Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories from the Saddharmaratnavaliya [Paperback]

The Saddharmaratnavaliya (SDV) represents a post canonical Sinhalese text composed in the 13th century drawing from the older c. 5th century Dhammapada Commentary with additions and changes, some of which could represent variant readings, embellishments or perhaps lost commentarial material. It mirrors related works expanding on the original Jataka tales with a wealth of historical, anthropological and cultural detail and much reference to Sri Lanka. Such secondary material (e.g. Buddhist folk tales) of local importance is often lost and provides novel material to any curious reader. No translation of the SDV appears to be available in English and this work is a new part translation with 26 chapters, each generally representing the biography of a female disciple from the time of the Buddha.

The principal comparison for the SDV and this selection is offered by E. W. Burlingame's Buddhist Legends (1921) representing the original Dhammapada Commentary in three volumes through the PTS. It is apparent that many of the stories as translated from the SDV are mostly the same as from the Dhammapada Commentary. Obeysekare places her work in relief by (1) focussing on women in early Buddhism and (2) changes in the discussions and appreciation of women which are apparent between the 5th and 13th centuries, aligning her introductory discussion and some notes to topical issues of gender studies and feminism.

Portraits of Buddhist Women is too subjective in tackling the second aspect covering an interval of approximately a millennium with sizeable shifts in events as well as attitudes. E.g. between the 5th and 13th centuries the nun's lineage from the time of the Buddha became extinct in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the capital moved and Buddhism was subject to some disastrous upheavals. These changes are not outlined in the book. The introduction does cover aspects of the style of the work and the flow of the narrative and the possible attitude of the author towards women thought to be the Elder Dharmasena along with possible changes in attitudes of monks towards women disciples.

The translated stories are carefully selected incorporating some of the most important female disciples and the presentations are fairly full with accompanying footnotes. The English could have been more polished and some translated terms may be too literal. E.g. "the evil of being obsessed with color" with reference to the Chief Disciple Khema where beauty or appearance would have better substituted color. Adequate details are not given for many untranslated terms and of pronunciation including proper names (e.g. Cinca). The footnotes are sometimes circular with inadequate explanation. The Acknowledgements at the front of the book suggest that the book could have taken longer in gestation with more care given to explanation, sources, editing and prose.

This is a reasonable and often interesting introductory text to derived commentarial material that represents an untapped seam for further translations and scholarship. Portraits of Buddhist Women is a useful study to add to those existing on female disciples of the Buddha as well as issues on gender, particularly from an Asian perspective.

This collection of Buddhist stories (each of which feature a woman as the main character) is variously entertaining, rambling, weird, violent...in one story, an enlightened queen and her retinue are locked into the palace. When fire starts to consume the building, the trapped occupants reach very high levels of attainment! And, it turns out, the reason they burned to death in this life is because in their past lives they had accidentally set fire to an Arahat (an Enlightened being) who was sitting under a pile of hay... Just as a story, it far surpasses, for example, Harry Potter!

These 26 'folksy' stories are translations from a 13th century Sri Lankan (Sinhalese) Buddhist text, meant to explain Buddhist doctrine to an agrarian, lay population; I found the stories very entertaining. I am a Buddhist so that does give me a particular point of view. Still, I know a good story when I read one...!

In another story, a woman bends over in her bath and is molested by a dog. She does not stop the dog, and "endures the pleasure." She lies about the experience to her guileless husband, then devotes the rest of her life to supporting monks. When she dies, she goes to hell for seven days, and then to heaven. The story means to illuminate the hazards of lying, and how one can balance bad karmic results with good. It is interesting to note that her visit to hell resulted from lying-not from enjoying a carnal tryst with a dog...

Buddhists at least can be grateful to the translator of Portraits of Buddhism Women, whose wish must have been not only to make more of the Dhamma available to English-speaking people, but perhaps more importantly, to make available some stories that overall portray women as they should be portrayed, as human, spiritual beings.

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