Sūtras About Women

In the first of the two parts of The Benefits of the Five Precepts, a man and woman who have been married since they were very young and have never been unfaithful to each other ask the Buddha how they can remain together in future lives. The Buddha replies that this is possible for couples such as them who are equal in faith, ethical discipline, generosity, and wisdom, and who practice the Dharma together. In the second, longer part of the sūtra, the Buddha gives a teaching on the five precepts, by which one renounces the five negative deeds‍—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, speaking falsehoods, and consuming intoxicants. The sufferings in various hells that are the consequence of those five negative deeds are described, as are the benefits experienced by those who renounce them.

In this lengthy final chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, while the Buddha Śākyamuni is in meditation in Śrāvastī, Mañjuśrī leaves for South India, where he meets the young layman Sudhana and instructs him to go to a certain kalyāṇamitra or “good friend,” who then directs Sudhana to another such friend. In this way, Sudhana successively meets and receives teachings from fifty male and female, child and adult, human and divine, and monastic and lay kalyāṇamitras, including night goddesses surrounding the Buddha and the Buddha’s wife and mother. The final three in the succession of kalyāṇamitras are the three bodhisattvas Maitreya, Mañjuśrī, and Samanta­bhadra. Samanta­bhadra’s recitation of the Samanta­bhadra­caryā­praṇidhāna (“The Prayer for Completely Good Conduct”) concludes the sūtra.

Manipulated into a murderous rage by the jealous Queen Anupamā, King Udayana launches a barrage of arrows at Queen Śyāmāvatī. King Udayana is terrified when Queen Śyāmāvatī pays homage to the Buddha, cultivates loving kindness, and the arrows are repelled. Awestruck by such a spectacle and inspired by Queen Śyāmāvatī’s words of praise for the Buddha, King Udayana approaches the Buddha and requests a teaching on the inadequacies of women. The Buddha tells King Udayana that he must first understand his own faults and proceeds to deliver a discourse on the four faults of men, such as attachment to sense pleasures and failure to take care of elderly parents. The teaching is delivered with a plethora of analogies and striking imagery to turn the mind away from sensual desires. The work concludes with King Udayana giving up his weapons and going for refuge in the Three Jewels, filled with love for all beings.

In The Questions of Gaṅgottarā, a laywoman named Gaṅgottarā leaves her home in the city of Śrāvastī and visits the Buddha Śākyamuni in Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park. The Buddha asks her from where she has come, sparking a dialogue on the true nature of things. Among other things, they discuss the fact that, from the perspective of ultimate truth, all things, including Gaṅgottarā herself, are like magical creations, and thus no one comes or goes or pursues nirvāṇa. After their dialogue, the Buddha smiles. When Ānanda asks him why, he explains that a thousand tathāgatas of the past have already taught this discourse at this same location to a thousand different laywomen, all named Gaṅgottarā; and that through it they have all achieved nirvāṇa. The sūtra concludes with a brief explanation of the reasons why the present laywoman named Gaṅgottarā received this teaching and how it should be remembered in the future.

In this Mahāyāna sūtra, a group of the Buddha’s most eminent śrāvaka disciples are collecting alms in the city of Rājagṛha when they arrive at the palace of King Ajātaśatru. There, the king’s daughter Aśokadattā, who is seated on an ornate throne, neither rises from her seat to greet them nor pays them any form of respect. Outraged by her rudeness, the king chastises her. The girl is unrepentant, and in a series of elegant verses she explains to her father the superiority of the bodhisattva path, which renders such obeisance to śrāvakas inappropriate. The eminent śrāvaka disciples then engage the girl in debate, but each in turn is silenced by the eloquence and confidence of her replies, by which she deconstructs their questions based on her knowledge of the emptiness of all phenomena. Having thus impressed them, she descends from her throne and serves them humbly with food and drink. They then all go together to Vulture Peak, where the Buddha prophesies her future full awakening.

Vimalaśraddhā, the daughter of King Prasenajit, comes to see the Buddha in Jetavana, Anātha­piṇḍada’s Park, together with a retinue of five hundred women. She pays homage to the Buddha and asks him to explain the conduct of bodhisattvas. The Buddha responds by presenting twelve sets of eight qualities that bodhisattvas should cultivate. Vimalaśraddhā and her five hundred companions, having developed the mind set on awakening, join the ranks of the bodhisattvas, and the Buddha prophesies her future attainment of awakening.

The Miraculous Play of Mañjuśrī presents a series of profound teachings within a rich narrative structure involving a beautiful courtesan’s daughter, Suvarṇottama­prabhāśrī. A banker’s son has purchased her favors, but while they are riding together toward a pleasure garden the girl’s attention is captivated instead by the radiantly attractive Mañjuśrī, who gives her instructions related to the meaning of the mind set on awakening. She then expresses her new understanding in a dialogue with Mañjuśrī, in the presence of King Ajātaśatru, his retinue, and the citizens of Rājagṛha. Meanwhile the banker’s son, with the help of Mañjuśrī and Śakra, experiences his own realization and receives teaching from the Buddha himself. The sūtra deals with well-known Mahāyāna themes, but places special emphasis on the emptiness and sameness of all phenomena.

The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara begins with a miracle that portends the coming of the Nāga King Sāgara to Vulture Peak Mountain in Rājagṛha. The nāga king engages in a lengthy dialogue with the Buddha on various topics pertaining to the distinction between relative and ultimate reality, all of which emphasize the primacy of insight into emptiness. The Buddha thereafter journeys to King Sāgara’s palace in the ocean and reveals details of the king’s past lives in order to introduce the inexhaustible casket dhāraṇī. In the nāga king’s palace in the ocean, he gives teachings on various topics and acts as peacemaker, addressing the ongoing conflicts between the gods and asuras and between the nāgas and garuḍas. Upon returning to Vulture Peak, the Buddha engages in dialogue with King Ajātaśatru and provides Nāga King Sāgara’s prophecy.

During an alms round in Vārāṇasī, the Buddha Śākyamuni encounters a brahmin woman by the name of Śrīmatī. Inspired by the Buddha’s majestic and graceful presence, Śrīmatī inquires about the teaching he gave at nearby Deer Park. In response, the Buddha reprises the teaching on how the twelve links of dependent origination lead to suffering and how their cessation leads to the end of suffering. Śrīmatī then asks about the nature of ignorance, the first of the twelve links. The Buddha offers a profound response and raises the distinction between ultimate truth and conventional teaching. At this, Śrīmatī makes the aspiration that she too may turn the many wheels of Dharma just as the Buddha has done. The Buddha then smiles and prophesies her eventual awakening. The sūtra concludes with the Buddha describing Śrīmatī’s virtuous deeds in past lives, in which she had venerated each of the six previous buddhas.

This sūtra contains teachings given by the Buddha to a 120-year-old woman in the city of Vaiśalī. Upon meeting the Buddha, she asks him questions concerning the four stages of life, the aggregates, the elements, and the faculties. In response, the Buddha gives her a profound teaching on emptiness, using beautifully crafted examples to illustrate his point.

After hearing these teachings her doubts are dispelled and she is freed from clinging to the perception of a self. Ānanda asks the Buddha why he has given such profound teachings to this woman. The Buddha reveals that the woman has been his mother five hundred times in previous lifetimes and that he had generated the root of virtue for her to become enlightened. Because of her own strong aspirations, after dying, she would be born in the buddhafield of Sukhāvatī, and after sixty-eight thousand eons she would finally become the buddha Bodhyaṅga­puṣpa­kara.

In this sūtra, Subhūti, one of the Buddha’s close disciples, enters into a discussion with several individuals in the course of his alms rounds. His primary interlocutor is a laywoman who reveals herself to be a bodhisattva great being named Strīvivarta; her teachings are profound and challenging, consistently pointing in the direction of ultimate truth. The sūtra culminates in the Buddha prophesying Strīvivarta’s future awakening.

On their morning alms round, the Buddha and Maitreya meet Queen Kṣemavatī who is bedecked in all her royal jewelry. When the Buddha asks her about the source of such fine jewelry, referring to it metaphorically as fruit, Queen Kṣemavatī explains that her worldly position is the fruit of the tree of her previous good deeds. The remainder of the sūtra describes how one’s good actions can eventually lead to buddhahood, and it concludes with a prophecy of the queen’s future awakening.

This sūtra recounts an event that took place in the buddha realm of Sukhāvatī. The discourse commences with the Buddha Śākyamuni relating to the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara the benefits of reciting the various names of Śrī Mahādevī. The Buddha describes how Śrī Mahādevī acquired virtue and other spiritual accomplishments through the practice of venerating numerous tathāgatas and gives an account of the prophecy in which her future enlightenment was foretold by all the buddhas she venerated. The Buddha then lists the one hundred and eight blessed names of Śrī Mahādevī to be recited by the faithful. The sūtra ends with the Buddha Śākyamuni giving a dhāraṇī and a brief explanation on the benefits of reciting the names of Śrī Mahādevī, namely the eradication of all negative circumstances and the accumulation of merit and happiness.

This short Mahāyāna sūtra tells of a beggar woman from the city of Śrāvastī whose modest offering of a lamp at Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, is contrasted with the lavish offering of lamps being made at the same time by Prasenajit, who was the king of Kośala and a major benefactor of the Buddha Śākyamuni and his community. While King Prasenajit’s extravagant donations fill a thousand large lamps with oil and burn so bright that a wide area around the monastery is illuminated, the beggar woman has only a tiny amount of oil with which to make her modest offering. As she lights the lamp, she does so with the sincere prayer that she too may one day achieve enlightenment and become a teacher of the Dharma, just like the Buddha. Her small lamp burns bright through the night and cannot be extinguished, no matter what Maudgalyāyana does as he tries to douse it. When the beggar woman returns the next day and sees her lamp still burning, she is filled with joy, whereupon the Buddha gives one of his magnificent smiles that lights up the cosmos. Asked by Ānanda to divulge the reason for his smile, the Buddha prophesies the almswoman’s fortuitous future rebirths and her eventual awakening as a buddha. He then reprises the whole tale in a series of verses.

The Buddha teaches how to become free of karmic obscurations and accomplish aspirations through a recitation that should be done three times during the day and three times at night. In that recitation one confesses one’s bad actions, rejoices in the good actions of others, and requests the buddhas to teach the Dharma and to not pass into nirvāṇa.

The Exemplary Tale of Sumāgadhā opens at Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park, in Śrāvastī, where the Buddha is staying. At the time, Anāthapiṇḍada’s daughter Sumāgadhā is married off to Vṛṣabhadatta, the son of a nirgrantha merchant in the distant city of Puṇḍravardhana. After arriving at the home of her in-laws, Sumāgadhā is repulsed and disheartened on encountering the nirgrantha mendicants. When her mother-in-law asks why she seems despondent, Sumāgadhā tells her about the Buddha. At her mother-in-law’s request, she invites the Buddha and the saṅgha of monks for a meal, and she does so by preparing an offering and calling out from the rooftop. When Ānanda inquires about this invitation, the Buddha announces that all monks with miraculous powers must take a tally stick and travel to Puṇḍravardhana. As the śrāvakas arrive with their miraculous displays, Sumāgadhā relates a brief story about each of them. Finally, the Buddha arrives and converts the people of Puṇḍravardhana with his own miraculous display. When the monks ask how Sumāgadhā’s marriage has benefited so many beings, the Buddha relates the story of her past life as the princess Kāñcanamālā during the time of the Buddha Kāśyapa and, in turn, Kāñcanamālā’s past life as the virtuous wife of a farmer, explaining that she has performed buddha activity in the past and continues to do so. This sūtra also contains the popular account of the ten dreams of King Kṛkin, which are interpreted by the Buddha as foretelling the future decline of the Dharma.