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What’s All the Fuss about
Women’s Ordination?
those women who wish to dedicate
their lives to the dharma. Members
of these orders follow strict rules
and serve the greater sangha, but
they are not acknowledged as full
nuns—they are not allowed to wear
monastic robes, nor are they recog-
nized as members of the monastic
sangha. In Thailand, for example,
women who want to commit to a
lifetime of dharma practice can join
the order of celibate mae-chee,
who wear white robes and observe
a limited number of monastic
precepts, but they cannot ordain
as a bhikshuni (Pali, bhikkhuni).
Although most female renunciates
in Sri Lanka wear yellow robes,
about half are dasa sil mata (“ten-
precept mothers”), not bhikshunis.
In Myanmar, they wear pink robes
and are called thilashin.
The Buddhist authorities in these
countries tend to oppose the full
ordination of women, saying they
do not recognize the validity of
Mahayana ordination ceremonies.
Proponents of such ordinations,
however, argue that Mahayana and
Theravada Buddhists adhere to
basically the same Vinaya code and
that the doctrinal differences are
secondary (the three Vinaya codes
currently in use—Dharmaguptaka,
Mulasarvastivada, and Theravada—
share many similarities). Besides,
historical records indicate that the
surviving bhikshuni orders can all
be traced back to Chinese bhiks-
hunis who themselves received
ordination from Sri Lankan Thera-
vada bhikshunis in the fifth century
CE. Thus, one can argue that when
Mahayana nuns ordain Theravada
women, they are in fact returningO
ne reason why so many
contemporary Buddhist
traditions lack bhikshuni
orders is that the Vinaya has
more stringent requirements for
the ordination of women than
of men. While a bhikshu ordina-
tion requires the presence of ten
fully ordained monks who have an
uninterrupted lineage back to the
Buddha’s time, the ordination of
a bhikshuni requires the presence
of ten monks and ten nuns—also
from an unbroken monastic lineage.
Bhikshuni orders spread to the
Mahayana tradition, starting in
China and expanding to places such
as Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam,
where they continued to the pres-
ent day. But in Theravada societies
in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, the
bhikshuni orders had died out by
the eleventh century CE, and they
were never revived.Strides have been made toward
more widely offering full ordina-
tion for women—most notably in
Sri Lanka—but for most women in
Theravada societies, monastic ordi-
nation remains out of reach. In the
absence of that option, renunciate
orders provide an alternate path foropposite | Mahaprajapati Gotami, the first woman to request
and receive ordination from the Buddha. Detail of mural by
Kalsang Damchoe and The Kalsang Tibetan Traditional Art of
Thangka Painting studio; in Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery and
Temple, founded by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo