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Birth in Buddhism : the suffering fetus and female freedom / Amy Paris Langenberg.
Author
Langenberg, Amy Paris
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.
Description
xii, 210 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
Availability
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
BQ4235 .L36 2017
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Details
Subject(s)
Suffering
—
Religious aspects
—
Buddhism
[Browse]
Childbirth
—
Religious aspects
—
Buddhism
[Browse]
Series
Routledge critical studies in Buddhism
[More in this series]
Summary note
Recent decades have seen a groundswell in the Buddhist world, a transnational agitation for better opportunities for Buddhist women. Many of the main players in the transnational nuns movement self-identify as feminists but other participants in this movement may not know or use the language of feminism. In fact, many ordained Buddhist women say they seek higher ordination so that they might be better Buddhist practitioners, not for the sake of gender equality. 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, "Descent into the Womb scripture" or Garbhavakranti-sutra. Drawing out the implications of this text, the author offers innovative arguments about the significance of childbirth and fertility in Buddhism, namely that birth is a master metaphor in Indian Buddhism; that Buddhist gender constructions are centrally shaped by Buddhist birth discourse; and that, by undermining the religious importance of female fertility, the Buddhist construction of an inauspicious, chronically impure, and disgusting femininity constituted a portal to a new, liberated, feminine life for Buddhist monastic women.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages 184-203) and index.
Contents
Introduction : reconceptions
Suffering is birth
Birth narratives and gender identity
Disgust for the abject womb
The inauspicious mother
Auspicious ascetics
Female impurity and the female Buddhist ascetic
Postpartum.
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ISBN
9781138201231 ((hardback))
1138201235 ((hardback))
LCCN
2016041740
OCLC
961213587
Other standard number
40027280882
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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