Buddhist Studies: Buddhism & Women: Pajapati Gotami

This website tells the traditional Buddhist narrative of Gotami, the aunt and foster mother of the Buddha and how she became the first ordained Buddhist nun. The website describes how Gotami petitioned the Buddha to allow women to be ordained and how she was denied several times. Finally the Buddha changed his position on gender and monasticism after seeing the determination of the women. He gave them eight special rules that Buddhist nuns continued to abide by for centuries. This website is written from within in the religious tradition.

URL
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/pajapati.htm

Website Created
2008

Last Website Update
No date given.

Student Resource
Pages: 169

Teacher Resource

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