women. The author contends the dispute ultimately concerned whether the sāsana is a transcendent, timeless ideal or a bounded history embodied in monks and nuns. |
Abstract
The mid-twentieth century was celebrated in Theravāda civilizations as the halfway point in the five-thousand-year history of the Buddha’s dispensation, the sāsana. Around this time in Burma, fierce debates arose concerning the re-establishment of the extinct order of Theravāda nuns. While women were understood as having a crucial role in supporting and maintaining the sāsana, without a sanctioned means of higher ordination, they were excluded from its centre, that is, as active agents in sāsana history. In this paper, I explore what was at stake in these debates by examining the arguments of two monks who publicly called for the reintroduction of the order of nuns, the Mingun Jetavana Sayadaw (1868–1955) and Ashin Ādiccavaṃsa (1881–1950). I will show that both used the enigmatic Milindapañha (Questions of Milinda) to present their arguments, but more than this, by drawing from their writings and biographies, it will be seen that their methods of interpreting the Pāli canon depended on their unique models of sāsana history, models which understood this halfway point as ushering in a new era of emancipatory promise. This promise was premised on the practice of vipassanā meditation by both lay men and especially women, the latter who, through their participation in the mass lay meditation movement, were making strong claims as dynamic players in the unfolding of sāsana history. The question of whether the order of nuns should be revived therefore hinged on the larger question of what was and was not possible in the current age of sāsana decline. Beyond this, what I aim to show is that mid-twentieth-century debates around female ordination concerned the very nature of the sāsana itself, as either a transcendent, timeless ideal, or as a bounded history embodied in the practice of both monks and nuns.
Comparable studies
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| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |