Reconnecting the lost lineage: challenges to institutional denial of Buddhist Women's Monasticism in Thailand
Creators: name: Chamsanit, Varaporn
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2006

description: This anthropological thesis examines the complexity of the relationship between women's monasticism, gender and institutional Buddhism in the social and political context of Thailand. It starts by asking a simple, but persistent, question as to why it is difficult for women to gain full access to monasticism and be formally recognized in their capacity as ordained monastics. Three other questions also guide the direction of this study, namely: Despite the difficulty just mentioned, what has enabled various forms of women's monasticism to emerge at different points in history? How can we account for these distinctive forms of women's monasticism? And, what does the condition of women's monasticism tell us about the nature of institutional Buddhism and Buddhist monasticism in Thailand? Based on both ethnographic and historical research,this thesis traces the gender threads that run through the historical development of the Thai Theravada Buddhist monastic institution. It aims at acontextualized understanding of the 'process' in which the monastic institution has become strongly gendered as a male domain. In analytical terms, this thesis moves away from the familiar framework of most previous studies of gender and Buddhism in Thai society, which tend to consider women's religious practice against the background of a purportedly static, monolithic and all-encompassing notion of 'Thai Buddhism' or 'Thai Buddhist culture'. This pre-existing framework tends to take for granted that gender and women's religious practice are shaped by the overarching Thai Buddhist culture,and not vice versa. This thesis, instead, argues that the relationship between gender and institutional Buddhism is always dynamic and mutually reinforcing, with gender conceptions and women's religious practice also playing a vital role in reconstituting the monastic institution over time. This analysis casts a new light on the constructed and shifting nature of institutional Buddhism and the monastic order,and gives a contextualized explanation for the persistent institutional denial of women's monasticism. This thesis also examines the emergence of different forms of women's monasticism at different points in history, with an emphasis on Theravada samaneri(female novice)and phiksuni (female monk) as the most confrontational of the female monastic forms. The thesis argues that institutional Buddhism together with the male monastic order has become consolidated as the most important source of religious legitimation in Thai society. Given this Buddhist hegemony,women,when faced with constraints imposed by institutional Buddhism, may not necessarily want to alienate themselves from that context of institutional religion, but rather seek to become part of it by engaging in a monastic vocation. The proliferation of different forms of women's monasticism thus constitutes women's creative attempts to this end. In most cases, women who seek monastic lives have been discreet and restrained in the construction of their monastic identities so as not to be perceived as openly transgressing institutionally monitored gender roles for women. The emergence of Theravada samaneri and bhikkhuni, with their use of similar religious symbols and a near equivalent status to those of male monks, is thus regarded as a challenge to the accepted gender conception in institutional Buddhism. The fact that monastic women have had to negotiate their religious identities and practices amidst the constraints posed by institutional Buddhism has resulted in a number of paradoxes in Buddhist women's monasticism in Thailand.