Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender

Edited by Jose Ignacio Cabezon

Subjects: Buddhism
Paperback : 9780791407585, 262 pages, December 1991
Hardcover : 9780791407578, 262 pages, January 1992
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Introduction: Jose Ignacio Cabezon I. Gender and Buddhist History

1. Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism
Alan Sponberg

2. The Female Mendicant in Buddhist Sri Lanka
Tessa Bartholomeusz

II. Gender and Contemporary Buddhist Culture

3. Buddhism and Abortion in Contemporary Japan: Mizuko Kuyo and the Confrontation with Death
Bardwell Smith

4. Buddhist Women of the Contemporary Maharashtrian Conversion Movement
Eleanor Zelliot

III. The Rhetoric of Gender in Buddhist Texts

5. Gender and Persuasion: The Portrayal of Beauty, Anguish, and Nurturance in an Account of a Tamil Nun
Paula Richman

6. Lin-chi (Rinzai) Ch'an and Gender: The Rhetoric of Equality and the Rhetoric of Heroism
Miriam L. Levering

IV. Gender and Buddhist Symbols

7. The Gender Symbolism of Kuan-yin Bodhisattva
Barbara E. Reed

8. Mother Wisdom, Father Love: Gender-Based Imagery in Mahayana Buddhist Thought
Jose Ignacio Cabezon

V. Buddhism and Homosexuality

9. Homosexuality as Seen in Indian Buddhist Texts
Leonard Zwilling

10. Kukai and the Tradition of Male Love in Japanese Buddhism
Paul Gordan Schalow

Contributors

Index

Description

This book explores historical, textual, and social questions relating to the position and experience of women and gay people in the Buddhist world from India and Tibet to Sri Lanka, China, and Japan. It focuses on four key areas: Buddhist history, contemporary culture, Buddhist symbols, and homosexuality, and it covers Buddhism's entire history, from its origins to the present day. The result of original and innovative research, the author offers new perspectives on the history of the attitudes toward, and of the self-perception of, women in both ancient and modern Buddhist societies. He explores key social issues such as abortion, he examines the use of rhetoric and symbols in Buddhist texts and cultures, and he discusses the neglected subject of Buddhism and homosexuality.

José Ignacio Cabezón is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He is the author of A Dose of Emptiness: An Annotated Translation of the sTong thun chen mo of mKhas grub dGe legs dpal bzang, also published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"It fills an important gap in the field—a serious, textually close reading of gender's influence on Buddhist thought and vice versa. " — Anne Klein