Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories from the Saddharmaratnavaliya

The book contains twenty-six translated stories centered on or significantly involving Buddhist women and gendered experience, beginning with the Udeni Cycle and continuing through narratives of Visākhā, Utpalavarṇā, the mother of Kāḷa, Kuṇḍalakesī, the nun Patācārā, Kisa-gotami, Bahuputtika, Sirimā, Queen Mallikā, the weaver’s daughter, Cincā, the three daughters of Māra, Princess Rohiṇī, Uttarā, Khemā, Mahā Pajāpati Gotamī, Sundarasamudda, and Soreyya. These narratives illustrate core Buddhist concerns such as acts of merit and demerit, karmic consequence, generosity, compassion, faith, moral discipline, renunciation, meditation, impermanence, and the possibility of liberation. At the same time, the collection provides a rich cultural window into women’s social roles in South Asian Buddhist settings, including marriage, family responsibility, religious patronage, female intelligence, public agency, sexuality, and monastic life. The Udeni Cycle is especially important because it presents Samavati and Magandi as contrasting moral figures, while other stories present women as teachers, devotees, exemplars of grief transformed into wisdom, and practitioners capable of attaining the highest Buddhist goals.