Buddhist confessional poetry:

Narratives of self-conversion

[Part 7]

The Therigatha represents one of the earliest examples of poetry inspired by feminist desires. These poems may not conform to all the preferences and priorities of modern feminism; however, they stand out as interesting examples of early feminist thinking. These poems were written against a background of strong patriarchal thinking and patriarchal practices. The fact that these confessional poems come out of a deeply religious traditions makes their commitment to and innovativeness in female agency even more compelling. At a time when most religious thought, predictably enough, was strongly influenced by androcentric agendas, the fact that these Buddhist nuns in their verses were able to go against the grain of contemporary thinking and acquire a sense of agency in their determined quest for spiritual liberation is indeed highly laudable.

The Theirigatha represents the efforts of nuns, drawn from all walks of life, who gave up household life and decided to devote their time and energy to the attainment of spiritual enlightenment. They came from diverse backgrounds, old and young, rich and poor, nobles and prostitutes, widows, wives, mothers, daughters. They were all united in their determination to give up domestic pleasures, shatter the bonds of patriarchal practices and enter the Buddhist order. These female renunciates exemplify one important aspect of feminist thinking. They carved out for themselves an alternate life style that went against the dominant thinking of the time; it emerged and gathered momentum in an unmistakably male-dominated society that placed manifold impediments.

Visions

The institutions, practices, cultural discourses, religious visions during this period were heavily inflected by patriarchal impulses. What these Buddhist nuns who composed these confessional poems collected in the Therigatha sought to demonstrate was that women should have the same opportunity that men had for achieving spiritual liberation; that religious thinking (dharma) made no distinctions between males and females. Some of the statements of these nuns clearly attest to this fact. In addition, the Buddhist order that took shape, allowing the entry of women reflects the strength, solidity and the size of the women’s order. This was a severe blow to the kind of thinking prevalent at the time which tended to minimize the role and importance of women. Some critics and adversaries at the time raised questions about the intelligence, stamina, self discipline of women to carry out the rigors of Buddhist religious practices and secure total detachment from worldly pleasures. The verses contained in the Theirigatha stand as an open rebuke to that line of retrogressive thinking.

Many poems in the Therigatha illustrate the depth of feeling and revulsion against domesticity that impelled these nuns towards renunciation. For example, the following poem by an anonymous nun manifests this deeply felt antipathy:

Sleep well
Little sister
Wearing dresses
That you yourself stitched.
Your desires are put out
Like wilted vegetables
In a cooking-pot.

What is interesting about this short poem is the way the poets has invoked an image drawn from domestic life to clinch her point. The life that the nun turned her back on as away of attaining spiritual enlightenment is captured beautifully in this image. The following poem by the nun Mutta dramatizes powerfully the indifference she felt towards household life.

I am well released
Truly released from
Three crooked things –
The mortar, the pestle
And my husband.
I am released from the wheel
Of life; the spinner of
Rounds and rounds of being
Has been conquered.

Disenchantment

The disenchantment with worldly life is deeply etched in the verbal texture of the poem. In some of the poems in the Therigatha, the nuns are able to stand up to the demands of men and whole their ground. Their steadfastness, we are allowed to see, emanates from deeply held religious convictions. In the following poem, death in the form of a young man seeks to seduce the nun Khema .

You are young and radiant
I am young and handsome
Listening to the five fold harmonies
Let us seek our ecstasy

To this request, the nun Khema replies fervently in the negative.

My body is vile, ashamed of it
It is a site of decay and disease
I have rooted out desire

Sensual pleasures are like
Swords and daggers
Ingredients of life are
A chopping block for them
What you see as sensual ecstasies are
To me the exact opposite.

The strength of the response indexes her agency. In some of the poems we see how the nuns pursued their spiritual goal with unswerving determination in the teeth of sever odds but also were able to direct others along the path of righteousness and allow them the opportunity to enter the Buddhist order.

Complex

When discussing the complex relationship between feminism and these early confessional poems by Buddhist nuns it is important to bear in mind the fact that some of the nuns opted to follow the path laid out by the Buddha after much deliberation. At a time during which the intelligence of women were held in low esteem, some of the nuns were clearly able to display their sharp powers of reasoning and balanced judgment. For example, the nun Bhadda was initially associated with the Jain community; she enjoyed a wide reputation as an able teacher. She once entered into a debate with the reverend Sariputta and was forced to accept defeat. Subsequently, she decided to enter the Buddhist order. This is how the actual ordination is captured in the poem.

With my head shaven
Wearing dust, with one robe,
I roamed imaging a blemish
Where there was none,
And not seeing the blemish
When it was clearly there

Leaving my space of refuse
In Mount Gijjakuta
I happened to see the blemishless
Buddha, surrounded by monks

Having fallen at his feet
Having paid respects
I stood in awe before the Buddha
Come Bhadda he uttered
And I was ordained.

Similarly, the poem by the nun Nanduttara illustrates the independence of mind displayed by these nuns. She hailed from a Brahmin background and had later entered the community of Jains. She was a prominent member of the collective spearheaded by the famous Nighantha Nathaputra. She adhered to the strict rules, regulations and practices endorsed by Jainism. One day, she chanced to hear a sermon delivered by the venerable Mahamoggallana. She was totally persuaded, and chose to become a Buddhist nun. This is the poem by the nun Nanduttara.

I worshipped the fire, moon and sun
And other divine beings.
I visited river-banks and ritually
Dived into the waters.

Undertaking vows
I shaved my head
The earth became my bed
I abstained from food at night.

Exulting in finery and ornaments
Through bathing and massaging
I ministered to my body.
Urged on by sensual desire

Then receiving faith
I entered the houseless state
And saw the body as it was
I have put out the desires
For sensual pleasure

Defeating rebirth
Eliminating desire
Free from all bonds
I have attained perfect peace

So what we see in the confessional Buddhist nuns are a number of vital strands that comport with feminist thinking as it has developed in modern times. The ideas of female agency, the willingness to take charge of their lives, the strength of character needed to fight for what they think is right and just, the capacity to think independently and being unafraid to challenge certain interdictions of patriarchy are among them. This is not to suggest that there is a perfect congruity between the vision emanating from these poems and the formulations of modern feminism as put into circulation by Western thinkers. Therefore, let us first consider the essential outlines of modern feminism,

Modern feminists seek to focus on the complex ways in which power relations pertaining to gender are constituted, reproduced, affirmed, and contested in modern societies. Therefore, the aim of feminists is to bring about a transformation in power relations between males and females in day to day living. Modern feminists, quite rightly in my judgment, focus on the nature of patriarch and how it works to oppress women. In patriarchy men exercise power in ways that serve to keep women in bondage. This arises from the ways in which social discourses are constructed and naturalzed based on physiological sexual differences. As a consequence, the attitudes related to the behavior, roles, working conditions of women are defined in accordance with long-established male norms. It is this mode of thinking that modern feminists seek to challenge and displace.

It is important to bear in mind that there are different schools of feminism despite that fact that all are united by a passionate conviction that women should be granted parity of status as free citizens and the patriarchal structure that underwrites the manifold injustices against women need to be eliminated. Commentators on this subject have identifies such groups of feminists as liberal, radical, socialist and women of color. It is indeed the declared aim of liberal feminists to obtain parity of status and equality of opportunity for women in diverse spheres of activity without seeking to bring about a fundamental change in the existing social and political systems. Radical feminists envision a society in which women will not be under the dominion of men and full individuality of womanhood will be guaranteed. In order to achieve this goal, it is argued, that the true femininity of women has to be re-discovered and this entails the upending of patriarchal structures in society. It is the considered judgment of socialist feminists that patriarchy as an oppressive social system is closely related with racial and class oppressions. Consequently, the aims of feminists can be attained only by a restructuring of the social system that gives equal attention to issues of gender, race and class.

The women of color constitute a different group. They would argue that the experiences and hence the agendas, of women who were subjected to colonial subjugation are not the same as women of the industrially advanced countries. Their subject-positions and historical experiences are different. Therefore, their understanding of feminism cannot be the same as that of white feminists. While recognizing that all feminists share certain features in common, it is argued that there are certain differences and they have to be recognized and folded into the equation.

Feminists also argue that in order to understand the true complexity of their predicament and find efficacious ways of eliminating oppressions and injustices, theoretical sophisticated approaches, methodologies, strategies have to be forged. Newer vocabularies of analysis have to be fashioned. This means that paying solely to women’s experiences is not adequate. Experience is indubitably important; and transforming social relations demands urgent attention; at the same time, it needs to be recognized that the nature of knowledge production and how best to understand it are equally important. This is where sophisticated theory enters the picture. It is no accident that some of the most far-reaching analyses in humanities and social sciences have come from the theoretical explorations of feminist.

What some modern feminists are saying is that while the idea of experience is certainly important, it should not be treated unproblematically. It has to be theorized so that we can fully understand its ramifications. It is through these theoretical inquisitions that we will be able to map the complex intersections between representations of experience, social dynamics, power and resistance. It is in these explorations that we will be able to comprehend the ways in which social structures, social discourses shape and contain experiences. In other words this understanding should give equal emphasis to the material and discursive dimensions. One very important site of these deliberations that is increasingly becoming important is that of language. In order to understand the deeper meanings of femininity, feminine experiences and feminine agendas, we need to pay close attention to how language has become a site for construction and negotiation of meaning.

The theory of femininity that modern thinkers are working towards encompasses the interplays between language, power, subjectivity and social structure. As women’s movements have spread across the globe issues of control of the female body, acquiring a sense of agency, sexual division of labor, equality of access to work and social power, representations of women’s experiences have assumed an ever greater importance. These issues are vitally connected with language.

As our primary focus is on feminism and literary textuality, this focus on language and the theorizations on the determinative role of language becomes important. Language is the site where social structures and social processes are produced; in addition it is the site where our subjectivity, our understandings and images of ourselves are produced. Moreover this subjecthood is not unified, self-contained and harmonious but fragmented and fissured. These divisions are both reflected in and shaped by language.

It is for this reason that modern feminist theorists, in their different formulations, have been quick to give pride of place to the central role of language. The term discourse has assumed a significant space in modern analysis. And discourse which is produced through language points to the diverse and rival ways in which we attribute meaning to society and the world. If we examine the writings of leading feminist theorists such as Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, Shoshana Felman we begin to perceive the centrality of language. When we attempt to locate the poems gathered in the Therigatha in the framework of modern feminist analysis we need to keep in mind the crucial role of language. As we are dealing with literary texts, this imperative becomes doubly significant.

Literary critics who choose to be influenced by feminism are interested in examining the ways in which gender is constructed and represented in literary texts. What feminist scholars are invested in is not only the question of recognition the salience of women’s writings but also in the need to rethink and re-imagine the whole enterprise of literary study itself. This necessitates a focus on the intricate relationships between language, power, subjectivity, ideology. Certain theorists, among them like Irigaray and Cixous, have sought to identify differences that exist between males and females in their deployment of language using some of the concepts of the eminent poststructuralist psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan’s related to the symbolic order. It is with newer conceptual developments such as these in mind that we need to examine the nature of feminist thinking inscribed in the Therigatha..

I pointed out earlier some facets of the poems in Therigatha such as the acquisition of agency, challenges to the patriarchal order, the willingness to defy convention in the interests of larger social and spiritual goals, the privileging of independence of mind, which conform to the basic thinking of feminism which should command our attention. However, when judging them as feminist literary texts we need to draw on the newer thinking inspired by the revelations of language as a central site of the construction of meaning and subjectivity. Let us consider some stanzas from the long poem by the nun Sumedha

Sumedha was born in the city of Mantavati as the daughter of King Konca. As she attained womanhood, her parents wished to give her in marriage to a prince named Anikaratta. However, she had other ideas in mind. From childhood, she was in the habit of visiting the Buddhist nuns’ quarters along with other princesses. There she was introduced to the teaching of the Buddha and she had resolved firmly to put an end to the cycle of birth and death. When Sumedha heard about the decision of her parents, she told them that she was not interested in household life. Their efforts to dissuade her failed; she cut of her hair, concentrated on physical decay; she attained spiritual enlightenment. These are a few stanzas from this long poem that holds up to indictment the attachments to sensual pleasure.

Sensual pleasures are like
A butcher’s knife and a chopping block.
Sensual pleasures are like
Like the head of a snake.
They smolder like a fire-brand’
They are like a bony skeleton.

Sensual pleasures are volatile
They generate pain, are poisonous
They are like heated globs of iron
The root of evil with pain as fruit.

Sensual pleasures are like swords and spears
A pestilence, a tumor, root of evil
Like a furnace of coal, the root of evil, fear, destruction.

These passages draw attention to a number of interesting features of the poems in the Therigatha. All of them are vitally linked to the verbal texture, the linguistic weave, of the poem. First the self-positioning of the nun Sumedha is important. She recounts the story from a position of spiritual strength; she has triumphed over sensual living and realized spiritual enlightenment. The way she addresses her parents and Prince Anikaratta even before she became a nun reflects that position of strength. There is a role reversal here. This is connected to the feminist structure of feeling that I was referring to. Normally women would meekly submit to the dictates of the father or the husband; here the situation is different. She stands up for her passionate convictions and thereby underlines the importance of female agency.

The poem is full of vivid images that call attention to the folly of clinging onto sensual pleasures. What is interesting about these images is that not only are they striking but they are also deeply male-centered; the activities indexed by the images are largely those associated with males and male activities.. Here Sumedha employs them as a woman and in the process undercuts the power of the patriarchal discourse. She deploys the very rhetorical underpinnings of androcentric domination to subvert them. I said earlier that the idea of role reversal is central to the rhetorical architecture of the poem, and this move further strengthens this.

The entire poem is structured on rhetoric of persuasion; this is indeed a trait discernible in many other poems contained in the Therigatha. Sumedha from the vey beginning seeks to persuade her parents, Prince Anikaratta, of the importance of renunciation. Ultimately, this is what the poem seeks to accomplish in terms of the readers – to persuade them of the need to re-examine the nature of worldly existence and to resolve to pursue a path of spiritual renewal. The narrative structure of the poem, the tropes, the locutions, and the clear didactic passages, serve to reinforce this point.

The pervasive image that emerges from this poem is that of a nun who is deeply committed and unwavering in her resolve to enter the Buddhist order. Qualities such as firmness of conviction, independence of mind, decisiveness, the ability to influence others, self-confidence and critical intelligence are normally associated with men. However, in this poem the nun Sumedha displays all these virtues and wins our moral sympathy. Another reason, then, why this poem by the nun Sumedha should be regarded as a poem with feminist leanings is because of this usurpation of male-associated qualities to advance her own agenda. What I have sought to do in my discussion is to train a critical gaze on the verbal texture of the poems in Therigatha, drawing on the cumulative insights of modern literary theory. This is indeed a task fraught with peril, but it can also bring in its train indubitable advantages.

As we examine the idea of confession that finds articulation in the Therigatha, it is important to bear in mind that feminist thinking is also culturally-inflected; how cultures address feminist issues is a topic of inordinate interest.

( to be continued)