The Ordination of Nuns in the Tibetan Buddhist Canon, its Presentation in the Tibetan Commentaries, and Approaches toward the Buddhist Nuns' Order Restoration in Tibetan Buddhism (including the expansion of the ITLR Database by analyzing and adding monastic terminology)

• Applicant: Dr. Carola Roloff
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: from 2010 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 155080625

• Final Report Year: 2017

Final Report Abstract

This study, concluded in July 2017, is related to one of the crucial issues Buddhism faces today: the controversy surrounding the revival of full ordination for Buddhist women. Now, for the first time, we have full access to the rituals and rules for all stages of a Buddhist woman’s ordination in that version of the Buddhist monastic law that regulates the school of the Mūlasarvāstivādins and that is largely preserved in Tibetan translation only. The study comprises the first comprehensive critical Tibetan text edition together with an annotated English translation of the so-called *Bhikṣuṇīkarmavācanā, the Nun Proceeding or Stating of the Matter of a Nun. It includes the history of the Buddhist nuns’ order (ca. 5th century BC), and the detailed manual for the ordination of a Buddhist nun. The study of the related texts that have not yet been fully evaluated, neither in the research nor within the Tibetan exegesis itself, shows that the Mūlasarvāstivāda lineage of fully ordained nuns (bhikṣuṇī) could be revived either by Mūlasarvāstivāda monks alone or by Mūlasarvāstivāda monks together with Dharmaguptaka nuns (“ecumenical” ordination). A third option may be that after the Dharmaguptaka ordination in front of both kinds of saṃgha, monks could perform a formal act recognizing the respective group of nuns ordained in the Dharmaguptaka tradition as part of a Mūlasarvāstivāda community. The results of the study are not only well received by influential Tibetan monk scholars – the issue in general finds growing global resonance. The revival of full ordination is not alone a question of formal gender equation: Due to the lack of full ordination for women they are partly excluded from the study, practice and teaching of the Vinaya, and thus exposed to religious as well as social discrimination. As long as they cannot undergo the full Vinaya study and practice, they will remain second class monastics. The fact, however, that in December 2016 for the first time in the history of Tibetan Buddhism 20 nuns received the Geshema degree, and that in March 2017, the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Thrinley Dorje, head of the Tibetan Karma Kagyu school, took concrete steps toward restoring Mūlasarvāstivāda nuns’ vows, shows that finally things are beginning to change.

Publications

• (2010). Women's Rights in the Vajrayāna Tradition. In: Meinert, C. / Zöllner, H.-B.: Buddhist Approaches to Human Rights. Dissonances and Resonances (195-210). Bielefeld: transcript
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2011). Das Erleuchtungspotenzial von Frauen und Ordinationslinien im Buddhismus. In: Gerber, C. / Petersen, S. / Weiße, W. (Hrsg.): Unbeschreiblich weiblich? Neue Fragestellungen zur Geschlechterdifferenz in den Religionen (Reihe: Theologische Frauenforschung in Europa, Bd. 26, 159-178). Berlin: LIT
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2011). Mit Würde und Beharrlichkeit. Die Erneuerung buddhistischer Nonnenorden. Berlin: edition steinrich (deutsche Übersetzung von Dignity and Discipline. Reviving Full Ordination for Buddhist Nuns. Boston: Wisdom Publications 2010)
  Carola Roloff, Thea Mohr (Hrsg.)
  
• 2012. Buddhistische Nonnen brauchen eine Lobby. Tibet und Buddhismus 26(2), 35-37
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2013). The Gurudharma on Bhikṣuṇī Ordination in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Tradition. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 20, 743-774
  Carola Roloff, Anālayo, Bhikkhu
  
• 2013. Nonnenordination. Das Eis scheint gebrochen! Tibet und Buddhismus 27(2), 37-39
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2014). Interreligious Dialogue in Buddhism from a Gender Perspective. In: Weisse, W. / Amirpur, K. / Körs, A. / Vieregge, D. (Hrsg.): Religion and Dialogue. International Approaches (245-281) Münster: Waxmann
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2015). Fünf Nonnen vor der Geshe-Prüfung. Stippvisite im Kloster Jangchub Choeling. Tibet und Buddhismus 29(2), 70-72
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2015). Menschenrechte im Buddhismus im Spannungsfeld zwischen Religionsfreiheit und Geschlechtergerechtigkeit. In: Amirpur K. / Weiße, W. (Hrsg.): Religionen – Dialog – Gesellschaft – Analysen zur gegenwärtigen Situation und Impulse für eine dialogische Theologie (207-232). Münster: Waxmann
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2016). Buddhist Nuns' Ordination in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya Tradition: Two Possible Approaches. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 23, 165-246
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2017). Geschlechterkonstruktionen und Geschlechterverhältnisse in buddhistischen Traditionen. In: Knauth, T. / Jochimsen, M. A. (Hrsg.): Einschließungen und Ausgrenzungen (127-147). Münster: Waxmann
  Carola Roloff
  
• (2017). Ordination und Ämter von Frauen im Buddhismus. Die Erneuerungsbewegung buddhistischer Nonnenorden. Ökumenische Rundschau 66(4), 567-579
  Carola Roloff