Advent of Sanghamitta Theri and our pioneering Bhikkunis
Sri Lanka was the only country where the Bhikkuni Order was established outside the Indian subcontinent and the lineage of the Order, founded by Sanghamitta Theri in Sri Lanka when she arrived in the 3rd century BCE on an Unduwap Poya day, persisted unbroken for over 12-13 centuries. The event led women to literacy and elevated their status.
The Bhikkuni Sasanaya however would not have been a reality if not for the persisting efforts of the Buddha’s foster mother Queen Mahaprajapathi Gothami whose entreaties the Buddha could not ignore. He agreed to ordination but laid down a tough code of ethics which the Queen and the 500 Sakyan princesses who accompanied her agreed to follow. Ordination was conducted thereafter. The Bhikkuni Order in India however, lasted not more than 4-5 centuries as it went into extinction with the decline of Buddhism from the late Gupta period.
Both Queen Anula Devi, the sister-in-law of King Devanampiyatissa, whose request led to the establishment of the Bhikkuni Sasana in Sri Lanka and Queen Mahaprajapathi Gothami who had listened to the sermons of the Buddha, had already attained the higher spiritual realms of Sothapana. Queen Prajapathi Gothami by this time was a widow. With the husbands of the 500 princesses having taken to robes, they instead of being confined to their empty mansions, sought refuge in the Bhikkuni Order. Among these Sakyan princesses were Yasodhara and Nanda, the daughters of Queen Prajapathi. Khema and Uppalawanna were appointed as the two chief female disciples. Detailed accounts of the services rendered by bhikkunis of India are lacking but their functions and performances are seen in their beautifully composed “Theri Gathas” in the Tripitaka. Some of the famed bhikkunis mentioned in Buddhist texts however are the courtesan Amrapali and Patachara and Kisa Gothami.
In contrast, the records of bhikkunis of Sri Lanka are illustrious. They had even gone to the extent of undertaking dangerous overseas journeys to establish the Bhikkuni Sasana in foreign lands – an act that ultimately attributed to the survival of the Bhikkuni order worldwide. About six centuries following the founding of the order in Sri Lanka, emulating the founder Sanghamitta Theri, eleven Theravada bhikkunis, under Devasara Thisarana Theri accompanied by Theravada bhikkus as required by the rules of the Vinaya, sailed to China in 426CE on board a ship captained by Nandi. They, on the invitation of the then ruling Sung Dynasty, ordained 300 bhikkunis in the capital city of Nankin.
Three years later, Chandramali Theri, along with Theravada bhikkunis and bhikkus, travelled to Tibet for the ordination of another batch of bhikkunis. The order thus established by Lankan bhikkunis had spread from there to countries in East Asia and some of them had converted to Mahayana Buddhism. Though it had continued in some of these countries, it went into extinction in Sri Lanka. Literature gives evidence of the existence of bhikkunis in Kashmir and Tibetan borderlands even through the 11th century CE and according to the Dalai Lama, quite a few bhikkunis in the West had been ordained by Tibetan bhikkunis.
In Sri Lanka, with the Chola invasion in the 11th century ACE and in the waning years of the Anuradhapura Era, the Bhikkuni order went into complete extinction. Great efforts made by Dr. Hema Goonatilleke made it possible to trace that the lineage established by the ancient Lankan bhikkunis of the 5th century ACE, still persists in China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea. These bhikkunis, paying a tribute to our 5th century bhikkunis, who crossed the eastern seas and founded their order, gladly gave ordination and re-established the Bhikkuni order in Sri Lanka in 1998. The Bhikkuni order thus was restored after a lapse of over thousand years.
Women in the 3rd century BCE living in an agrarian society, may have primarily been working in the fields. Historical evidence reveal that the founding of the Bhikkuni order in the 3rd century BCE, changed their lifestyles, raised their status and brought meaningful direction to their lives.
The introduction of Buddhism just eight months earlier and the establishment of the Bhikkuni Order by Sanghamitta Theri in the month of Unduwap had brought about stirring religious, cultural, economic, political and social changes to the island. Extraordinary architectural accomplishments, spectacular sculptures and other forms of crafts were changing the landscape of Anuradhapura. Discourses on Buddhism and debates on the Buddhist Doctrine were drawing bhikkus, bhikkunis and lay people to Arahant Mahinda’s Aramaya in the Mahamevna Uyana (which later became the Mahavihara ) and the Sanghamitta Theri’s Upasi-kaViharaya.
Discourses however, were conducted in Pali. Only Arahant Mahinda who had learnt Sinhala, preached in the Sinhala language. The language used by the clergy including Sanghamitta Theri, was Pali which compelled bhikkunis to learn the elite language. And with oral-tradition yet being the norm, bhikkunis learnt Pali to listen, understand and participate in discourses. But they preached and interacted with the lay people in Sinhala.
With scholarly work going apace, monasteries of bhikkus and bhikkunis, developed into renowned centres of learning which led Anuradhapura to be cited as the centre of Buddhism in Asia. Religious and educational institutions attracted scholars.Dignitaries and emissaries from the Indian subcontinent and China arrived for dhamma studies.
While the Bhikkuni order grew in strength and erudition, the learning of Pali had continued into the mid-millennium. With the commencement of documentation, they wrote the first Pali chronicle on the island’s history – the Dipavamsa, signifying the impact the Bhikkuni Sasana had on literacy levels of women of ancient Sri Lanka.The 22-chaptered volume in Pali had been written by several generations of Bhikkunis over a period of about hundred years – from the 4th to the 5th centuries and served as source material for post Dipavamsa documentations including the Mahavamsa.
With detailed accounts of the Bhikkuni Order from the inception of Maha Prajapathi Gothami through Sanghamitta Theri up to the time of King Mahasen, scholars had identified the Dipavamsa as the earliest historical chronicle perhaps of the whole of Asia.The fact that it belonged to Sri Lanka’s earliest literary period gives evidence of the advancement that had existed in early Bhikkuni monasteries. According to scholars, Dipavamsa had been heavily influenced by monastery-literary-tradition.