One plus one makes three: Buddhist gender, monasticism, and the law of the non-excluded middle

History of Religions

Volumn 43, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 89-115

  Gyatso, Janet ^a  

^a HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247593912     PISSN: 00182710     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/423006     Document Type: Review

References (103)

1. Works critical of Buddhist misogyny and androcentrism include Diana Paul, Women in Buddhism (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1979)
2. Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
3. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism (Berkeley: Parallax, 1991)
4. Rita M. Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993)
5. and June Campbell, Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism (London: Athlone, 1996)
6. Books that take encouragement from Buddhist deifications of the feminine principle include Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism in India (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Pres, 1994)
7. and Judith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism (Boston: Shambhala, 2001)
8. Versions of this story and the Eight Heavy Rules appear to be present in all of our extant versions of the Vinaya. See Gustav Roth, Bhikscombining dot belowuncombining dot belowī-Vinaya: Manual of Discipline for Buddhist Nuns (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1970), pp. xxix-xxxi
9. See also Akira Hirakawa, Monastic Discipline for the Buddhist Nuns: An English Translation of the Chinese Text of the Mahāsāmcombining dot belowghika-Bhikscombining dot belowuncombining dot belowī- Vinaya (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1982), pp. 47-49, nn. 2 and 6
10. Anne Hiermann, "Chinese Nuns and Their Ordination in the Fifth Century," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 24, no. 2 (2001): 275-304, n. 41
11. has pointed out that Jan Nattier (Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline [Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991], p. 30, n. 12), was mistaken in asserting that the story postdates the Sthavira-Mahāsāmcombining dot belowghika split. However, Nattier maintains that the Mahāsāmcombining dot belowghika version of the story is garbled, suggesting it is a later interpolation (personal communication, November 6, 2002)
12. The order of the rules varies somewhat. See Roth, p. xxxii, for the list according to the Mahāsāmcombining dot belowghika Vinaya. The Pali version is in Cullavagga 10.1.1-6 (translated in I. B. Horner, trans., The Book of the Discipline [Vinaya-Pitcombining dot belowaka] [London: Pali Text Society, 1942], 5:352)
13. See, e.g., Nancy Auer Falk, "The Case of the Vanishing Nuns: The Fruits of Ambivalence in Ancient Indian Buddhism," Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives, ed. Nancy Auer Falk and Rita M. Gross (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1989), pp. 207-24
14. Gregory Schopen has made important contributions to our understanding of the competition between monks and nuns in the early centuries C.E., as well as the active role of nuns in the image cult and patronage before their demise. See his "On Monks, Nuns, and 'Vulgar' Practices: The Introduction of the Image Cult into Indian Buddhism," in Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997), pp. 238-57
15. and "The Suppression of Nuns and the Ritual Murder of Their Special Dead in Two Buddhist Monastic Texts," Journal of Indian Philosophy 24 (1996): 563-92
16. For impressive stories of twentieth century Thai nuns Voramai and Sara and Chongdi Bhasit, who acted on feminist sentiments, see Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism. And yet many modern and international bhikscombining dot belowuncombining dot belowīs produce apologies for the Eight Heavy Rules. See, e.g., Venerable Bhiksuni Wu Yin, Choosing Simplicity: Commentary on the Bhikshuni Pratimoksha (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snowlion Publications, 2001), pp. 81-89
17. The list of what disqualifies a man from receiving ordination (P., antarāyikā dhammā; Tib., bar chad [the "impediments" ]) varies significantly, but it often includes some of the serious ānantarika crimes such as murder of parents or an arhat. Lists from Pali Vinaya tradition may be found Mahavagga 1.61; 2.22; 2.36.3; 8.30; 9.4.2 (translated in Mahavagga in I. B. Horner, trans., The Book of the Discipline [Vinaya-Pitcombining dot belowaka] [Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1951], vol. 4)
18. For Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya lists, see Vinayavastu, Asian Classics Input Project (hereafter ACIP), Release 4 (New York, 1998), text KDOOO111.ACT, p. 73
19. and Vinaya-Sūtra and Auto-Commentary on the Same by Guncombining dot belowaprabha. Pravrajyā-vastu, ed. P. V. Bapat and V. V. Gokhale (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1982), sūtras 117-54
20. Comparative remarks on the Dharamagupta Caturvargika Vinaya provided in P. V. Bapat with A. Hirakawa, trans., Shan-Chien-P'i-P'o-Sha, a Chinese Version by Saṅghabhadra of Samantapāsādikā (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1970), p. li. The list of impediments to ordination for women is different, but it often includes more specifications of kinds of sexual ambiguity: Cullavagga 10.17.1; Roth, pp. 31-33; Hirakawa, pp. 61-62. See n. 71 below
21. Some of these listed Mahavagga 1.71, 76
22. But in Mahavagga at least, being a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka or hermaphrodite is listed with the first group, those who have committed crimes
23. The Therīgāthā tells that one of the past lives of Isidāsī was born as neither a male nor a female (n'eva mahilcombining dot belowā na purisa), this condition being the fruit of bad karma: The Thera-and Therī-gāthā, ed. Hermann Oldenberg and Richard Pischel (London: Pali Text Society, 1883), p. 166
24. (translated in C. A. F. Rhys Davids and K. R. Norman, trans., Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns [Therīgāthā] [Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1981], p. 140). Mahavagga 1.61 relates how a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka tried to induce monks, novices, and grooms to defile him (it is not specified what that would entail) upon which he was pronounced unchaste and not to be ordained. A story in Vinayavastu tells of a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka who wanted to take ordination so as to have opportunities for sex: ACIP text KDOOO111.ACT, pp. 131-32
25. The Śārirasthāna of Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā assumes that there are three possible sexes of a child: male, female, and neuter (lit., "not male" [napumcombining dot belowsakam]). The latter is specified by the commentary Āyurvedadīpikā to have a simple hole instead of a penis. See Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārirasthāna 4.10 and 14: Agniveśa, Caraka Samcombining dot belowhitā, Based on Cakrapāncombining dot belowi Datta's Āyurveda Dīpikā, ed. and trans. Ram Karan Sharma and Vaidya Bhagwan Dash (Varanasi: Chowkamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1976), 2:391, 393-94. Chapter 2 of the same Śārirasthāna only envisions two sexes for the newborn, male and female
26. but lists eight types of sexual abnormality between them: see n. 14 below. Compare the classical Tibetan medical text, probably codified in the twelfth century C.E.: bDud rtsi snying po yan lag brgyad pa gsang ba man ngag gi rgyud (hereafter rGyud bzhi) (Lhasa: Bod-ljongs Mi-dmangs dPe-skrun-khang, 1992), pp. 17, 29. The term napumcombining dot belowsaka is used occasionally for the third sex in Buddhist sources as well: see n. 11 below
27. The root Pali Vinaya texts usually mention only two main types of sexual excludees, pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas and hermaphrodites (ubhatovyañjanaka), as in Mahavagga 1.61, 68, 69; see also Milindapañha with Milinda-tcombining dot belowīkā, ed. V. Trenckner and P. S. Jaini (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1986), pp. 310, 94-95 (I. B. Horner, trans., Milinda's Questions, 2 vols. [Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1963-64]). The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinayavastu regularly mentions the scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowha (alternately, scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowa) (Tib. za ma) along with the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka. Vasubandhu lists scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowha, pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, and ubhatovyañ janaka as the three kinds of people excluded from ordination on sexual grounds: Abhidharmakośam Bhāscombining dot belowya Sphutcombining dot belowārthā Sahitam, ed. Swami Swarikadas Shastri (Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati, 1970), 2.1.c (1:137). But other than Suttavibhanga 1.9.1 (translated in Horner, The Book of the Discipline [Vinaya Pitcombining dot belowaka] [London: Oxford University Press, 1938], vols. 1-3), which specifies that there may be human, nonhuman, or animal pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas, I have found no definitions of the terms pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka or scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowha as such until Yaśomitra, who distinguishes scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowhaka, one who lacks either female or male genitals by nature, from the pancombining dot belowdaka, whose aberrational sex is due either to something undertaken on purpose or to disease or injury: Sphutcombining dot belowārthā Abhidharmakośa- vyākhyā of Yaśomitra, ed. Narendra Nath Law (London: Luzac & Co., 1949), p. 94
28. The terms scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowa/ka, scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowha/ka, and scombining dot belowāncombining dot belowdcombining dot belowya are also known to the classical Ayurvedic tradition, as in Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārirasthāna 2.21 and Suś rutasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārirasthāna 2.41-42, 44. See also nn. 74-76 below. On the set of five kinds of pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, see n. 16 below, but even there the term is not defined as such. An instance where the term pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka stands for the class of sexual anomalies as a whole may be found in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinayavibhanga where it repeatedly forms a trio with male and female in the specifications of kinds of proscribed sex. But the analogous Pali text, Suttavibhanga, regularly lists instead four kinds of people with whom sex is forbidden: males, females, pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas, and hermaphrodites. Cullavagga 10.17 and other lists of disqualifications for female ordinands (see n. 6 above and n. 71 below) confirm that there can be a woman pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka. Vinayavibhanga also regularly distinguishes the category of male pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka (Tib. ma ning pho). Pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka is defined by Sir Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit English Dictionary, new ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1956) as a weakling or eunuch. "Eunuch" is a common translation for pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, but this is clearly inadequate to cover its semantic range
29. Leonard Zwilling, "Homosexuality as Seen in Indian Buddhist Texts," in Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. Jose Cabezon (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 204, asks if the etymology could be from apa + ancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowa + ka, "with (eggs =) testicles (taken) away." But Steven Collins (personal communication, February 20, 2001) rejects this theory since there is no other example of apa → pa in Pali even if api → pi is common. Other labels for sexual anomalies that merit exclusion from ordination are also to be found in the root Vinaya texts. For example, Vinayavastu (ACIP text KDOOO111.ACT, p. 69), characterizes the three kinds of anomaly as the state of lacking genitals (mtshan med = animitta), of having two genitals (mtshan gnysis = dvinimitta? or ubhatovyañjanaka), and of being a gle 'dams, which can refer either to a castrated man or to a woman whose vagina and anus are joined (= samcombining dot belowbhinna-vyañjanā, see also n. 70 below)
30. Occasionally the term napumcombining dot belowsaka is also used in Buddhist sources for sexual anomaly: Paramatthadīpanī: Dhammapāla's Commentary on the Therīgāthā, ed. E. Müller (London: Pali Text Society, 1893), p. 260
31. Other terms from Mūlasar-vāstivāda tradition may be culled from Mahāvyutpatti, ed. R. Sasaki, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Suzuki Gakujutsu Zaidan, 1965), including vātāncombining dot belowdcombining dot belowa, ekāncombining dot belowdcombining dot belowa, anāncombining dot belowdcombining dot belowa, puruscombining dot belowānukrcombining dot belowtistrī, stryanukrcombining dot belowtipuruscombining dot belowa, ancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowalāṅgulapraticchanna, sadāprasravancombining dot belowī, alohinī, and naimittikī. A widely used Indic term for the sexually anomalous person is klība, but it does not seem to occur in Buddhist sources: see Wendy Doniger, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991), pp. 79-85. Compare n. 14 below
32. Suśrutasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārī rasthāna 2.43 refers to the conditions for the birth of a female who acts like a man, and a comment on Suśrutasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārīrasthāna 2.45 asserts that there are both female (nārī-) and male (nara-) kinds of scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowhas: Priya Vrat Sharma, ed. and trans., Suśruta-samcombining dot belowhitā (Varanasi: Chaukhambha Visvabharati, 2000), 2:137
33. On the balance of the parents' seeds see Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārīrasthāna 2.18; the same view is echoed in Tibetan medical tradition
34. Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārī rasthāna 2.17-21 indicates eight types of sexual abnormality: (1) Hermaphroditism (dviretas) resulting from a vitiation of the embryo's genital cells and an equal division of the parent's sperm and ovum. (2) A wind condition of the organ (pavanendriyatva) resulting from a wind (vāyu) problem in the testicles of the foetus. (3) A condition of weak sexual desire (samcombining dot belowskāravāha) caused by a wind obstruction in the seminal passage. (4 and 5) A sexually deficient state (klība) in either males or female caused by weakness or insufficient seminal substances in the parents. (6) Bent shape (vakrī) of the male organ, caused by weakness of the father's organ and a resistance to sex on the part of the mother. (7) A condition in which pleasure derives from jealousy (in watching others have sex) (īrscombining dot belowyrati), a proclivity produced by the parents' jealousy and reduced arousal. (8) The congenital state of being a eunuch, caused by a wind or fire condition that destroys the testicles (vātikascombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka)
35. In addition to the īrscombining dot belowyrati mentioned in Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā, Suśrutasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārīrasthāna 2.38-41 also describes other congenital aberrations in sexual practice: āsekya, the condition, due to weak seminal substances in the parents, in which one gets an erection from consuming the semen of others; saugandhika, the condition in which one is aroused by the smell of female and male genitals, a result of being born from a putrid vagina; and kumbhīka, the condition in which one is aroused by receiving anal penetration. Compare the īrscombining dot belowyrati and āsekya pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas in the Buddhist monastic descriptions in n. 16 below. On the Ayurvedic attribution of all such conditions to the person's parents, see Suśrutasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārīrasthāna 2:47
36. The earliest source I have found would seem to be Vinayavastu, from the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya (ACIP text KDOOO111.ACT, p. 132), although the date of this text is not known. The list is absent in the Pali Vinaya root texts and seems first to emerge in Pali in Buddhaghosa's Vinaya commentary, Samantapāsādikā (ed. J. Takakuksu [Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1924; reprint, 1999], p. 1016). These two examples of the list diverge in their understanding of some of the types. The Mūlasarvā stivāda list is also represented in Gunaprabha's Vinaya-Sūtra, sutras 130-33; see also sutra 18. A later source is Yaśomitra's commentary on Abhidharmakośa 2.1, where he traces the list specifically to the Vinaya, but distinguishes an Abhidharma view of the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, which would focus on the (dys)function of the sexual faculty or organ (indriya): Sphutcombining dot belowartha, pp. 94-95; cf. n. 52 below. The list of five is as follows: (1) The Vinayavastu's jāti- or jātyāpancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka (skyes nas ma ning), a congenital condition in which the infant is neither male nor female, corresponds to the Samantapāsādikā's napumcombining dot belowsaka, a child born without determinate gender. Yaśomitra calls this the prakrcombining dot belowtipancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka. Compare the use of the term jātinapumcombining dot belowsaka: Paramatthadīpanī (see n. 11 above), p. 271. (2) The Vinayavastu's pakscombining dot belowapancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka (zla ba phyed pa'i ma ning), someone who is a female half the month and a male for the other half, corresponds to the Samantapāsādikā's pakkhapancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, here explained as someone who, as a result of bad karma, is a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka for the dark half of the month but is relieved of their sexual cravings in the light half. On changing sex, see nn. 61-66 below. One Tibetan exegete explains this monthly cycle entirely in terms of sexual desire: this pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka has male sexual desire for half of the month and female sexual desire for the other: dGe-'dun 'Grub, Legs par gsungs pa'i dam pa'i chos 'dul ba mtha' dag gi snying po'i don legs par bshad pa rin po che'i 'phreng ba, in 'Dul tcombining dot belowīk rin chen 'phreng ba (Beijing: Mi-rigs dPe-skrun-khang, 1999), p. 50
37. The Vinayavastu's āsaktaprādurbhāvi pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka ('khyud nas ltang ba'i ma ning), someone who "comes out" (which could either mean becomes aroused or ejaculates) when embraced by another, has a different sense in the Samantapāsā dikā's "sprinkled" or āsitta pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, there explained as one who performs oral sex on another and is sprinkled with impurity. Note that the Sanskrit āsakta would be derived from the root ā√sañj whereas the Pali āsita would be derived from ā√sic. Yaśomitra aligns himself with the ā√sic etymology in naming this the āsekapancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka, but he does not discuss the term further. We should also compare here Suśrutasamcombining dot belowhita's sexual condition called āsekya: see n. 15 above. (4) The Vinayavastu's īrscombining dot belowyāpancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka (ma ning phrag dog can), a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka with jealousy, is explained as the voyeur, someone who is aroused by watching the actions of others. This type corresponds to the Samantapāsādikā's usuyyapancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka as well as to the condition of īrscombining dot belowyrati listed in the Ayurvedic literature (see nn. 14 and 15 above). (5) The Vinayavastu's āpatpancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka (nyams pa'i ma ning) someone who becomes a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka by virtue of adventitious conditions such as illness or surgery corresponds to the Samantapāsādikā's opakammikapancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka. Yaśomitra calls this the lūna (mutilated) pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka. For an idiosyncratically Tibetan rendition of the list, see dBang'dus, Bod gangs can pa'i gso ba rig pa'i dpal ldan rgyud bzhi sogs kyi brda dang dka' gnad 'ga' zhig bkrol ba sngon byon mkhas pa'i gsung rgyun gyu thog dgongs rgyan (Beijing: Mi-rigs dPe-skrun-khang, 1983), p. 410. In general the list remains relatively stable across South Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, but discrepancies indicate some confusion about what the individual types refer to. Type 3 pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka seems more clearly conceived by Samantapāsādikā, while type 2 seems more clearly conceptualized in Vinayavastu. Yaśomitra understands types 2-4 to suffer various kinds of impairment in the functioning of their sexual faculty (indriya), a functioning that is signalled by the ability of the male organ to generate pleasure (in orgasm) and to produce offspring
38. mtshan med pa, mtshan gnyis pa, and 'gyur ba ma ning. The earliest occurrence of this widely used trio may be the grammatical work rTags 'jug: Sum cu pa dang rtags kyi 'jug pa, ed. Zuiho Yamaguchi (Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 1973), p. 9
39. It is standard by the time of Zurmkhar-ba Blo-gros rGyal-po, rGyud bzhi'i 'grel pa mes po'i zhal lung (hereafter Mes po'i zhal lung), 2 vols. (Beijing: Krung-go'i Bod-kyi Shes-rig dPe-skrun-khang, 1989), vol. 1, e.g., pp. 219, 698. As referenced above in n. 11, an almost parallel trio occurs in the Tibetan translation of Vinayavastu: mtshan med, mtshan gnyis, and gle gdams pa
40. I study monastic prohibitions against sex in "Sex," in Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism, ed. Donald Lopez (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming). It seems that people who desire conventional homosexual sex, whatever that might be, can be ordained and can stay ordained, as long as they do not actually have sex. Exactly the same would be true for people with heterosexual desires. Zwilling, p. 205, destroys his own argument that pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas are homosexuals when he writes, "The Vinaya, in fact, goes so far as to distinguish sexual activity between normative males from sexual relations between a socially normative male and a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka." Some depictions of pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas do show them engaging in sex with men, as in Vinayavastu, pp. 131-32, where it is also specified that a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka wanted to play the role of the female. Homosexual activity is also suggested in the descriptions of the Samantapāsādikā's understanding of the āsitta pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka; see n. 16 above
41. Trcombining dot belowtiyaprakrcombining dot belowti occurs in Kāmasūtra and Nātcombining dot belowyaśāstra
42. Mahavagga 1.69, 38.5
43. Leon Hurvitz, trans., Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 209
44. For example, Visuddhimagga 5.40-42 (translated in Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification, trans. Bhikkhu Ñyāncombining dot belowamoli, 2 vols. [Berkeley: Shambhala, 1976]) avers that both hermaphrodites and pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas are among those who cannot develop kasina concentration, or indeed any kind of meditation at all, due to their defilement and bad kamma. Abhidharmakośabhā scombining dot belowya 4.43 also asserts that neither pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas or sancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowhas are subject to any of the three disciplines (from verse 13: those of monasticism, meditation, and the pure path), nor indeed the absence thereof
45. Milindapañha, p. 310. The others on this list are similar to those who cannot take ordination: see n. 6 above. But note that Vinayavibhanga expels from ordination monks who revile (sun phyung ba) pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas - along with, among others, bhikscombining dot belowuncombining dot belowīs (ACIP text KD000311.INC, p. 15)
46. Abhidharmakośabhāscombining dot belowya 4.43: pāpe 'pyasthirāśayatvāt. See also Abhidharmakośabhā scombining dot belowya 4.97, where it is added that the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka does not have strong enough feelings for its parents for it to be a candidate for violating the rules against the serious (ānantarya) crimes of patricide, etc. But cf. n. 6 above, regarding the listing of the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka right next to committers of these crimes in the lists of ordination exclusions
47. Abhidharmakośabhāscombining dot belowya 4.43 attributes this excess to having the desires of both sexes: ubhayāśrayakleś ādhimātrata. See also n. 9 above
48. This connection is especially clear in Tibetan sources. For example, 'Jam-dbyangs bZhad-pa (1648-1721), bSam gzugs kyi snyoms 'jug rnams gyi rnam par bzhag pa'i bstan bcos thub bstan mdzes rgyan lung dang rigs pa'i rgya mtsho skal bzang dga' byed (photocopy of block print), pp. 21-22, attributes the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka's inability to make distinctions (so sor rtog pa mi bzod pa) to its inability to attain meditative absorption, along with its lack of shame and circumspection (ngo tsha and khrel yod pa). The pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka shares these problems with the inhabitants of Uttarakuru. Thanks to Jeffrey Hopkins for this reference. Compare Milindapañha, pp. 94-95, which maintains that pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas are among those who cannot keep a secret because of being fickle and indecisive. Abhidharmakośabhāscombining dot belowya 4.80 makes similar points about the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka's inability to establish, and therefore also to destroy, virtuous roots
49. I am preparing a separate article on the distinctive Tibetan construal of the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka/ma ning class
50. Carakasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārī rasthāna 2.18, 24-25
51. Yang-dgon-pa rGyal-mtshan dPal, rDo rje lus kyi sbas bshad, in The Collected Works (Gsun 'bum) of Yan-dgon-pa Rgyal-mtshan-dpal (Thimphu: Kunsang Topgey, 1976), 2:457. Note that this work is also published in gSang chen thabs lam nyer mkho rnal 'byor snying nor, ed. Dor-zhi gDong-drug sNyems-blo (Beijing: Mi-rigs dPe-skrun-khang, 1991), which incorrectly identifies the author as a Sa-skya-pa
52. Sa-chen Kun-dga' sNying-po, Lam 'bras gzhung bshad sras don ma, in Lam 'bras slob bsad: The Sa-skya-pa Teachings of the Path and the Fruit, according to the Tshar-pa Transmission (Dehra Dun: Sakya Center, 1983), pp. 4, 266-67
53. Yang-dgon-pa, p. 454. Also, an early medical text, gYu-thog Yon-tan mGon-po's sKor tshoms stong thun bcu gcig las gnyis pa chu'i stong thun, in Gyu thog cha lag bco brgyad: A Corpus of Tibetan Medical Teachings Attributed to Gyu-thog the Physician (Delhi: Topden Tshering, 1976), 1:343-50, can speak of three kinds of digestive juices - male, female, and ma ning - without explaining these terms; that suggests that this gendered tripartite taxonomy, in which the ma ning category stands for a middle point along a continuum, was already well known
54. rGyud bzhi, p. 560; Mespo'i zhal lung, 1:699
55. But apparently those below will resent them and - a curious detail - their male relatives will arise as enemies: rGyud bzhi, p. 560
56. Although the medical tradition usually uses the term byang chub sems risa, which could be rendered "bodhicitta pulse," the root text rGyud bzhi does use the longer phrase byang chub sems dpa ' ir rtsa, "bodhisattva pulse," on p. 560; repeated also in Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:700. The several occurrences of the abbreviated term byang chub sems rtsa in the root text could be explained by metrical considerations
57. Robert Kritzer, pp. 4-5, in "The Four Ways of Entering the Womb (garbhāvakrānti)" Bukkyo Bunka (Buddhist culture) 10 (2000): 1-41
58. See Kritzer, pp. 18-19, citing the Vibhāscombining dot belowā
59. gNubs-chen Sangs-rgyas Ye-shes, Sangs rgyas thams cad kyi dgongs pa 'dus pa'i mdo'i dka' 'grel mun pa'i go cha lde mig gsal byed rnal 'byor nyi ma, in Rñin ma bka' ma rgyas pa, ed. H. H. Bdud-'joms Rin-po-che (Darjeeling: Dupjung Lama, 1987), 52:131-32. I am grateful to Jake Dalton for this reference
60. Hurvitz (n. 21 above), pp. 307-8, 314-15
61. rDo-rje Gling-pa, dPal ye shes kyi mgon po ma ning nag po'i gsang ba 'khor lo'i rgyud, in dPal ye śes kyi mgon po ma nin nag po'i chos skor (Thimphu: Kunzang Tobgyel, 1984), p. 93: pho mo gang du'ang ma nges pas / sangs rgyas kun gyi 'phrin las bsgrubs
62. This argument is based on my reading of the rTags 'jug (see n. 17 above) and its commentaries, particularly Si-tu Pancombining dot below-chen Chos-kyi 'Byung-gnas (b. 1699/1700, d. 1774), Yul gangs can pa'i brda yang dag par sbyor ba'i bstan bcos kyi bye brag sum cu pa dang rtags kyi 'jug pa'i gzhung gi rnam par bshad pa mkhas pa'i mgul rgyan mu tig phreng mdzes (Dharamsala: n.p., 1960), pp. 74-80. It concerns the discussion of suffixes in Tibetan; in fact all letters are subject to changing degrees of strength or weakness depending on the varying phonic contexts created when they join with various suffixes, but only the terminology of the ma ning letters explicitly names that changeability. I am presenting this argument in detail for another publication
63. rDo-rje Gling-pa, p. 92: pho mo ma ning gsum tshangs bas / 'dus pa chen po'i rgyud du bzung
64. For example, Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:699; cf. rTse-le sNa-tshogs Rang-grol, dPal ye shes kyi mgon po ma ning nag po'i srog dbang bka' gtad zab mo'i las rim, in 'Ja' tshon pod drug gi dban dpe, by rTse-le sNa-tshogs Ran-grol and Nag-dban mthar-phyin (Leh: Tobdan Tsering, 1978), pp. 377-78: pho rgyud dang mo rgyud kyi rigs dang sde tshan gang yang 'dis mi' thul ba'i gnyen por ma gyur pa gcig kyang med cing thabs shes gnyis su med pa'i ye shes kyi sku yin pa na ma ning gi mtshan du btags pa yin pas
65. See, e.g., Michael Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978)
66. for a lucid introduction to some of the mathematical issues involved, see Alexander George and Daniel J. Velleman, Philosophies of Mathematics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), chap. 4
67. The notion of mucosity is developed in Irigaray's essay "Sexual Difference," in The Irigaray Reader, ed. Margaret Whitford (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 175
68. I would submit that the concept of a third sex accomplishes such subversion more effectively than does the often-cited goddess chapter in Vimalakirtinirdesa, which endeavors also to show the provisional nature of sexual identity, albeit merely by demonstrating it through magical fiat
69. This point was first made in sustained form by Paul (n. 1 above)
70. Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:699
71. Several medical writers, including Gong-sman-pa (fifteenth century) and bKra-'bum-pa (eighteenth-nineteenth century), make the point that the characterizations of a pulse as ma ning and so on are metaphorical (dpe don sbyar ba): dBang-'dus, pp. 410-11
72. Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:699-700
73. Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:700
74. rGyud bzhi, p. 560
75. Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:699. Zur-mkhar-ba's use of these terms differs from their sense in the Abhidharmakośa. The Tibetan sems rgyud would be equivalent to the Sanskrit cittasantati as in Abhidharmakośa 3.3, but the meaning there is very general, referring to all mental activity and capacity, with no mention of gendered features. Indriya does serve as a label for male and female sexual identity in the Abhidharma, where it seems to be a basic force that produces, respectively, male or female genitals along with other gender-specific features: see, e.g., Abhidharmakośabhāscombining dot belowya 2.1b. See also Zwilling (n. 11 above), p. 206, discussing Buddhaghosa. However, in both Sanskrit and Tibetan there is a certain slippage whereby indriya or dbang po sometimes refers to the sexual organ, particularly the male organ, as such. An example would be Yaśomitra's definition of the castrated lūnapancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka as one whose indriya is cut (cheda): Sphutcombining dot belowārthā, p. 94. The relation of indriya to sexual identity merits more study
76. This point and the following are argued in Gyatso (n. 18 above)
77. This is how it is defined in the Vinayavastu's description of the jātyāpancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka (ACIP text KDOOO111.ACT, p. 132) and in Yaśomitra's gloss of the class of pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas and scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowhas in general (Sphutcombining dot belowārthā, p. 94); see also Mes po'i zhal lung, 1:219: de gnyis kar ma nges pa ma ning
78. gYu-thog Yon-tan mGon-po (?), rTsod bzlog gegs sel 'khor lo, in Gyu thog cha lag bco brgyad, 1:327
79. Samantapāsādikā, Buddhaghosa's Commentary on the Vinaya Pitcombining dot belowaka, trans. J. Takakusu and M. Nagai (London: Pali Text Society, 1924), p. 214
80. This is indicated by the repeated use of the label passāvamagga, "path of urine," for the vagina, e.g., Suttavibhanga 1.9.1. In the corresponding passage of Vinayavibhanga, the Tibetan translation gives zag byed, "defiled" for vagina, seemingly readjusting the Sanskrit semantics, and aligning itself with standard Buddhist misogynist views of female sexuality. There seems also to be some ingenious etymological acrobatics at work there: Mahāvyutpatti, entry no. 9227, indicates that zag byed corresponds to Skt. prasrāvancombining dot belowa[karancombining dot belowa], "urine maker." Normally Tib. zag or zag bcas translates Skt. āsrava
81. Kenneth Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)
82. Gilbert Herdt, ed., Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History (New York: Zone Books, 1993)
83. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (New York: Basic Books, 2000)
84. See Paul (n. 1 above); a more recent study is Jan Nattier, "Gender and Enlightenment: Sexual Transformation in Mahāyāna Sūtras" (unpublished manuscript, University of Indiana, 2002)
85. Samantapāsādikā, 1:273
86. Mi-bskyod rDo-rje (1507-55) mentions these in passing in his 'Dul ba ñi ma'i dkyil 'khor: A Detailed Commentary on the Vinayasutra and Buddhist Monastic Discipline (New Delhi: Eighth Khams sprul Don-brgyud-ñi-ma, 1973), 1:348, with reference to a larger discussion on Mūlasarvā stivāda Vinaya sources. For the rules about what happens when a sex change takes place during an ordination session, see Gunaprabha's Vinaya-Sūtra, sūtras 618-19. dGe-'dun Grub, pp. 381-86, provides a good example of the intricate Tibetan elaborations on the legal implications of various kinds of sex change in the Vinaya
87. The history of this restriction deserves further study; it does not seem to be present in the early layers of the Pali Vinaya. And it is not the same condition as the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka who changes sex every month. Three-time change occurs in a list of what prevents ordination in Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya tradition in Vinaya-Sūtra, sūtra 617. A key early Tibetan Vinaya exegete explains that after three changes one lacks any reliable identity as either a male or a female, and so cannot take ordination in either order; it is also what renders one a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka: mTsho-sna-ba Shes-rab bZang-po, 'Dul tcombining dot belowik nyi ma'i 'od zer legs bshad lung gi rgya mtsho (Beijing: Khrun-go'i Bod-kyis Shes-rig dPe-skrun-khang, 1993; reprint, 1998), p. 214
88. The only hint to the contrary that I have found is in dGe-'dun Grub's characterization of the half-month pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka: see n. 16 above
89. It also does not render one a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka: mTsho-sna-ba, p. 214
90. He also grants that for both sexes, the disappearance of their original genitals is a result of bad deeds and the growth of genitals of the opposite sex is a result of merit; in this he seems to be most concerned about the undesirability of having your genitals change, no matter what you are originally, and also to assume that to be left with no genitals at all (i.e., to be a pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka) would be a bad fate indeed. Samantapāsādikā, 1:274
91. A paradigmatic set of examples may be found in the first section of the Suttavibhaṅga
92. A brief comparison of bhikscombining dot belowu and bhikscombining dot belowuncombining dot belowi precepts is provided by Hirakawa (n. 2 above), pp. 38-42; also, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, A Comparative Study of Bhikkhunī Pātcombining dot belowimokkha (Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1984)
93. This seems to mean that her anus and vagina are joined. The term is also used for a kind of sexually inadequate male: see n. 11 above. It is also listed as an illness in Mahāvyutpatti, entry no. 9514; it is the only one among the excluded sexual anomalies to be included here
94. Cullavagga 10.17.1; Samantapasādikā, p. 548. A similar list, including the "woman pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka" is found in Mahāsāmcombining dot belowghika Lokottaravāda Vinaya tradition: see Hirakawa, p. 61, but the "quasi-Prakrit-cum-Sanskrit" (Roth [n. 2 above], p. lx) version in Roth, p. 33, is quite different from the Chinese and hard to construe. A Sarvāstivāda version is found in C. M. Ridding and L. de la Vallée Poussin, "Bhikscombining dot belowuncombining dot belowī-karmavācanā, a Fragment of the Sanskrit Vinaya," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 1 (1917-20): 131. The various lists of female sexual anomalies are interesting and deserve further study; I have not yet located one in Mūlasarvā stivāda Vinaya texts, but most of the members of the list, along with many of the other antarāyika states, are included in Mahāvyutpatti, sec. 27
95. Suttavibhaṅga Samcombining dot belowghādisesa 3.3.1
96. Also suggesting that the pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaka is like a potential and dangerous female sexual partner is a list of those from whom the monk may not beg for alms: prostitutes, widows, unmarried women, nuns, and pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowakas: Mahavagga 1.38.5. For such associations more generally in India, see Will Roscoe, "Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion," History of Religion 35 (February 1996): 195-230
97. An example in Indic sources suggesting that the third sex is like a female is the description of the scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowha in Suśrutasamcombining dot belowhitā Śārīrasthāna 2.41-42
98. Often, like scombining dot belowancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowha, za ma denotes a castrated male: Mes po zhal lung, 1:698
99. dGe-'dun Grub, p. 403. The za ma state is one of the sexual anomalies that prevents ordination: sometimes it is distinguished from ma ning, as in Mi-skyod rDo-rje, p. 403, but it also is often used synonymously with ma ning: Krang-dbyi-sun et al., eds., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo (Beijing: Mi-rigs dPe-skrun-khang, 1993; reprint, 1998), p. 2443
100. bTsan-lha Nga-dbang Tshul-khrims, ed., brDa dkrol gser gyi me long (Beijing: Mi-rigs dPe-skrun-khang, 1997), p. 792
101. See also Mes po zhal lung, 1:698, quoting Byang-pa bKra-shis dPal-bzang; here Zur-mkharba corrects Byang-pa, arguing that to equate ma ning and za ma is a mistake and insisting that the za ma is someone who has been castrated whereas the ma ning is one of the three types: changing, hermaphrodite, or neuter. The
102. Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, p. 2443; bDud rtsi snying po, p. 375; Mes po'i zhal lung, 2:309. Sometimes the term used is za ma mo, but I would argue that here za ma is in apposition to mo rather than modifying it. Sog-po Lung-rigs bsTan-dar (seventeenth century?) confirms the sense of za ma as specifically female by defining it as someone whose menstrual discharge comes out every month: rGyud bzhi'i brda bkrol rnam rgyal a ru ra'i phreng ba'i mdzes rgyan (Beijing: Mi-rigs dPe-skrun-khang, 1986), p. 296. dBang-dus, p. 529, interestingly explains the slippage by saying that although za ma in general refers to a castrated male or someone with diminished desire, the term has come to be a word for female, because (like a woman) such people's experience of sex is that their partners are consummated (za ba) when they experience in themselves the flavor of their desire, while they themselves are unable to arouse their own desiring organ and use it to have sex with others. In this he seems to be implying also that the za ma could be a male with what for dBang-'dus is a female sexual orientation
103. Thupten Phuntsok, personal communication, March 2000, Shang-Shung Institute, Conway, Mass. This resonance is reflected in the sense of the term more generally as meaning weak desire or sexual impotence