| Term Paper Title |
Womens Rights |
| # of Words |
1028 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) |
4.11 |
Women's Rights
Throughout history, women always seem to get set on the back burner. Men have written history and there
hasn't been much room for women. Or has there been. If one takes a look at the Buddhist religion, they
will find that women have not always been second-rate citizens as they have in more recent history. In
order to understand what has happened to the freedoms women once had in Buddhism, let's first get a brief
overview of Buddhism, then we'll look at women in the beginnings of Buddhism, then we'll follow up with
some reason that have been given for the poor treatment of women.
Born around 563 B.C in what is now Nepal, Gautama had it all. His father rulled the Kingdom, he
was married to a princess from a neighboring kingdom, and they had a son. He had social standing,
appearance, wealth, a model wife, a child, and he would someday inherit his fathers thrown. Despite all of
this, he was not happy.
Gautamea's father did everything he could to keep his son happy and willing to take on the
thrown. Dancing girls were placed at his disposal, and there was a general order to keep any
unpleasantness out of the young prince's life. Of course this could not be done forever and Gautamea, also
called Siddhartha, finally saw the effects of aging, disease and death. After seeing this, he came upon a
monk with a shaven head, ocher robe, and a bowl. This monk taught him about a path that renounced the
world. At the age of 29 he bid a silent farewell of his sleeping wife and child and set off for a forest. Once
reaching the edge of this forest, he tossed his royal clothing, shaved his head, and entered the forest to seek
enlightenment.
For many years he went from Guru to Guru and even spent some time with a band of ascetics in
an effort to find what he was missing. He finally was finally reached enlightenment or you could say he
woke up, which is how he became known as the Buddha, which means to be awake.
For nearly the next 50 years he was very active. He founded an order of monks, trained them and
oversaw the affairs of the Order. He also maintained an unknown schedule of public preaching and private
counseling. He died at the age of eighty after eating some poisoned mushrooms that had gotten into a dish
by accident.
His teachings lived on and found there way in to many different schools of philosophy. While he
was still alive, although Buddha felt that women would reach enlightenment he did not feel that they should
be let into the order. After some sort of trickery, he opened the order to women although he stated that this
would half the life of the organization. Some say this did not really happen.
The reason that some fell Gautamea did not really feel as such is that from the beginning, the same
teachings were given to his female and male disciples. It was stated that:
Whoever has such a vehicle, whether a woman or a man,
Shall indeed, by means of that vehicle,
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