Lexington Books
Pages: 240
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-4985-1145-2 • Hardback • June 2017 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
978-1-4985-1146-9 • eBook • June 2017 • $122.50 • (£95.00)
Karen Muldoon-Hules is lecturer in the Asian Languages and Cultures Department and the Center for the Study of Religion at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Chapter 1: Buddhist Women in Early India
Chapter 2: Marriage and Meaning in Late Vedic and Classical Hinduism
Chapter 3: Marriage and Meaning in Indian Buddhism
Chapter 4: How Should a Daughter Renounce?
Chapter 5: Suprabhā, Kāśisundarī, and the Indic Svayaṃvara
Chapter 6: Other Women, Other Walks of Life
Chapter 7: Some Conclusions and Observations
Appendix 1: Dating the Avadānaśataka
Appendix 2: Sectarian Affiliation
Muldoon-Hules presents an excellent piece of scholarship that adds nuance to the scholarly account of early Buddhist Indian women. . . . Muldoon-Hules’s meticulous and precise scholarship is based on Sanskrit literature, epigraphical, and art-historical evidence and makes a strong case for her reading of the Avadānaśataka stories. . . a valuable addition to the fields of Buddhist studies, gender studies, and women in Buddhism. It adds nuance to the early history of Buddhist women and increases the understanding of early Buddhist history. It would be very useful in advanced undergraduate classes in gender studies and Buddhist studies.
— Reading Religion
Besides bringing attention to an important but understudied textual source for the study of religious women in premodern South Asia, its most significant contribution is a new focus on the theme of marriage in Buddhist narratives about female renunciation. . . . Muldoon-Hules employs an Indological methodology, sourcing broadly from the Indic textual record in a disciplined, precise, and intertextual manner, while also consulting the material record for corroborating evidence. Her most significant methodological intervention to the study of women in ancient Buddhist South Asia in this volume is her insistence that scholars cease to make pan-Indic generalizations based only on the more familiar Pāli sources. . . . Muldoon-Hules’s work is deserving of high praise for its careful intertextual engagements of a broad array of classical Indic texts, the focus it brings to one fascinating but understudied text, and its wonderful unpacking of the theme of marriage in Buddhist narratives about women. Muldoon-Hules is a scholar’s scholar, and. . . Brides of the Buddha provides an admirably solid basis for future ongoing explorations of female religious agency and history in South Asia.
— Journal of the American Oriental Society
Karen Muldoon-Hules provides a thought-provoking study of classical Indian marital customs and Buddhist nuns' somewhat surprising spousal choices: the Buddha himself. This book is an important and welcome addition to the scholarship on the history of female Buddhist monasticism and Buddhist narrative literature.
— Shayne Clarke, McMaster University
This timely volume speaks to a growing interest in Buddhist narrative, the relationship between Buddhists and Hindus in early northwest India, and the role of women in Buddhism. Taking ten stories of early Buddhist nuns as her starting point, the author explores the ways in which marriage features not only as a narrative motif, but also as a lens through which we can come to appreciate the situation of female Buddhists in early northwest India. As such, the volume is not only a thorough analysis of an intriguing and hitherto underappreciated textual source, it is also an important contribution to our understanding of early Buddhism in its broader Indian context. The author deals with a wealth of complex ideas with skill and clarity, making the work suitable for scholars and students, as well as others with an interest in Buddhism.
— Naomi Appleton, University of Edinburgh
From the eighth chapter of the Avadānaśataka emerges a complex social world, and Karen Muldoon-Hules brings to life these stories of exemplary Buddhist women, situating them in a broader literary and historical context and drawing out the myriad ways in which they, in turn, illuminate that context. Brides of the Buddha highlights the significant regional differences in the historical circumstances and literary representation of Buddhist nuns' communities. In the process, it reveals the ways in which these normative representations of women's lives reflect the specific challenges they may have faced in negotiating the complex religious landscape of ancient north India. Scholars will appreciate its rigor; students will find it lively and accessible.
— Natalie Gummer, Beloit College
Karen Muldoon-Hules's wonderfully researched book on an understudied collection of stories about women from the Avadānaśataka is a unique contribution to the scholarship on early Buddhist nuns and gender in Indian Buddhism. Muldoon-Hules's well-placed focus on the trope of marriage illuminates tensions between widely accepted ideals of female virtue and female renunciation, attempts by monastic redactors to negotiate those tensions in order to promote female monasticism, and the interpenetration of Buddhist and Vedic-Hindu legal and ritual traditions. Muldoon-Hules's book is an exciting addition to a growing literature on the particular ethical challenges of female renunciation and the place of nuns in the social landscape of Indian Buddhism.
— Amy Langenberg, Eckerd College