This paper presents an annotated English translation of the story of the nun Dharmadinnā, translated here for the first time from the Tibetan translation of the Kṣudrakavastu of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. The protagonist is not able to enter the religious life because of her prenatal engagement and is finally ordained by an exceptional style of ordination ceremony performed through a messenger.

The story ends with the Buddha telling of her past life as a nun and teacher under the Buddha Kāśyapa.

In certain cases I found that it was possible to clear up perceived difficulties without too much trouble. In other cases, the more I looked, the more problematic the texts became. So this work is concerned with problem-solving: looking at difficult or controversial areas, highlighting the most accurate textual data, and looking at different possibilities for interpretation. It is not meant to be a guide to monastic conduct, and does not attempt to be complete or systematic. Along the way I offer a little advice for those seeking practical guidance. Usually, despite the forbidding textual complexities, the ethical issues are really quite simple.

… a look at some of the puzzles or problems that bhikkhunīs are working on within the Theravāda tradition

At the beginning of the first section of the tenth chapter of the Cullavagga, the events immediately preceding the establishment of the Buddhist Order of nuns are described. In general terms these are as follows:

… all the Vinayas have four pārājika precepts considered to be peculiar to nuns

The argument that a nun called Sthūlanandā really did have pendulous breasts and large buttocks is, pardon the pun, a thin one. As stock images of uncouth femininity, these outsized and ungainly physical features serve the representational project of this passage

A survey of post-modern hermeneutical strategies for critical and historical readings of Canonical Vinaya literature.

… there may have been Bhikkhunīs in existence before the request for ordination by Mahāpajāpatī

Including a number of ridiculous restrictions on the Bhikkhuni Sangha, such as their inability to own toilets!

… based on what can be culled from the Madhyama-āgama discourse in comparison with the other versions, it seems possible to arrive at a coherent narrative of [the founding] of the order of nuns.

There’s a huge amount of it that’s positive! I’m not so surprised that there are negative attitudes towards women depicted in early Buddhist literature, because this is an ancient civilization with traditional values. So, the negativity doesn’t surprise me. But all the positivity does.

A fascinating conversation about the lives of a few of the earliest Bhikkhunis and what their biographies can tell us about life in ancient India.

These two cases may already suffice for the time being to alert us to the possibility that gender discrimination in the Pāli canon may well be the result of later developments. Regarding the overall attitude towards nuns in early Buddhism, I think it stands beyond doubt that an order of nuns was in existence, and from that I would conclude that the Buddha approved of its existence.