Birth in Buddhism - The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom

List of contents

Reconceptions

1: Suffering is Birth

2: Birth Narratives and Gender Identity

3: Disgust for the Abject Mother

4: The Inauspicious Mother

5: Fertile Ascetics

6: Female Impurity and the Female Buddhist Ascetic

Postpartum

About the author

Amy Paris Langenberg is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Eckerd College, US.

Summary

Eschewing the backward projection of secular liberal feminist categories, this book describes the basic features of the Buddhist discourse of the female body, held more or less in common across sectarian lines, and still pertinent to ordained Buddhist women today. The textual focus of the study is an early-first-millennium Sanskrit Buddhist work

Additional text

"Brilliant analysis of suffering in early Indian Buddhist literature, highlighting its basic connection with birth and the impact of this connection on the lives of Buddhist men and women. With suffering and birth equated, woman were cast as sources of suffering, which in turn gave away to Buddhist literature of disgust that transformed 'the beautiful sexualized and fertile female form into something ugly and repugant."
—Rory Lindsay, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

Product details

• Authors: Amy Langenberg, Amy (Eckerd College Langenberg, Amy Paris (Eckerd College Langenberg, Amy Paris Langenberg
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2019
• EAN: 9780367890018
• ISBN: 978-0-367-89001-8
• No. of pages: 210
• Series: Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Other religions; Ethnic Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, RELIGION / Buddhism / General, Buddhism, Social and cultural history, Gender studies, gender groups, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General, Amy Paris Langenberg