PSALMS OF THE
BUDDHIST SISTERS
With Ashoka's conversion in the
mid-third century B.C.E., the teachings of the Buddha quickly spread throughout
India. Many men and women joined the Sangha as professed monks and nuns.
One of the primary features of Buddhism, and one that made it particularly
attractive to many people, was its abolition of distinctions inherent in caste
system. Sexual discrimination was also pervasive in traditional Hindu society.
Women who became Buddhist bikkhuni, or "female monastics,"
were thus given greater opportunities for personal spiritual development
lacking in Hinduism. Accompanying the spread of Buddhism was a great outburst
of spiritual, intellectual, and artistic activity among both the bikkhuni
and bikkus, their male monastic counterparts. Indeed, the reverence for
female arhants, or "worthy ones," is keenly illustrated by the
Therigatha, or Hymns of the Sisters, which form a part of the
Buddhist Pali canon, or Tripitaka. The 73 stanzas that comprise the
Therigatha were committed to writing in the early first century B.C.E.,
having been transmitted orally for centuries along with brief, half-legendary
sacred biographies of the female arhants. Varying in length from a few
short lines to many long verses, the psalms often provide insight into why the
seventy-one women represented in the Therigatha became attracted to the
strict discipline of the Order.
(Psalms of the Early Buddhists, Volume 1--Psalms of the Sisters, C.A.F. Rhys Davids, trans., The Pali Text Society, Oxford University Press [London: 1909], pp. 77-79, 142-46, 156-63. The language of the texts has been slightly updated.)
The way by which men come we
cannot know;
Nor can we see the path by
which they go.
Why mournest then for him who
came to you,
Lamenting through your tears:
"My son! my son!"
Seeing you know not the way he
came,
Nor yet the manner of his
leaving you?
Weep not, for such is here the
life of man.
Uninvited he came, unbidden
went he hence.
Lo! ask yourself again whence
came your son
To bide on earth this little
breathing space?
By one way come and by another
gone,
As man to die, and pass to
other births--
So hither and so hence--why
would you weep?
Lo! from my heart the hidden
shaft is gone,
The shaft that nestled there
she hath removed,
And that consuming grief for my
dead child
Which poisoned all the life of
me is dead.
Today my heart is healed, my
yearning stayed,
Perfected the deliverance
wrought in me.
Lo! I for refuge to the Buddha
go--
The only wise--the Sangha and
the Norm.
A maiden I, all clad in white
once heard
The Norm, and hearkened
eagerly, earnestly,
So in me rose discernment of
the Truths.
Thereat all worldly pleasures
irked me sore,
For I could see the perils that
beset
This reborn compound,
"personality,"
And to renounce it was my sole
desire.
So I forsook my world--my
kinsfolk all,
My slaves, my hirelings, and my
villages,
And the rich fields and meadows
spread around,
Things fair and making for the
joy of life--
All these I left, and sought
the Sisterhood,
Turning my back upon no mean
estate.
Amiss were it now that I, who
in full faith
Renounced that world, who well
discerned the Truth,
Who, laying down what gold and
silver bring,
Cherish no worldly wishes
whatsoever,
Should, all undoing, come to
you again!
Silver and gold avail not to
awake,
Or soothe. Unmeet for
consecrated lives,
They are not Ariyan--not
noble--wealth.
Whereby greed is aroused and
wantonness,
Infatuation and all fleshly
lusts,
Whence comes fear for loss and
many a care:
Here is no ground for lasting
steadfastness.
Here men, heedless and maddened
with desires,
Corrupt in mind, by one another
let
And hindered, strive in general
enmity.
Death, bonds, and torture,
ruin, grief, and woe
Await the slaves of sense, and
dreadful doom.
Why herewithal, my
kinsmen--nay, my foes--
Why yoke me in your minds with
sense-desires?
Know me as one who saw, and
therefore fled,
The perils rising form the life
of sense.
Not gold nor money can avail to
purge
The poison of the deadly Asavas.
Ruthless and murderous are
sense-desires;
Foeman of cruel spear and
prison-bonds.
Why herewithal, my
kinsmen--nay, my foes--
Why yoke me in your minds with
sense-desires?
Know me as she who fled the
life of sense,
Shorn of her hair, wrapped in
her yellow robe.
The food from hand to mouth,
gleaned here and there,
The patchwork robe--these
things are good for,
The base and groundwork of the
homeless life.
Great sages spew forth all
desire of sense,
Whether they be in heaven or on
earth;
At peace they dwell, for they
freeholders are,
For they have won unfluctuating
bliss.
Never let me follow after
worldly lusts,
Wherein no refuge is; for they
are foes,
And murderers, and cruel
blazing fires.
Oh! but an incubus is here, the
haunt
Of dread and fear of death, a
thorny brake,
A greedy maw it is, a path
impassable,
Mouth of a pit wherein we lose
our wits,
A horrid shape of doom
impending--such
Are worldly lusts; uplifted
heads of snakes.
Therein they that be fools find
their delight--
The blinded, general, average,
sensual man.
For all the many souls, who
thus befooled
Err ignorant in the marsh of
worldly lusts,
Heed not that which can limit
birth and death.
Because of worldly lusts
mankind is drawn
By woeful way to many a direful
doom--
Where every step does work its
penalty.
Breeders of enmity are worldly
lusts,
Engendering remorse and vicious
taints.
Flesh baits, to bind us to the
world and death.
Leading to madness, to
hysteria,
To ferment of the mind, are
worldly lusts,
Fell traps by Mara laid to ruin
men.
Endless the direful fruit of
worldly lusts,
Surcharged with poison, sowing
many ills,
Scanty and brief its sweetness,
stirring strife,
And withering the brightness of
our days.
For me who thus have chosen,
never will I
Into the world's disasters come
again,
For in Nirvana is my joy
always.
So, fighting a good fight with
worldly lusts,
I wait in hope for the Cool
Blessedness,
Abiding earnest in endeavor,
until
Nothing does survive that
fetters me to them.
This is my Way, the Way that
leads past grief,
Past all that does defile, the
haven sure,
Even the Ariyan Eightfold Path,
called Straight.
There do I follow where the
Saints have crossed.
In the fair city of Patna,
earth's fairest city,
Named for its beauty after the
Trumpet-flower,
Dwelt two saintly sisters, born
of the Sakiyas,
Isidasi the one, Bodhi the
other.
Precept-observers, lovers of Jhana-rapture,
Learned ladies and cleansed
from the taint of all worldliness.
These having made their round,
and broken their fasting.
Washed their bowls, and sitting
in happy seclusion,
Spake thus one to the other,
asking and answering:
"You have a lovely
countenance, Isidasi,
Fresh and unwithered yet is
your women's prime,
What flaw in the life yonder
have you seen,
That you did choose surrender
for your lot?"
Then in that quiet spot
Isidasi,
Skilled in the exposition of
the Norm,
Took up her tale and thus did
make reply:
"Hear, Bodhi, how it was
that I came forth.
In Ujjeni, Avanti's foremost
town,
My father dwells, a virtuous
citizen,
His only daughter I, his
well-beloved,
The fondly cherished treasure
of his life.
Now from Saketa came a citizen
Of the first rank and rich
exceedingly
To ask my hand in marriage for
his son.
And father gave me him, as
daughter-in-law.
My salutation morn and eve I
brought
To both the parents of my
husband, low
Bowing my head and kneeling at
their feet,
According to the training given
me.
My husband's sisters and
brothers too,
And all his kin, scarce were
they entered when
I rose in timid zeal and gave
them place.
And as to food, or boiled or
dried, and drink,
That which was to be stored I
set aside,
And served it out and gave to
whom it was due.
Rising betimes, I went about
the house,
Then with my hands and feet
well cleansed I went
To bring respectful greeting to
my lord,
And taking comb and mirror,
liniments, soap,
I dressed and groomed him as a
handmaid might.
I boiled the rice, I boiled the
pots and pans;
And as a mother on her only
child,
So did I minister to my good
man.
For me, who with infinite toil
thus worked,
And rendered service with a
humble mind,
Rose early, ever diligent and
good,
For me he felt nothing save
sore dislike.
Nay, to his mother and his
father he
Thus spoke:--`Give me your
leave and I will go,
For not with Isidasi will I
live
Beneath one roof, nor ever
dwell with her.'
ëO son, speak not in this way
of your wife,
For wise is Isidasi and
discreet,
An early riser and a housewife
diligent.
Say, does she find no favor in
your eyes?'
`In nothing does she work me harm,
and yet
With Isidasi I will never live.
I cannot suffer her.Ý Let be, let be!
Give me your leave and I will
go away.'
And when they heard, mother and
father-in-law
Asked of me: `What then have
you done to give offence?
Speak to us freely, child, and
speak the truth.'
`Naught have I done that could
offend, nor harm,
Nor nagged at evil words.Ý What can I do,
That me my husband should so
sorely dislike me?'
To guard and keep their son,
they took me back,
Unwilling guides, to my
father's house, distressed,
Distraught, he spoke: `Alas!
we're beaten, pretty Luck!'
Then father gave me for the
second time as bride,
Content with half my husband's
sire had paid.
From that house too, when I had
dwelt a month,
I was sent back, though I had
worked and served,
Blameless and virtuous, as any
slave.
And yet a third, a friar
begging alms--
One who had self controlled,
and could control
Favor in fellow-men--my father
met
And spoke to him thusly: `Be my
son-in-law!
Come, throw away that ragged
robe and pot!'
So he came, and we dwelt one
half moon more
Together.Ý Then to my father thusly he spoke:
`O give me back my frock, my
bowl and cup.
Let me go away to seek once
more my scraps.'
Then to him my father, mother,
all the tribe
Of kinsfolk clamoring [said]:
`What is it then
Here dwelling likes you
not?Ý Say quick, what is it
That we can do to make you
better pleased?'
Then he [said]: `If for myself
I can suffice,
Enough for me. One thing I
know: beneath
One roof with Isidasi I'll not
live!'
Dismissed he went. I too, alone
I thought.
And then I asked my parents'
leave to die,
Or, that they suffer me to
leave the world.
Now Lady Jinadatta on her beat
Came by my father's house for
daily alms,
Mindful of every moral precept,
she,
Learned and expert in the Vinaya.
and seeing her we rose, and I
prepared
A seat for her, and as she sat
I knelt,
Then gave her food, both boiled
and dried,
And water--dishes we had set
aside--
And satisfied her hunger. Then
I said
`Lady, I wish to leave the world.'
`Why here,' my father said,
`dear child, is scope for you
To walk according to the Norm.
With food and drink can you
gratify the holy folk
And the twice-born. But of my
father I,
Weeping and holding out clasped
hands, besought:
"Nay, but the evil karma I
have done,
That would I expiate and wear
away.'
Then father said: `Win
Enlightenment
And highest Truth, and gain
Nirvana. That
Has He, the Best of Beings,
realized.'
Then to my mother and my father
dear,
And all my kinsfolk tribe I
bade farewell.
And only seven days had I gone
forth
Where I had touched and won the
Threefold Lore.
Then did I come to know my
former births,
Even seven thereof, and how
even now I reap
The harvest, the result, that
then I sowed.
That will I now declare to you,
and you
Will listen single-mindedly to
my tale.
In Erakaccha's town of old I
lived,
A wealthy craftsman in all
works of gold.
Incensed by youthful blood, a
wanton, I
Assailed the virtue of my
neighbors wives.
Therefrom deceasing, long I
cooked in hell,
Until, fully ripened, I
emerged, and then
Found rebirth in the body of an
ape.
Scarce seven days I lived
before the great
Dog-ape, the monkey's chief,
castrated me.
Such was the fruit of my
lasciviousness.
Therefrom deceasing in the
woods of Sindh,
Reborn the offspring of a
one-eyed goat
And lame; twelve years a
gelding, gnawn by worms,
Unfit, I carried children on my
back.
Such was the fruit of my
lasciviousness.
Therefrom deceasing, I again
found birth,
The off-spring of a
cattle-dealer's cow,
A calf of lac-red hue; in the
twelfth month
Castrated, yoked, I drew the
plough and cart,
Purblind and worried, driven
and unfit.
Such was the fruit of my
lasciviousness.
Therefrom deceasing, even in
the street
I came to birth, child of a
household slave,
Neither of woman nor man of my
sex.
Such was the fruit of my
lasciviousness.
At thirty years of age I died,
and was reborn
A girl, the daughter of a
carter, poor
And of ill-fortune, and
oppressed with debts
Incurred to usurers.Ý To pay the sum
Of interest that ever grew and
swelled,
In place of money, woeful
little me
The merchant of a caravan
dragged off,
Bearing me weeping from my
home.
Now in my sixteenth year, when
I
Blossomed a maiden, that same
merchant's son,
Giridasa the name of him loved
me
And made me wife.Ý Another wife he had,
A virtuous dame of parts and of
repute,
Enamored of her mate.Ý And thus I brought
discord and enmity within that
house.
Fruit of my karma was it thus
that they--
In this last life--have
slighted me, even though
I waited on them as their
humble slave.
Well! Of all that now have I
made an end!