Women's Religious Affiliation in the Jōdo Shinshū

Abstract

How can we talk about female religious professionals in a non‐celibate Buddhist tradition with no formal ordination or convents for nuns? Is there any distinction between laywomen and nuns? In this survey essay, I summarize the body of research on women in the Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land Buddhism) to highlight the importance of women's roles as wives and mothers to their identities as religious professionals. On the other hand, laywomen in this tradition are notable for their organization into all‐female confraternities, and later into modern women's associations, whose members were voracious consumers of religious educational literature. I conclude the essay by pointing the way for future scholarship on these subjects and exploring the potential contributions of this theme to our understanding of women in Buddhism more broadly.