Chapter 2: The Nuns Who Sang - The Therīgāthā Poets
The river was quiet in the early light. Across the water, a line of forest shimmered in gold. A small group of women sat cross-legged beneath a neem tree, their ochre robes tucked neatly around their knees. One, older than the rest, began to speak—not in prose, but in verse.
"So freed! So thoroughly freed am I—
from three crooked things set free:
the mortar, the pestle, and my twisted lord..."
The others smiled and repeated the lines aloud. They were not just listening. They were preserving. This was no ordinary gathering. It was part of a new movement within an ancient tradition: women who had left behind domestic duty to follow the Buddha's path, ordained as bhikkhunīs, or fully-ordained nuns. And what they shared that morning was not just poetry. It was scripture—carried in memory, recited in rhythm, passed from voice to voice in the oral tradition that would preserve Buddhist teachings for centuries before they were ever written down. The verses would later form part of the Therīgāthā, or "Verses of the Elder Nuns," among the oldest texts in any religious tradition authored by women.¹
These women did not write for fame. They spoke to survive.
The Therīgāthā, part of the Pāli Canon of Theravāda Buddhism, is a remarkable compilation of seventy-three poems attributed to early Buddhist nuns. Composed between the 6th and 3rd centuries BCE, the verses offer first-person accounts of awakening, renunciation, grief, liberation, and resilience.² They are intensely personal yet philosophically profound—testimonies of enlightenment filtered through the lives of women who defied both caste and custom to walk the path of the Dhamma.
The preservation of these verses reflects Buddhism's unique reliance on oral transmission. Unlike textual traditions that depended on written manuscripts from their inception, Buddhist teachings were memorized, recited, and transmitted through careful oral networks for several centuries before being committed to writing. The Pāli Canon, which includes the Therīgāthā, was not written down until the 1st century BCE in Sri Lanka, meaning these women's voices survived through hundreds of years of communal memory.³
Scholars have long recognized the Therīgāthā as exceptional. In a tradition that privileged male voices—monks, kings, philosophers—these poems preserve the raw, unfiltered experiences of women: former wives, mothers, courtesans, aristocrats, and servants. Some, like Bhaddā Kāpilānī, had been educated and wealthy before joining the order. Others, like the poetess Puṇṇā, spoke of being "born in a family of no account." Yet each found in renunciation a source of power the world had denied them.⁴
Despite their antiquity and beauty, these verses were nearly lost to Buddhist education. While included in the Khuddaka Nikāya (the "Minor Collection"), the Therīgāthā remained marginal within the monastic curriculum. In many countries—including Sri Lanka and Thailand—the poems were rarely memorized or commented upon. Most bhikkhus (monks) focused instead on the Vinaya (disciplinary code) and Abhidhamma (philosophical teachings), with female-authored texts considered peripheral.⁵
The marginalization extended beyond Theravāda Buddhism. While some Mahāyāna texts include verses that may have been composed by women—such as certain songs attributed to female disciples in the Lotus Sutra and biographical accounts in Chinese Buddhist literature—these too received less attention than male-authored teachings.⁶ The pattern was consistent across Buddhist cultures: women's spiritual insights were preserved but not prioritized.
Even when preserved, the Therīgāthā was often interpreted through male lenses. Some early commentaries softened or allegorized the women's words, stripping them of their social context. Others treated the verses as quaint testimonials rather than authoritative doctrine. The oral transmission of Buddhist scripture meant that what was repeated most often became central—and what was neglected faded.
The institutional preference for male teaching lineages played a key role in this silencing. In many Theravāda regions, the bhikkhunī order itself died out by the 11th century, due to wars, invasions, and patriarchal neglect.⁷ Without women in full ordination, their texts too began to lose relevance. It was not until the 20th century that feminist scholars and reformist monks began to recover the Therīgāthā as a vital voice in Buddhist thought.
Translations into English, such as those by K. R. Norman and Charles Hallisey, helped bring the poems to wider audiences.⁸ More recently, Buddhist scholars such as Karma Lekshe Tsomo and contemporary bhikkhunī revival movements—including the work of Dhammananda Bhikkhuni in Thailand and Ayya Tathaaloka in the United States—have reasserted the Therīgāthā not just as history, but as living inspiration, calling it a scripture of liberation that speaks directly to women's inner lives.⁹
In one verse, a nun named Kisāgotamī recounts her transformation after the death of her child:
"I ran to every home in search of mustard seed,
but death had touched them all.
Then I saw: my grief was not mine alone.
And I let go."
These are not abstract teachings. They are direct transmissions of insight, rendered in the breath and cadence of lived experience. They reflect what some scholars now call embodied liberation—a form of awakening grounded in the realities of women's lives, not just metaphysical ideals.¹⁰
And yet, for centuries, the voices of these nuns were not taught. Their names were remembered, if at all, as minor figures in male-authored commentaries. Their verses—some of the earliest examples of female-authored spiritual poetry in world history—were whispered rather than proclaimed.
They sang anyway.
"With shaven head, wrapped in the outer robe,
I sat at the foot of a tree.
For seven days I meditated:
the arrow of craving was removed."
—Therīgāthā 5.2, translated by K. R. Norman
The elder nuns of early Buddhism sang their way into the sacred. They turned grief into clarity, poverty into peace, marginalization into awakening. Their verses survived not because they were central, but because they were memorized, repeated, and cherished by communities who understood their value. Today, their words offer more than historical insight. They offer proof that women, too, knew the Way—and left it in verse for us to follow.
Also Remembered
Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī (6th century BCE): The Buddha's foster mother and the first woman to request and receive ordination. She led the early bhikkhunī community but was later minimized in canonical narratives, with later commentaries emphasizing her initial reluctance to ordain women rather than her pioneering role.
Vijayā (date unknown): A nun whose Therīgāthā verses describe overcoming attachment through insight. One of the few to use militaristic metaphors to describe spiritual battle, her poetry demonstrates the diversity of voices within the collection.
Queen Sāmāvatī (5th century BCE): A royal patron of the Buddha, known for sheltering and supporting hundreds of female followers. Though her role as a lay leader was often downplayed in later texts, she represents the crucial support network that enabled women's monastic communities to flourish.
Tibetan translator-wives (8th–10th centuries CE): Women who worked alongside their husbands in translating Sanskrit sutras into Tibetan, their names largely unrecorded despite their linguistic expertise. Their anonymous contributions helped preserve Buddhist texts that might otherwise have been lost when Buddhism declined in India.
Contemporary Revival Leaders: Figures like Dhammananda Bhikkhuni in Thailand, who reestablished full female ordination there, and Ayya Tathaaloka in the United States, who founded Dharmagiri Hermitage, often invoke the Therīgāthā as scriptural precedent for women's spiritual authority.
Notes
- This opening scene represents a plausible reconstruction based on documented practices of early Buddhist oral transmission and the composition context of the Therīgāthā. While specific gatherings are not historically recorded, the oral preservation of these verses within bhikkhunī communities is well-established. See Charles Hallisey, "Devotion in the Buddhist Literature of Medieval Sri Lanka" (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1988), 45–67, and Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Buddhist Women Across Cultures (SUNY Press, 1999), 23–39.
- K. R. Norman, Elders' Verses II: Therīgāthā (Pali Text Society, 1971), xi–xv.
- Richard Gombrich, Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (Routledge, 1988), 154–159.
- Susan Murcott, The First Buddhist Women: Translations and Commentary on the Therigatha (Parallax Press, 1991), 9–14.
- Chatsumarn Kabilsingh (Dhammananda Bhikkhuni), Thai Women in Buddhism (Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1991), 38–43.
- Diana Paul, Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahayana Tradition (University of California Press, 1985), 67–89.
- Tessa J. Bartholomeusz, Women Under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 55–68.
- Charles Hallisey, trans., Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women (Harvard University Press, 2015), xviii–xxii.
- Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream (Curzon, 2000), 15–32.
- Rita M. Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (SUNY Press, 1993), 87–92.
Further Reading
Charles Hallisey, Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women (Harvard University Press, 2015). The most accessible modern translation with extensive contextual commentary.
Susan Murcott, The First Buddhist Women: Translations and Commentary on the Therigatha (Parallax Press, 1991). Pioneering feminist interpretation that brought these voices to contemporary audiences.
K. R. Norman, Elders' Verses II: Therīgāthā (Pali Text Society, 1971). The authoritative scholarly translation with detailed linguistic notes.
Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Buddhist Women Across Cultures (SUNY Press, 1999). Comparative analysis of women's roles in different Buddhist traditions.
Tessa J. Bartholomeusz, Women Under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka (Cambridge University Press, 1994). Historical study of the bhikkhunī order's rise and decline.
Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, Walking in the Footsteps of the Enlightened Ones (2007). Contemporary perspective from a leading figure in the bhikkhunī revival movement.