page_title: Dhammananda Bhikkhuni
section_title: Early life, education, and ordination
hierarchical_section_title: Dhammananda Bhikkhuni / Early life, education, and ordination
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the buildings in Wat Songkhammakalyani Temple complex, Thailand.
context_page_description: Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, was born Chatsumarn Kabilsingh or Chatsumarn Kabilsingh Shatsena is a Thai bhikkhuni. On 28 February 2003, Kabilsingh received full monastic ordination as a bhikkhuni of the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka. She is Abbess of Songdhammakalyani Monastery, the only temple in Thailand where there are bhikkhunis.
context_section_description: Chatsumarn Kabilsingh was born in 1944 to Voramai Kabilsingh and Kokiat Shatsena. Her mother, Voramai, also called Ta Tao Fa Tzu (d. 2005), was ordained as bhikkhuni in a Dharmaguptaka lineage in Taiwan in 1971 - the first modern Thai bhikkhuni.  Songdhammakalyani means "temple where women uphold the Dharma" and it is located in Nakhon Pathom near Bangkok.
  Chatsumarn received Buddhist instruction and training along with the nuns. She says that her father, Kokiat, was "the first Thai man I knew who strongly supported the revival of the Bhikkhuni Sangha in Thailand." Unusual for Thai women, Chatsumarn received a higher education. After high school, she received her B.A. in Philosophy from Visva Bharati University, her M.A. in Religion from McMaster University in Canada, and her Ph.D. in Buddhism from Magadh University in India. She married, has three sons and 6 grandchildren. She taught for 27 years at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand, in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. She is a well-known author of many books on contemporary issues in Asian Buddhism; many were published before her ordination and are under her birth name, Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh.
  She has often said that she knew she would become a monastic in the Buddhist tradition at some point in her life; she was just waiting for the right time. That time came in 2000 when she took early retirement from Thammasat University and received the bodhisattva's precept from the Fo Guang Shan order in Taiwan. In 2001, she took her sāmaṇerī ordination in Sri Lanka from R. Saddha Sumana Bhikkhuni and T. Dhammaloka Bhikkhu. In 2003, she was ordained a full bhikkhuni in Sri Lanka, the first Thai woman to be ordained in a Theravada monastic lineage, as Dhammananda. Her ordination lineage is Syamopali from Dambulla chapter. She currently resides at the Songdhammakalyani Monastery in the Muang District, Nakhonpathom province, Thailand. Since her ordination, Dhammananda has written more than 100 books, designed to educate the public about various issues related to Thai Buddhism, including the place of women.
caption: A new building in the Songdhammakalyani Monastery complex - the nunnery founded by her mother
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