Buddhist Renunciation and the Female Life Cycle: Understanding Nunhood in Heian and Kamakura Japan

Abstract

Observing that elite Japanese women of the Heian, Kamakura, and Muromachi periods were expected to spend their final years as Buddhist lay renunciants, L ORI M EEKS examines why nunhood came to be defined as a stage in the life cycle of Japanese women and how literary expectations of lay renunciants changed over time. Although Heian sources discuss lay renunciation as a practice undertaken by members of both sexes who sought to make spiritual preparations for death, texts of the late Kamakura and Muromachi periods valorize nunhood as a marker of the loyal widow. Analyzing the dress, hair, and religious activities associated with women's retirement into renunciate life, Meeks shows how many of the practices associated with female renunciation remained constant, even as the meaning of nunhood shifted from a domain associated with death preparation to one associated with widowhood.

Women's Religious Affiliation in the Jōdo Shinshū

“…Hajime Endō's (2002) translated study contains many of these images of early Shin nuns. In some cases, these women may have conformed to a broader pattern of privately ordained lay nuns, novices, or widow nuns in medieval Japan, as described in studies by Katsuura Noriko (1995 and Lori Meeks (2010). These two scholars point to the broad and somewhat elastic usage of the category of nunoften nuanced by such Japanese terms as amasogi (partially tonsured nun), ama nyūdō (lay nun), or goke ama (widow nun)in medieval Japan.…”

Going with the flow and yet controlling the Flow: the Early Life, Education, and Scholarship of Takatsukasa Seigyoku, Current Abbess of Zenkōji’s Daihongan Convent

“…This seems to be a continuation of premodern notions concerning nunhood -that women took the tonsure following the death of their children or husbands, when their husbands left them for other women, or as a means to signify their retirement from sexual and familial duties (Meeks 2010b, 18, 36, 47). Furthermore, as a ritual that removed women from sexual activity and signified their preparedness for death, women's renunciation was an emotional affair in many literary representations from the premodern period (Meeks 2010b). We can see these tropes continuing in the media representations of Hiramatsu Yōko's return to lay life, which they report brought her happiness, and their descriptions of Takatsukasa's ordination, which supposedly caused tears in the crowd.…”

Aging in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

“…Most lay‐renunciates stopped far short of full ordination. And since the merit gained from taking vows was thought to outweigh the negative karmic repercussions of backsliding, vows were at times administered, broken, and re‐administered (Meeks , 7).…”

“…For women, lay renunciation became a particularly important avenue of religious expression. Between the 9th and 13th century, the order of nuns had become essentially defunct due to a lack of official sponsorship (Meeks , 4; ). As Lori Meeks observes, in the Heian period, aristocratic female lay‐renunciates became major sponsors of Buddhist projects, including rituals, sutra copying, temple construction, and the production of images (, 5).…”