positions in the cosmos that are unavailable to her as
a woman—including the position of buddhahood.
Thus, BUDDHASin the early tradition are never female,
a view most likely due to the well-established notion
that a buddha’s body is characterized by the thirty-two
marks of the “Great Man,” including the mark of hav-
ing the penis encased in a sheath. Even becoming a
BODHISATTVAwas an impossibility for a woman (at
least according to the Pali sources) because one of the
five requirements for making the bodhisattva vow was
male gender. Nevertheless, since these sources envision
both bodhisattvahood and buddhahood as exceedingly
rare anyway and perceive arhatship as the only viable
goal, this limitation has perhaps been less significant
in practice than the unequivocal endorsement of
women’s ability to attain nirvana.
Overall, then, early Buddhist attitudes toward
women and gender take a variety of different forms,
some of which Alan Sponberg (1992) has usefully
characterized as “soteriological inclusiveness,” “insti-
tutional androcentrism,” and “ascetic misogyny.” In
the present-day THERAVADA cultures of Southeast
Asia, many of these views persist, but are also affected
by modern developments, such as the greatly in-
creased role of the laity and the global movement for
women’s rights.
Gender in Mahayana Buddhism
All of the views on gender described above for early
Buddhism, including the most misogynistic, continue
to be found in the Mahayana traditions. Nevertheless,
the advent of Mahayana also heralds some new notions
of gender and significant adaptations of earlier ideas.
In general, it is often said that female gender is reval-
orized to some degree in Mahayana thought. This may
(or may not) be true, but one should be careful to draw
a distinction between symbolic representation and his-
torical reality. The revalorization of female gender
symbolically does not necessarily imply a better status
for women in Buddhism historically. There is no evi-
dence, for example, that the position of women within
Indian Mahayana was any better than in the main-
stream tradition.
In the Mahayana tradition, the earlier religious goal
of becoming an arhat was replaced by the new religious
goal of becoming a bodhisattva (and eventually a
buddha)—something every Mahayanist should do.
Thus, the bodhisattva path was open to both men and
women equally, and Mahayana texts are often noted
for their use of gender-inclusive language, frequently
addressing themselves to those “good sons” and “good
daughters” who adhere to the Mahayana teaching. Ma-
hayana literature is also full of positive portrayals of
women, who function not merely as “good daughters,”
but even as advanced spiritual teachers to men and
full-fledged female bodhisattvas. Mahayana texts are
not consistent, however, about what level of bo-
dhisattvahood a woman can attain without first be-
coming a man. Some of the most restrictive texts claim
that as soon as a woman becomes a bodhisattva, she
will never be reborn as a female again. Other texts,
however, claim that bodhisattvas of quite an advanced
degree can be female, though they ultimately must be-
come male. Nevertheless, we also find in the Mahayana
tradition the depiction of female bodhisattvas of the
very highest order, such as Tarain India and Tibet and
Guanyin in China, both of whom developed into ma-
jor objects of worship and cult.Further complicating this matter is the narrative
theme of sexual transformation found in many
Mahayana texts, such as the LOTUS SUTRA
(SADDHARMAPUNDARIKA-SUTRA) and Vimalaklrtinirdes ́a-
sutra(Discourse on the Teaching of Vimalaklrti). In
episodes that make use of this theme, a woman is de-
picted as being an advanced bodhisattva who has at-
tained the highest wisdom and understands the true
nature of reality. Despite these obvious capabilities, she
is challenged in some way by a man, who expresses
doubts about the spiritual abilities of women, often
asserting the idea that a woman cannot attain bud-
dhahood. The woman then refutes this idea by in-
stantaneously changing her sex and becoming a man
(sometimes a fully enlightened buddha). These
episodes of sexual transformation have been inter-
preted in a number of different ways. Most simply, they
can be seen as Mahayana attempts to refute the tradi-
tional idea that a woman could not attain buddhahood
or advanced bodhisattvahood within the present life.
Such episodes suggest that women can, in fact, attain
these states, yet they also depict these women trans-
forming themselves into men, thus ultimately holding
to the technical requirement of a male body. Alterna-
tively, however, these episodes can also be interpreted
in light of the Mahayana philosophical notion of S ́UNY-
ATA(EMPTINESS). Mahayana philosophy maintains that
all phenomena are “empty” of any inherent self-
existence, and all conceptual distinctions are thus rel-
ative in nature and not ultimately real—including
distinctions of gender. “Male” and “female” are noth-
ing more than conventional categories, and for one
who does not cling to such categories, they are as fluid
and malleable as a magical creation. In this interpre-GENDER