Chapter 12: Across Mountains and Monasteries - Buddhist Women in Transmission
In the cool dawn of 8th-century Chang'an, the capital of Tang China, a woman named Yu Shun composed her thoughts before stepping into the translation hall. A former court lady turned Buddhist lay practitioner, she was fluent in Sanskrit and Classical Chinese, and today she would assist in rendering another scroll of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (Flower Garland Sutra) into the local vernacular. She was not listed as a lead translator—those titles went to the monks—but her marginal annotations and clarifying suggestions would shape the version that generations of Chinese Buddhists would chant as sacred scripture.¹
Her name, like many others, survives only in fragments—scribal notes, colophons (scribal signatures or closing statements), donor lists. But together they tell a story of quiet, sustained labor: women who preserved the Dharma not only by teaching and transmitting it orally, but by funding, copying, editing, and performing sacred texts across Buddhist Asia.
While the Buddha's early female disciples—such as Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī and the poets of the Therīgāthā—are celebrated in Pāli sources, later Buddhist institutional histories often muted women's roles in preserving the canon. Yet textual and archaeological evidence shows that women were vital to the longevity and geographical spread of Buddhist scriptures.
In the Mahāyāna traditions of China, Korea, and Japan, women frequently served as donors for sutra (Buddhist scripture) copying projects. Imperial consorts and aristocratic women underwrote lavish productions of texts like the Lotus Sūtra, often commissioning calligraphers, illustrators, and reciters. In Japan, the Empress Shōtoku (8th century) is credited with distributing thousands of printed dhāraṇī (protective mantras) charms—the earliest known examples of block printing—throughout the realm.²
Even outside court circles, ordinary laywomen saved money to sponsor manuscript copying or temple recitation ceremonies. Donor inscriptions carved on cave walls and stone steles in Dunhuang and along the Silk Road list women by name, often including their age and prayers for their deceased family members. These acts were devotional, but also deeply practical: they kept sutras in circulation and preserved them for the future.³
In Tibet, many women became reciters and ritualists, especially in non-monastic contexts. While the higher monastic curriculum was largely closed to nuns until recent decades, laywomen maintained oral traditions, performed rituals, and taught local cosmologies. Some families recognized female tertöns—treasure revealers who recovered hidden texts from mountains, caves, and visions.⁴ Though rarely included in institutional chronologies, these women claimed spiritual authority through revelation rather than ordination.
Elsewhere, in Southeast Asia, women played essential roles in chanting and ritual performance. In Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, women memorized Buddhist texts and passed them on during funerals, merit-making rituals, and festivals. Scholars have documented cases of elderly women in village communities reciting long passages from the Dhammapadaor Jātaka Tales in Pāli, even if they could not read them. Their knowledge was oral, embodied, and socially transmitted.⁵
The Zen tradition in Korea and Japan offers more elusive evidence. Monasteries for women did exist—such as Tōkei-ji in Kamakura-era Japan, where women could find refuge from abusive marriages—but their scribal output was often subsumed under male institutions. However, recent paleographic studies show subtle signs of female authorship: shifts in calligraphy, feminine linguistic choices, and marginal notes that reveal a gendered voice behind anonymous manuscripts.⁶ Korean scholars have identified similar patterns in Seon (Korean Zen) texts, where women's contributions appear in commentary traditions and ritual manuals, though formal attribution remains contested.⁷
These scholarly debates about attribution reflect broader methodological challenges in recovering women's voices from Buddhist manuscript traditions. Paleographers now use computer analysis to identify distinctive handwriting patterns, while linguists examine vocabulary choices and grammatical structures that might indicate female authorship. This emerging field demonstrates how modern technology is revealing previously invisible contributions to Buddhist textual transmission.
In the modern era, Buddhist women have begun reclaiming these histories through organizations that directly continue this legacy. Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women, founded in 1987, has gathered oral histories, reprinted women's commentaries, and trained new generations of female teachers.⁸ The Buddhist Congress of Malawi works to preserve African Buddhist women's contributions to meditation practices and community leadership. In Taiwan, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, led by Dharma Master Cheng Yen, demonstrates how contemporary women continue the tradition of scriptural preservation through education and publishing.⁹
In Bhutan and Nepal, nuns now engage in full scriptural study and debate, recovering educational opportunities that were historically restricted. In Sri Lanka, bhikkhunī ordination has resumed after a thousand-year absence, with women like Bhikkhuni Kusuma leading efforts to restore women's monastic education. In the West, teachers like Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and Thubten Chodron publish accessible translations and commentary, continuing the work their foremothers once performed in silence.
Still, many contributions remain unnamed. A partially preserved sutra in the British Library's Dunhuang collection includes a scribal note thanking a woman called "Lady Liang" for providing the paper and ink. That one line—tucked between mantras—may be her only surviving trace. But it changed the fate of the text.
"This scroll copied with ink and devotion by humble hands, for the benefit of all beings. Commissioned by Lady Liang."
—Colophon, Sutra of the Golden Light, Dunhuang manuscript S.4639, British Library Collection
They did not sit at doctrinal councils or lead monasteries, but they shaped the Dharma with gold leaf, memorized it under lantern light, and sang it into the fabric of their communities. Their names have faded, but the scrolls they funded endure. Their voices may be missing from commentaries, but they live in the pages they helped preserve. Where the sangha left gaps, women filled them—with ink, incense, and quiet resilience.
Also Remembered
Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī (6th century BCE, India): The Buddha's aunt and the first ordained bhikkhunī. Her successful petition for women's ordination established the legal framework that enabled later generations of women to participate in monastic education and textual preservation.
Empress Shōtoku (8th century, Japan): Royal patron of Buddhist printing and scripture distribution. Her sponsorship of dhāraṇī printing represents one of the earliest examples of mass textual reproduction in Buddhist history.
Lady Liang (Tang dynasty, China): Anonymous donor cited in a Dunhuang manuscript colophon. Her simple donation inscription represents thousands of unnamed women whose material support made textual preservation possible.
Tibetan Female Tertöns (8th century–present): Women treasure revealers who discovered and transmitted hidden texts through visionary experience. They demonstrate how women claimed religious authority outside formal monastic structures.
Contemporary Buddhist Women Leaders (20th–21st century): Figures like Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Dharma Master Cheng Yen, and Bhikkhuni Kusuma who continue the tradition of scriptural preservation through teaching, publishing, and institutional leadership.
Village Ritual Specialists (Southeast Asia, ongoing): Women who maintain oral Buddhist traditions through chanting, storytelling, and ritual performance in rural communities across Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Notes
- This opening scene represents a plausible reconstruction based on documented practices of Buddhist translation projects in Tang China and evidence of women's participation in scholarly activities at Chang'an. While Yu Shun's specific involvement is constructed for narrative purposes, women's roles as translators and assistants in Buddhist scriptural projects are historically attested. See Susan Whitfield, Life Along the Silk Road (University of California Press, 1999), 115–120.
- Donald F. McCallum, The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2009), 87–90.
- Liu Xinru, Silk and Religion: An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People, AD 600–1200 (Oxford University Press, 1996), 65–70.
- Janet Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (Princeton University Press, 1998), 32–37.
- Monica Lindberg Falk, Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand(University of Washington Press, 2007), 44–50.
- Beata Grant, Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns (Wisdom Publications, 2003), Introduction, xix–xxv.
- On Korean Buddhist women, see Martine Batchelor, Women in Korean Zen: Lives and Practices (Syracuse University Press, 2006), 45–67.
- Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream (Curzon, 2000), 15–32.
- On contemporary Buddhist women's organizations, see Karma Lekshe Tsomo, "Buddhist Women Today," in Buddhist Women Across Cultures, ed. Karma Lekshe Tsomo (SUNY Press, 1999), 251–270.
Further Reading
Beata Grant, Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns (Wisdom Publications, 2003). Collection and analysis of poetry by Chinese Buddhist women with historical context on their roles in preserving tradition.
Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Buddhist Women Across Cultures: Realizations (SUNY Press, 1999). Comprehensive survey of women's roles in Buddhist traditions globally, including textual preservation and contemporary revival efforts.
Monica Lindberg Falk, Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand (University of Washington Press, 2007). Ethnographic study of how Thai women maintain Buddhist traditions through ritual practice and oral transmission.
Janet Gyatso, Apparations of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (Princeton University Press, 1998). Analysis of Tibetan Buddhist women's visionary literature and its role in preserving esoteric teachings.
Susan Whitfield, Life Along the Silk Road (University of California Press, 1999). Historical reconstruction of daily life in medieval Central Asia, including women's roles in Buddhist manuscript culture.
Martine Batchelor, Women in Korean Zen: Lives and Practices (Syracuse University Press, 2006). Study of Korean Buddhist women's contributions to Seon tradition and practice.