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Woman, Bodhisattva, and Buddha Author(s): Reiko Ohnuma Source: Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 63-83 Published by: FSR, Inc.FSR, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002402 Accessed: 06/10/2010 02:49
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AND BUDDHA WOMAN, BODHISATTVA,

Reiko Ohnuma

In this article, I explore the figureof themale bodhisattva-first and fore most, theBuddha Sakyamuniduring his previous lives,but more generally,any male who has taken the vow of a bodhisattva and is currently working his way towardBuddhahood.'More specifically,I explore how themale bodhisattva's body is conceived in IndianBuddhist literatureand the types of gender im agery invoked in that conception. The particular context inwhich I examine these issues is the largebody of IndianBuddhist narratives involvingthe theme of the bodhisattva'sbodily self-sacrifice. The bodhisattva's propensity to sacrifice life and limb for otherswas an ex tremelypopular theme in the IndianBuddhist tradition. IndianBuddhist lit erature is repletewith stories inwhich the Buddha, during his previous lives as a human being or an animal, cheerfully sacrificeshis head, eyes, flesh, blood, or entire body on behalf of someone inneed. In his previous birth asKing Sibi, for example, theBuddha gouged out his eyes and gave them to a blindman; in his birth as PrinceMahasattva, he allowed his body to be devoured by a starv ing tigress;and in his birth as a noble elephant, he rippedoff his own tusksand gave them to a greedy hunter.2Such stories dramatically illustrate the great selflessness and compassioncultivatedby theBuddha during his longcareer as a bodhisattva. In termsof the bodhisattva'scultivationof the six "perfections"
An earlierversion of thispaperwas originallypresented at theHarvardBuddhist Studies Forum in March 1998 and subsequentlypresented at theDartmouth College Feminist InquirySeminar in May 2000. I thankthemembers of both forums for their insightfulcomments and suggestions. I also LisaOwen ofVanderbiltUniversity forher suggestionsabout some of the sources Iuse herein, thank andmy two anonymous reviewers, many ofwhose suggestions I have incorporated. 1 bodhisattva is someonewho hasmade a formalvow to attain full and A perfect Buddhahood. Though bodhisattvas can be eithermale or female, I am here focusing solely on themale bodhi sattva. The vastmajority of bodhisattvas throughout IndianBuddhist literaturearemale, andwith very fewexceptions theBuddha himself, duringhis previous livesas a bodhisattva, isalwaysdepicted
as a male.

2For a full listof references for each of these three stories, see the entries "Sivi," or "Vyaghri or Mahasattva,"and "$addanta Chaddanta"inLeslie Grey,A Concordanceof BuddhistBirth Stories Pali (Oxford: Text Society, 1990).

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(paramita)needed forBuddhahood (i.e., generosity,morality, forbearance,en meditation, andwisdom), they are almost alwaysclassified as preeminent ergy, examples of the "perfectionof generosity" (dana-paramita).So generous was the bodhisattva, these stories suggest, that he gave away not only material goods but even his own body. Stories involvingthe bodhisattva's of his body gift to others became some of themost popular and celebrated stories in the In dian Buddhist tradition.3 It iswithin thisgeneral context that I explore some of the interestinggen der imageryemployed in connectionwith themale bodhisattva.Because bod ily self-sacrifice is so intimatelyconnectedwith the bodhisattvacareer, and be cause stories of bodily self-sacrifice so often involve a significant amount of discourse on the body, thismaterial constitutes an especially rich resource for exploring the depiction of themale bodhisattva's body and the typesof gender in this depiction. symbolismemployed Drawing primarilyon thismaterial, Iwill advanceand substantiatethe fol lowing thesis:The body of themale bodhisattva occupies a fluid and shifting position in between the bodies of awoman and a Buddha. On the one hand, much of the imageryof the descriptions of themale bodhisattva's body invoke woman's body,making both typesof body parallel to each other and inferiorto the thoroughly masculine body of the Buddha.4On the other hand, such de often reverse and resignify the values typically associatedwith the pictions woman's body inorder to give the bodhisattva's body a positive valuation as the proper precursor to the Buddha'sbody, rather than the negative valuationnor mally granted to the body of awoman.Within the IndianBuddhist gender sys tem, themale bodhisattva'sbody thus occupies a shifting and fluid position in the ideologicalcontinuum running from "woman"to "Buddha." Woman's Body, Bodhisattva's Body Buddhist doctrine andmeditational theoryhold both men's andwomen's bodies to be insubstantialand impermanentconglomerationsof flesh, bone, skin, and blood and thus unworthy of the care, attention, and attributionsof
3For more on thebodhisattva's The 'Gift bodily self-sacrifice,see ReikoOhnuma, "Dehadana: of the Body' in IndianBuddhist NarrativeLiterature" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan atAnn Gift of the Body and theGift of Dharma,"History of Religions 37, no. 4 (1998): Arbor, 1997); "The Gift of His Body,"Journal of 323-59; and "Internaland External Opposition to the Bodhisattva's IndianPhilosophy 28, no. 1 (2000):43-75; aswell asHar Dayal, The BodhisattvaDoctrine inBud dhist Sanskrit Literature (1932; reprint,New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970), 181-87; and EugeneWatson Burlingame, trans.,Buddhist Parables (NewHaven: YaleUniversity Press, 1922),
297-336.

4ThoughMahayana andVajrayanatextsdo depict femaleBuddhas, my argument throughout assumes themale Buddha of themainstream tradition.

Ohnuma:Woman, Bodhisattva, and Buddha

65

desirability and permanence we ordinarilybestow upon them.5Nevertheless, recent scholarshiphas demonstrated quite convincingly thatwhen it comes to stories about bodies or descriptions of particularbodies, these qualities of im permanence and undesirability-as well asmore negative qualities, such as im purity, repulsiveness, and foulness-are largelyassociatedwith women's bod ies and notwith men's. Through careful literaryanalysis,feminist scholarssuch asKaren Lang, KathrynBlackstone, andLizWilson have shown that through out IndianBuddhist literature, whenever bodies are condemned for their filth and pollution or corpses in the charnelground aremeditated upon as emblems of impermanence and suffering, those bodies and corpses are inevitablyde Wilson's work, in particular,has demonstrated how fre picted as female.6 female bodies in Indian Buddhist literature are "horrificallytrans quently formed" throughdeath, cremation, or mutilation and then used as objects of who observe them. In con meditation for the edification of themale subjects these scholarspoint out, themale body isnever invoked in a similar trast, way; that is,male bodies andmale corpses do not generally serve-for eithermen orwomen-as emblems of impermanenceand suffering. This contrast between the woman's body and the man's body becomes even starker when theman inquestion is a bodhisattva.Let us compare, for ex themutilated body of awoman and themutilated body of themale bo ample, dhisattva thatwe so often encounter inBuddhist storiesof bodily self-sacrifice. Wilson has shown, themutilated body of awoman frequently serves as a If, as potent reminderof the impurityand foulness of all human bodies, might not themutilated body of amale bodhisattvaengaging in self-sacrifice serve a sim ilarpurpose? Wilson argues convincingly that such is not the case. Unlike the mutilated body of awoman, a bodhisattva's mutilated body does not generally serve as an edifying spectacle of impermanenceand suffering for either male or female observers. In fact, far fromemphasizing the body'snegative qualities, many stories of self-sacrifice actuallydo just the opposite, instead suggesting

5For scholarshipon IndianBuddhist conceptions of the body, see J.H. Bateson, "Body(Bud dhist)," in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings, vol. 2 (New York: Scribner's,1908), 758-60; YuichiKajiyama,"TheBody," in theEncyclopaediaof Buddhism, ed.G. P. Government Press, 1972), fasc.2,255-62; StevenCollins, Malalasekera,vol. 3 (Colombo,SriLanka: "TheBody inTheravadaBuddhistMonasticism," inReligion and theBody, ed. Sarah Coakley,Cam bridge Studies in Religious Traditions, no. 8 (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1997), 185-204; and PaulWilliams, "SomeMahayana Buddhist Perspectives on the Body," inCoakley, 205-30. 6KarenChristina Death's Snare:Gender-Related Imagery in theTheragathaand Lang, "Lord theTherTngtha,"Journal Feminist Studies inReligion 11, no. 2 (1986):63-79; KathrynR. Black of Women in theFootstepsof theBuddha: StruggleforLiberation in theThertgatha (Richmond, stone, England:Curzon, 1998); andLizWilson, CharmingCadavers: Horrific Figurationsof theFeminine in IndianBuddhistHagiographic Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

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that themale bodhisattva'sbody-even when cut up, mutilated or dead-is a Wilson thus perfect, adamantine body worthy of elaborate ritual treatment. draws a strong contrastbetween the body of awoman and the body of amale bodhisattva.7 Inmy own research on stories of bodily self-sacrifice, I, too, have been struckby the extreme idealizationof amale bodhisattva's mutilated body and its starkcontrastwith the repulsive andwholly negative depiction of amuti lated woman.8 While thewoman's body not only shares inbut actually serves as a privileged emblem of the impurity,impermanence,and foulness of all ordi nary human forms, themale bodhisattva'sbody is anothermatter altogether: like the perfectly controlled and decorous body of a goodmonk or the golden colored and irresistiblyattractivebody of the Buddha, themale bodhisattva's body falls into a Buddhist categoryof "idealbodies" that seem to overcome the limitationsof the ordinaryhuman form and are exalted rather thandegraded. The woman's body and themale bodhisattva's body thus stand at opposite ends of the ideological spectrumof Buddhist conceptions of the body. This seemingly simple contrast is not, however, the entire story,for as an ample body of scholarshipon feminine symbolism in religionhas attested, gen der imageryisnever quite so simple as such a straightforward contrastbetween would suggest.9 Gender symbolsaremultivalent and pol "male"and "female" ysemic, andwomen andwomen's bodies constitute such a rich symbolic re source that they are inevitably drafted intonew contexts, sometimes acquiring new values in the process. In this particular case, I argue thatwhen we shift our attention away from actual female characters to some of themore subtle within these stories, find that themale we evocationsof female gender invoked bodhisattva'sbody is indeed sometimes described using feminine imageryand in away thatmakes it strangelyakin to the body of awoman. The Physical Ministrations ofWomen My first example of female imageryused in connectionwith themale bo dhisattva is the comparison sometimes drawnbetween the bodhisattvaand the prostitute.There isa ratherstriking parallelismbetween these two figures,par

7 Wilson, CharmingCadavers, 105-9. 8 Ohnuma, "Dehadana."

9 See, for some representative examples, Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula

Richman, eds., Gender and Religion:On theComplexity of Symbols (Boston:Beacon, 1986); Jos6 IgnacioCabezon, ed., Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (Albany:State University of New York Press, 1992); and,more recently, Wendy Doniger, Splitting theDifference:Gender andMyth inAn cientGreece and India, JordanLectures inComparativeReligion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

Ohnuma:Woman, Bodhisattva, and Buddha

67

with other beings. Because the prosti ticularlyin regard to their relationships tute is awoman who eschews the particular love of spouse and family,she is free to bestow her services equally upon all, thusmirroring the bodhisattva's commitment to universal compassion and the service of all sentient beings. The crucial difference between the two, of course, is that the prostitute is driven by greed and bestows her services through exchange,whereas the bo dhisattva is driven by compassion and bestows his services throughpure gen erosity.Nevertheless, both the prostitute and the bodhisattva are singularly driven to seduce and satisfyall customerswithout exception, and both effec tively employ awide variety of skillsaimed at pleasing all types of beings. LizWilson, in her discussion of this parallel,'0draws attention to aMa hayana text called the Upayakausalya Satra, inwhich the bodhisattva'steach means (updya-kausalya)is explicitly com ing of theDharma through skillful to the diversemethods bywhich prostitutes fleece their customers.The pared bodhisattva who is skilled inmeans is likened to a prostitutewho has sixty-four means of seduction at her disposal.This is a reference to the listof the "sixty four arts"of the high-class courtesan enumerated in Indianeroticmanuals, in cluding such skills as dancing, singing,writing poetry, flower arranging,fenc ing, carpentry,and trainingfighting cocks." In the passage in question, these variousmeans of sexual seduction are compared to the bodhisattva's many means of spiritualseduction of beings to theDharma:
As an illustration, consider a prostitute. She has sixty-four seductive wiles; for example, to obtain wealth and treasures, she may coax aman

to marry him, and then she drives him away without regret when she has obtained the precious objects. Similarly, good man, a Bodhisattva who practices ingenuity can use his skill according to [particular] cir cumstances; he teaches and converts all sentient beings by manifesting need, even his body.'2

that her intogenerously by giving his valuables pretending she isgoing

himself in formsthey likeandby freelygivingthemeverything they

means is thus a femininewile, a dharmic AsWilson notes, "Theuse of skillful seduction that resembles the samsaricovertures offilles dejoie."13 Iwould argue, however, that this parallelismbetween the prostitute and

1o Wilson, CharmingCadavers, 124-25. 11 A. L. Basham, TheWonder ThatWas India:A Surveyof theHistory and Culture of the See Indian Sub-continentbefore theComing of theMuslims, 3d rev.ed. (London:Sidgwick& Jackson, 1982), 183. 12 UpayakausalyaSftra, translatedinGarmaC. C. Chang,A TreasuryofMahayana Satras:Se lections from theMaharatnakuta Sutra (UniversityPark: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983),434. 13 Wilson, CharmingCadavers, 124.

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the bodhisattva isdue not only to the prostitute'sunique status as awoman to tally unbeholden to marriage and reproduction and thus able to minister equally to all, but also to the fact that the prostitute specificallyuses her body toplease her clients.Though shemay have sixty-four means of seduction at her disposal, it is, after all, the gift of her body thatundergirds all other skillsand defines her as a prostitute, just as, one might argue, the bodhisattva's of his gift body similarlyundergirds all other of his skillfulmeans and defines him as a bodhisattva. Indeed, the gift of one's body is said to be one of five gifts thatde fine a bodhisattvaand that every bodhisattva must perform in the course of his career.14 Thus, both the prostitute and the bodhisattvamay be said to be ulti mately defined by a physical gift of the body. The parallelism between the prostitute'sgift of her body and the bodhi sattva'sgift of his body is implied in another location aswell. In a famous di dacticBuddhist textknown as theMilindapanha, a king namedMilinda directs a seriesof difficult questions on Buddhist doctrine to amonk namedNagasena. In one of these exchanges,KingMilinda asksNagasena about a previous birth of the Buddha.When theBuddhawas formerlya king named Sibi, he gouged out his own eyes and gave them to a blind, old beggar.Later on, he magically created a new pair of divine eyes for himself by performing anAct of Truth.15 In the discussion inquestion, KingMilinda fails to understandhow King Sibi's eyes could have been restored, since there was no physical basis left from which theymight arise.The monk Nagasena explains that there is such a thing as truth and thatby performing anAct of Truth, one canmake thingshappen: rain can fall, fires can go out, and so on. Thus, King Sibi'seyes arose through the power of truth:"Throughthe power of truthandwithout any other cause, Great King, did thatdivine eye arise."16 Nagasena further illustratesthe great power of the truthby telling a story about a prostitute.One day a king, impressedby the size and strength of the mighty Ganges River, asked the assembled townspeople, countryfolk,minis

14See, for 96, example, Cariyapitakapthakatha cited in I. B. Homer, trans.,TheMinor An thologiesof thePaliCanon, part 3, BuddhavamsaandCariyapitaka, SacredBooks of the Buddhists, vol. 31 (London:Pali Text Society, 1975), pt. 2, p. 14 n. 1. 15 "Actof Truth" isa ritual An which onemakes a truthfulstatementand specifies procedure in X what resultone desires from may Y making this statement (e.g., "I state that is true,and ifX is true, occur").If the statement is true, thepower of truth itself causes the result to occur.The Act of Truth isa commonmotif inHindu andBuddhist literatureand is frequentlyemployed inBuddhist stories of bodily sacrifice to restore the body part given away.For more on theAct of Truth, see, for exam A ple, Eugene Watson Burlingame, "The Act of Truth (Saccakiriya): Hindu Spell and Its Employment as a PsychicMotif inHindu Fiction," Journal of theRoyal Asiatic Society (1917): 429-67. 16 Vilhelm Trenckner,ed., TheMilindapanho: Being Dialogues betweenKingMilinda and the Buddhist SageNagasena (London: Williams & Norgate, 1880), 120.

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ters, soldiers, and chief adviserswhether any of them couldmake themighty river flow backward. In all the crowd, only one person could do so-the pros tituteBindumati,who performed anAct of Truth and reversed the river'sflow. Upon seeing this, the king was astonished: 'Whatpower of truth is there in you,who are thievish, fraudulent,evil, deceitful,wicked, who have broken and overstepped the bounds [of decency], and live by plundering thosewho are blind?"Bindumati explained that even one such as she "could turn theworld with its gods upside down" by means of the power of truth. When the king asked her to repeat her Act of Truth, Bindumati replied: Whoever gives money,GreatKing,whetherhe be aKsatriya, a me
Brahman, a Vaisya, a Sudra, or anyone else, I serve each of them in the same manner. There is no special distinction in one who is called a Ksatriya, nor is there anything despicable in one who is called a and repugnance alike. This was my Act of Truth, Lord, by which I

Sudra.I amuse myselfwithwhomeverhasmoney, freeof fawning

made thisgreat GangesRiver flowbackwards.17

An obvious question raisedby this story is this: Why does Nagasena specif use a prostitute to illustratehow anAct of Truthworks? Previous schol ically arship on the Act of Truth, in commenting on this story,has frequently sug gested that depicting a prostitute performing an Act of Truth highlights the great power of the truth; in otherwords, so powerful is the truth that even an immoraland lowlyperson such as a prostitute canmake theGanges River flow backwardbymeans of its awesome power.18 Given the didactic nature of the Milindapaiha, this isno doubt true.How I believe that more attention shouldbe paid to the obviousparallelismbe ever, tween the prostitute and King Sibi, because it is specificallyKing Sibi'sAct of Truth concerning the gift of his eyes that is illustrated means of the prosti by tute Bindumati. Because both the king and the Why is this an apt illustration? prostitute give away their bodies; both use theirbodies to please all solicitors equally, regardlessof their social status (even beggars, in the case of King Sibi); both satisfyall supplicants with total equanimity ("freeof fawningand repug nance alike," a common characteristicof the bodhisattva);and both draw on the power of theirbodily gifts tomake miraculous thingshappen (KingSibi's restoration of his eyes and Bindumati's reversal of the flow of the Ganges River). Thus, a direct parallel is drawn between the bodhisattva'sgift of his body and the prostitute'sgift of her body-a parallel, I argue, that subtlygen ders themale bodhisattva's body as feminine. At the same time, a sharpdistinction is stillmaintained between the bo
17 Ibid., 122.
18See, for example, Burlingame, "Act of Truth."

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dhisattva and the prostitute. King Sibi is generous, compassionate, and kind, while Bindumati is evil, deceitful, andwicked. King Sibi gives his eyes away as a free gift; Bindumati "amuses [herself] with whomever hasmoney."King Sibi allows a blindman to see; Bindumatimakes a living"byplundering thosewho and "male are blind."Thus, a strict ideologicaldistinction between "woman" bodhisattva"ismaintained; the prostitute isnot celebrated, nor is themale bo dhisattva degraded. Nonetheless, the female imageryof the prostitute is in voked and utilized in a limitedway: the prostitutewho ministers sexually to others bymeans of her body isdrafted into the serviceof representingand sug gesting themale bodhisattva's bodily self-sacrifice. Much the same thing occurs inmy second example of female imagery used in connectionwith themale bodhisattva.This is the comparison some times drawn between a bodhisattva and amother. Throughout awide variety of Buddhist texts, bodhisattvas are constantly exhorted to love others "as a mother lovesher only child."A mother's love is frequently invokedas themost intense and self-sacrificingtype of love possible and thus as a suitablemodel for the aspiringbodhisattva.Nevertheless, there is a fundamentaldifference Whereas themother selfishly loves only her own child in this between them: the bodhisattva loves all beings with equal intensity; and whereas the way, mother's love is a manifestation of craving and attachment, the bodhisattva's love is detached and characterizedby equanimity. In other words, the com parison is applicable only to a certain degree; it is the imageryof motherhood that isborrowed, not all of its connotations. Although the parallelismbetween amother's love for her child and a bo dhisattva's love for all beings has frequentlybeen noted before, it is again the explicitlyphysical aspect of this love-love throughone's body-that I believe needs to be brought to the fore.For just as the quintessentialmother nurtures her child physically throughbreastmilk, the quintessential bodhisattva offers his body as food to feed hungry beings. This, in fact, is themost common rea son the bodhisattva commits a deed of bodily self-sacrifice.Thus, the bodhi sattva is similar to themother not only because of the intensityof his lovebut also because he shares with themother a tendency to express this loveby giv his body.As in the case of the prostitute,we may even go so far as to ing away say thatboth the bodhisattva and themother are ultimately defined by a phys icalgift of the body. This comparison between the bodhisattva's gift of his body and the mother's gift of her body is suggested in severaldifferent stories. In the famous storyof the tigress, for example, the bodhisattva is aman who sacrificeshis own This starvingtigress also happens to be a new body to feed a starvingtigress.19

19 the variousversionsof this story,see "Vyaghri" Grey (cited inn. 2). in On

Ohnuma: Woman, Bodhisattva, andBuddha

71

mother: she has just given birth to a litter of cubs and is so exhausted and crazedwith hunger that she intends to devour her newborn cubs instead of feeding them.The bodhisattva savesboth themother and her cubs by offering his own body as food and thus appeasing themother's devouring hunger.This mother" who refuses to feed her children andwishes juxtaposition-the "bad who offers up his own body to save only to devour them, and the bodhisattva the children's lives-suggests that the bodhisattva is, in fact, the "true" mother, the "real" mother"who freely gives her body away. The very mother, the "good structureof the storyhighlights the comparisonbetween the bodhisattva'sgift of his body in the formof food and themother's gift of her body in the formof breastmilk. In one version of the tigress story,thisparallelbecomes evenmore explicit. In the Suvarnabhasottama Sutra'sversion of the tale, the bodhisattva is a prince namedMahasattvawho throwshis body off a cliff and allows the starv ing tigress to devour him.20Just as thismomentous deed is occurring, Prince Mahasattva'sownmother, the queen, experiences the strangephenomenon of milk being produced fromher nipples. One way of interpretingthis episode is to surmise that as PrinceMahasattva isbeing killed by the tigress,his mother's body instinctivelyreacts to his distress by producingmilk-just as it reacted, perhaps,when PrinceMahasattvawas a cryingbaby. Iwould also suggest,how ever, that the text ishere drawing a comparisonbetween the figuresof the bo dhisattvaand themother in regard to the gift of the body: the bodhisattvagives away his body in the form of food, just as themother gives awayher body in the form of breastmilk. An even clearer example of this comparison is offered by the story of Here, theBuddha Sakya Rupavati,which exists in severalSanskritversions.21 muni, in a previous life as awoman named Rupavati, cuts off her breasts and feeds them to a starving woman in order to keep thewoman from devouring her newborn infant. In this case, the figuresof the bodhisattvaand themother are almost totallyconflated.Once again,we have a "bad mother"who refuses to feed her child and instead intends to devour him, in contrast to the bodhi sattvaas a "good mother" who willingly offers her body to save the child. The version of the story, in fact, goes out of itsway to suggest that Divyavaddna's
20 Johannes Nobel, ed., Suvarnabhasottamasutra: Das Goldglanz-satra, ein Sanskrittext des

Otto Harrassowitz, 1937), 85-97. Mahayana-Buddhismus (Leipzig: 21 The three versions of which I am aware are found in theDivyavadana, theAvadanakal palata, andHaribhatta'sJatakamala. See E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil, eds., The Divyavadana: A Collection of Early Buddhist Legends (1886; reprint,Amsterdam:Oriental Press, 1970), 469-81; Parasurama Lakshmana Texts, nos. Vaidya,ed.,Avadana-kalpalataofKsemendra,Buddhist Sanskrit 22-23 (Darbhanga,India: Mithila Institute, 1959), 2:316-19; andMichael Hahn, Haribhatta and Gopadatta, Two Authors in the Succession of Aryasura: On the Rediscovery of Parts of Their Jatakamalas,2d rev.ed. (Tokyo:InternationalInstitute forBuddhist Studies, 1992), 51-57.

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woman, constitutes the boy's "truemother": Rupavati, and not the starving and the child physically resemble one another,forboth are described Rupavati in exactly the same terms, as "pleasing,attractive,and beautiful, endowedwith an excellent, bright complexion"-a description that sharplycontrasts with the of the starving woman herself.22 Moreover, at the end of the story, appearance Rupavati is identified as a past life of the Buddha,whereas the child is identi fied as a past life of the Buddha's son Rahula-once again suggesting that mother." Rupavati is the boy's "true In this story,then, the bodhisattva who gives awayhis body is, at the same a kind ofmother who has intense compassion for a newborn child.More time, over, she is amother who very literallybreast-feeds, by cutting off her own breasts and allowing them to be eaten. Thus, once again, the bodhisattva's gift of his body in the formof food and themother's gift of her body in the form of breast milk are made parallel-or, in this case, virtually collapsed into one. Nonetheless, an ideologicaldistinction still remainsbetween themother and the bodhisattva: whereas themother breast-feeds in a passivemanner, letting milk leak involuntarily of her breasts, Riipavati (the bodhisattva) breast out feeds in amuch more active and heroicmanner, literallyslicingoff her breasts and feeding them to the otherwoman. Once again, the imageryofmotherhood is utilized, but the hierarchical superiorityof "bodhisattva" over "mother" is stillmaintained. One final, startling detail of the storycannotpasswithout comment.At the end of the story,Ripavati draws upon the power of her magnanimous deed to perform anAct of Truth. But insteadof using thisAct of Truth to restore her severed breasts (as might reasonablyexpect), Rupavati uses it to get rid of we her female gender altogether and transform herself into aman, "for manhood is an abode of virtue in thisworld."23 This startlingdevelopment underscores the intended comparisonbetween mothers andmale bodhisattvas. It suggests thatRupavati has "really" been amale bodhisattva all along and that the story her as awoman simply as away of emphasizing the compari initiallydepicts sonwith mothers and breast-feeding. Ifwe can now generalize from our two comparisons-the prostitute and themother-then perhapswe can say that the love and attention commonly provided bymale bodhisattvasare sometimes likened to the love and attention commonly provided by women, particularly in their roles as prostitute and as mother. Indeed, the bodhisattva in some sense combines the best qualities of both, therebyovercoming the faults characteristicof each type ofwoman. The prostitute's fault is that,although sheministers equally to everyone, her love is
22Cowell and Neil, Divyavadana, 471.

23 This quotation comes from the version of Rupavati'sstory found inHaribhatta's Jtakamala (Hahn,55).

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neither genuine nor freely given; themother's fault is that, althoughher love is both genuine and freely given, it is restricted solely to her own children.The bodhisattva,combining the best of both figures,has a genuine and freely given mother who pros love that is showered equally upon all beings-like a loving titutesherself to the entireworld. In considering the significanceof genderwithin these comparisons,how ever, it is especially importantto emphasize the physical nature of this love which women are used as an emblem love throughone'sbody-and theway in of this type of love. Within these comparisons, the intenselyphysicalministra tions enacted by the bodhisattva through self-sacrifice are compared to the physicalministrations commonly provided by women; both women andmale bodhisattvas tend to give their bodies away. And this, Iwould argue, subtly genders the bodhisattva'sgift of his body as feminine. Bodhisattva versus Buddha Inmany contexts,moreover, to gender something as feminine is implicitly to contrast itwith-and subordinate it to-that which is gendered asmascu line.As many feminist theoristshave demonstrated, the attributeof "feminine" does not stand in a vacuum; it is a part of the ideologicalgender system by which "masculine" and "feminine"are opposed to each other andmade to ap asmutually exclusive categories standing in a hierarchical relationshipof pear In dominance and subordination.24 thisparticularcase, I argue that to gender the bodhisattva'sgift of his body as feminine is to contrast itwith the Buddha's gift of Dharma, which is implicitlygendered asmasculine. I have demonstrated elsewhere that both a parallel and a hierarchy are consistently drawn between the bodhisattva'sgift of his body in the past and theBuddha'sgift of Dharma in the present.2Many storiesdealingwith the bo dhisattva'sbodily self-sacrifice suggest, in variousways, thatwhereas the bo dhisattvagives away a physical body, the Buddha gives awaya "spiritual body," which is the body of Dharma (dharma-kaya),that is, the body of his teachings. while theBuddha enacts a spiritual The bodhisattvaenacts a physical salvation, salvation. The bodhisattva'sgift of his body and the Buddha'sgift of the "body of Dharma" are thusparallel,yet they also stand in a hierarchical relationship:

24 Teresa de Lauretis, forexample,defines the gender system as follows:"Theculturalconcep tions of male and female as two complementaryyet mutually exclusive categories intowhich all human beings are placed constitutewithin each culture a gender system, a symbolic system or system of meanings, that correlates sex to cultural contents according to socialvalues and hierar chies"; see Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 5.
25 Ohnuma, "Gift of the Body" (cited in n. 3).

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whereas the bodhisattvagives awayhis physical body to appease the base suf ferings of hunger and thirst, the Buddha gives away his "Dharma-body"to eradicatepermanently the great sufferingof samsara (the endless cycle of re birth). Clearly, the Buddha's gift is vastly superior to that of the bodhisattva, and the revolutionarytransformationentailed by the attainment of Buddha hood is thereby celebrated and affirmed.One effect of subtly gendering the bodhisattva'sgift of his body as feminine, then, is to contrast itwith, and sub ordinate it to, the Buddha's gift of Dharma, which is implicitlygendered as and "female"in na masculine. The bodhisattva'sgift of his body is "physical" to the gifts of the prostitute and themother-whereas the Buddha's ture-akin and gift of Dharma is "spiritual" "male." Indirect evidence in supportof this claimmay be found in a few verses of Wal the Gotami Apadana, which has recently been translatedby Jonathan ters.26 these verses, theBuddha's fostermother, Mahapajapati In Gotami, com pares her physical nourishment of the baby Buddha throughbreastmilk with his "spiritual nourishment"of her bymeans of theDharma:
It was I, O well-gone-one, who reared you, flesh and bones (rapa-kaya). But by your nurturing was reared my flawless dharma-body (dhamma-tanu). I suckled you with mother's milk which quenched thirst for a moment. From you I drank the dharma-milk,

perpetually tranquil.27 Thus, whereas Mahapajapatiprovided theBuddhawith a physicalbody (rapa whereas kaya), he provided her with the "bodyof Dharma" (dhamma-tanu); she fed him physicalmilk that satiatedhis thirst for amoment, he fed her the "milkof Dharma" that satiatedher thirst forever.Clearly, there is both a par allel and a hierarchical rankingbetween her gift and his gift.On the one hand, the gift of breastmilk and the gift of Dharma are parallel;on the other hand, the physical nurturanceprovided by themother is clearly inferiorto the spiri tualnurturanceprovided by the Buddha.Moreover, although themale bodhi sattva's of his body is not explicitlymentioned in these verses,we have al gift ready seen in other contexts that this gift is similar in nature to amother's gift of her breastmilk. Both gifts are parallel to the Buddha's gift of Dharma and
26 Walters, trans.,"Gotami's Story,"inBuddhism inPractice, ed. Donald S. Lopez JonathanS. (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1995), 113-38. For an interesting discussion of this Jr. Voice from the Silence: The Buddha's Mother's Story," apadana, see also JonathanS.Walters, "A History ofReligions 33, no. 4 (1994):358-79. 27 Walters, "Gotami's Story,"121.

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both can be might be used to symbolize it,but both are also ultimately inferior; and considered "physical" "female"in contrast to the "spiritual" "male" and gift the Buddha. provided by Many feminist theoristshavewritten of theway inwhich women tend to Women often be be intimatelyassociatedwith the physical and natural realm. come emblematic of physicality itself, in contrastwith the spirituality that tends to be associatedwith men. "Women,"as Elizabeth Grosz has noted, "functionas the body formen," therebydenyingmen's corporealityand allow ingmen to inhabita pure, disembodied, and transcendentplace of authority.28 Although these ideashave been discussed primarily in relation to the historyof Western thought and I do not wish to overstate their applicability to a non Western context, they are at leastpartiallyapplicable to non-Western traditions such as IndianBuddhism. In the present case, I argue,women are indeed as sociatedwith physicality andmen with spirituality;therefore, if one wishes to draw a hierarchical distinction between the physical salvationoffered by the bodhisattvaand the spiritualsalvationoffered by the fullyenlightenedBuddha, women and feminine imageryconstitute one importantsymbolic resource for doing so.The bodhisattva's physical salvationof beings throughdramaticdeeds of bodily sacrifice is indeed celebrated and praised, yet by the subtle gender ing of this salvation in feminine terms, it is effectively subordinated to the purely spiritual salvationoffered by the Buddha. Tathagata-garbha and the Reversal of Values But subtly feminizing themale bodhisattva is,perhaps, a dangerous game. Women and theirbodies, aswe have seen, carry many intenselynegative con notations inBuddhist literatureandmight thereforebe unsuitable as symbolic vehicles for themale bodhisattva,who is generally depicted in awholly posi tiveway. This leadsme to the second half of my thesis, namely, that although the male bodhisattva is sometimes described by means of feminine imagery, many of these images reverse and resignify the values typicallyassociatedwith the female body and thereforebecome positive rather thannegative in tone. My first example of this use and reversalof feminine imagespertains ex clusively neither to themale bodhisattvanor to stories of bodily self-sacrifice. Instead, it involves a more general concept. I am referringhere to theMa hayana notion of tathagata-garbha. Tathagata is a synonym for Buddha, whereas garbha can signify a "womb"or "embryo." Tathagata-garbha is thus
28 Uni ElizabethGrosz,VolatileBodies:Towarda CorporealFeminism (Bloomington:Indiana Press, 1994), 38. Elsewhere, Grosz states: "The coding of femininitywith corporeality in versity effect leavesmen free to inhabitwhat they (falsely)believe is a purely conceptual order."Space, Time, and Perversion:Essays on thePolitics of Bodies (NewYork:Routledge, 1994), 14.

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or and generally translatedas "Tathagata-womb" "Tathagata-embryo" refers to an indwellingpotential forBuddhahood that every livingbeing is said to pos sess and that is often envisioned in female imagesof pregnancy and gestation. might potentially be seen as a posi Although the notion of tathagata-garbha tive female symbol forBuddhahood-and has sometimes been celebrated as such29-it is important to take a closer look at exactly how female imagery is employed in this case. Indeed, I contend that the notion of tathagata-garbha uses the female imageryof pregnancy and gestation in away that reverses all of the values typicallyassociatedwith the female body. This can be clarified ifwe look at how the body is depicted in each case. Several feminist scholarshave detected in IndianBuddhist literaturea persist ent emphasis not only upon the foulness and impurityof women's bodies but also upon their deceptive and duplicitous nature.30 Women's bodies, much more so thanmen's, are described as being foul and disgusting on the inside while appearingbeautiful and pure on the outside. A woman's beauty is de picted as an external,artificialcreation-like a painted puppet or doll-that re lies on clothing, perfume, and ornaments to cover up and conceal the "bagof excrement" that lies underneath and constitutes woman's true nature. De scriptionsof women's tempting bodies display a persistent use of this inside/ A outside imagery. woman's body is likened, for example, to "amulticolored bottle containing a potent poison"31 and to other such imagesof concealment and deception. Over and over again, themale observer is encouraged to see through awoman's specious external charms to discern the filth and impurity man that liewithin: "Seeingbodies thatarebeautiful on the outside, the foolish is attracted.Knowing that those bodies are defiled on the inside, the self-pos sessedman is indifferent."32 The notion of tathagata-garbha,in contrast, executes an exact reversalof the values of this inside/outside imagery in its description of indwellingBud dhahood. AsWilliam Grosnick has noted, for example, the third-centuryC.E. TathagatagarbhaSatra consists largelyof a collection of similes that "portray something extremely precious, valuable, or noble [i.e., the potential for Bud dhahood] ... containedwithin something abhorrent and vile [i.e., a covering

29 See especiallyRitaM. Gross, Buddhism afterPatriarchy:A FeministHistory, Analysis, and Reconstructionof Buddhism (Albany: StateUniversity of New YorkPress, 1993), 187-88. 30See, for example,Lang, 71-73; Blackstone, 69-75; and Wilson, CharmingCadavers, 93-95
(all cited in n. 6).

31This phrase comes from the Udayanavatsarajaparivartah (part of theMaharatnakauta Diana Paul, Women inBuddhism: Imagesof theFeminine in the Sutra),qtd. in Mahayana Tradition, 2d ed. (BerkeleyandLos Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1985), 41. 32 This quotation appears in chap. 26 of Cowell andNeil's Divyavadana (cited inn. 21), 355.

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of passions and afflictions]."33 Many of the similesused in this sutra, in fact, are almost exact transpositionsof the inside/outside imagesused in other contexts todescribewomen's bodies. Thus,whereas awoman's body is likened to a razor blade smearedwith honey, filth hidden inside a beautiful vase, or a dangerous knife coveredwith silk,34 tathagata-garbhaishere compared topure honey the surroundedby a swarmof bees, pure gold that has fallen into a pit of waste, A and a pure gold statuewrapped inworn-out rags.35 Mahayana sutra saysof a woman's body that "the interior is feared, though the external appearance is whereas the TathagatagarbhaSatra saysof tathagata-garbhathat "al serene," though the outside seems like somethinguseless, the inside is genuine and not of The two images are thus exact transpositions each other. to be destroyed."36 while borrowing the imageryand languageof The notion of tathagata-garbha, female pregnancy and gestation, reverses the values typicallyassociatedwith the female body and thus constitutes an implicitdenigrationofwomen's actual womb, the biological functions.The tathagata-garbha constitutes the "real" "real" of which woman'swomb and embryo are only pale and imper embryo, breastmilk isnothingmore than a sorry fect reflections (just asMahapajapati's which is themilk of Dharma). substitute for the "true" milk, The tathagata-garbha is not restricted to male bodhisattvas, of course. Both men andwomen are said to possess it, so the notion itself is not gender biased; if anything, itprovides uswith an argument for the ultimate equalityof men andwomen and the irrelevanceof all gender distinctions.Nevertheless, it is theway inwhich tathagata-garbha means what itmeans that is significant: the notion of tathagata-garbha, the potential forBuddhahood-the through most exalted ideal of the Buddhist tradition-is signified as a complete rever sal of all those values normally associatedwith the female form. Jewels on the Outside, Jewels on the Inside My second example of the strategyof reversing the values of the inside/ outside imagery typicallyassociatedwith women's bodies takesus back to the male bodhisattvaand the theme of bodily self-sacrifice. It concerns the use of There is a strik imageryassociatedwith jewels in IndianBuddhist literature.

33 William Grosnick, trans.,"TheTathagatagarbhaSatra," inLopez, 92-106; the quotation is

on p. 93.

34 The first two similes appear in theLalitavistara (S.Lefmann, ed., Lalitavistara [Halle,Ger many:Verlag der Buchhandlung desWaisenhauses, 1902-1908], 1:207-8); the thirdsimile appears in theUdayanavatsarajaparivartah(Paul,41). 35 three All imagesappear in theTathagatagarbhaSftra; seeGrosnick, 97, 98, 100-101. 36 The firstquotation comes from the Udayanavatsarajaparivartah(see Paul, 41); the second quotation comes from theTathagatagarbhaSatra (seeGrosnick, 97).

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ing difference between Buddhist depictions of thewoman's body and the bo motif of the jewel. dhisattva's body in relation to the literary As we have already seen,women are frequently said to conceal the foul ness and impurityof their bodies through various artificialmeans, such as clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry.Jewels and jeweled ornaments are repeatedly mentioned as one of the primaryartificesbywhich awoman presents a seduc A tive imageof her body and conceals her truenature as a "bagof excrement." sutra, for example, states: "Ornamentson women show off their Mahayana With a beauty.But within them there is great evil, as in the body there is air. of bright silk, one conceals a sharpknife. The ornaments on awoman piece have a similarend."37 Likewise, in theAsokavadana,when the Buddhist elder to visit the prostitute Vasavadatta, who liesmutilated in the Upagupta goes charnel ground, his commentsmake clear the role that jeweled ornamentsplay in awoman's deceptive beauty: "Whenyouwere concealed by variousexternal things that lead to passion, such as clothing and ornaments, thosewho ob servedyou could not see you as you reallyare, even if theymade an effort.But now this formof yours is seen sittinghere in its truenature, free from artificial contrivances."38 Even in the paradigmatic life storyof the Buddha (as told in the Buddhacarita),we find that Siddhartha'sfinal realizationbefore renounc with women's use of jeweled ornaments. ing theworld deals explicitly Waking in themiddle of the night and seeing the sleepingwomen of his harem ar up rayed in various disgusting poses, Siddhartha thinks to himself: "Impureand foul-such is the truenature ofwomen in theworld of the living. But deceived by clothing and ornaments, a man succumbs to passion in the company of These types of statements are so common and consistent, in fact, women."39 that themere mention of awomen's jewels constitutes a sort of shorthand for a broader complex of ideas concerning the deceptive and artificialbeauty that women construct to conceal their inner impurityand leadmen into seduction. The impure filth on the inside concealed by the beauty of jewels on the out side is a consistent trope in the description of women's bodies. In contrast, jewels are used quite differently in stories of bodily self-sacri fice involvingthemale bodhisattva.Jewel imagery,in general, plays a predom inantand pervasive role inmuch Buddhist discourse on the bodhisattva,but I am interested here primarily in theway inwhich the body given awayby the male bodhisattva is consistentlycompared to or identified as a jewel.A few ex who ampleswill suffice. Inmany storiesof bodily self-sacrifice, the supplicant
37 which seems tobe a partic This passage, too, comes from theUdayanavatsarajaparivartah, ularly rich source for inside/outside imagesofwomen (seePaul, 41). 38 Cowell andNeil, 354. 39Buddhacarita 5.64. E. H. Johnston, ed., The Buddhacarita or Acts of the Buddha, by New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,1984),pt. 1, p. 54. Asvaghosa, new enlarged ed. (1936;reprint,

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asks for the bodhisattva'sbody is really the god Sakra in disguise,who is only testing the bodhisattva'sgenerosity. Such stories sometimes describe this test as being analogous to the process of testing a jewel to ensure that it is not arti no. ficial. For example, in the Avisahyasresthi Jataka (Jatakamala 5), Sakra tests the bodhisattva'sgenerosity by gradually takingaway everythinghe owns to seewhether he will continue to be generous towardothers.At the end of the story,after revealinghis true identity,Sakra says to the bodhisattva:"Ihid your possessions inorder to increaseyour fame and gloryby subjectingyou to a test. After all, even if a jewel isbeautiful, it cannot become a famous and priceless Sakra'sanalogy implicitly suggests jewelwithout being subjected to a test."40 that the bodhisattvahimself is a jewel. In other cases,moreover, this comparisonpertains explicitly to the bodhi for sattva's body. In a story from the Satralalnmkra, example, the bodhisattva mutilates and sacrifices his body on behalf of a hungry falcon,who is really Sakra in disguise. Sakra justifies this cruel test of the bodhisattva by stating: "Whenone chooses an excellent jewel, one examines it several times in order tomake sure that it is not fake.The means of examining a jewel are to cut it, shatter it, expose it to fire, and strike it; then alone can one know that it isnot In fake."41 this case, the bodhisattva'sbody is explicitly compared to a jewel, and the torture undergone by the bodhisattva'sbody during self-sacrifice is compared to the cutting, burning, and rubbing of a jewel in order to ensure that it is genuine. Another comparisonof the bodhisattva's body to a jewel occurs in theCan no. 22), inwhich the bodhisattva is a king draprabhavadfna (Divyavaddna who cuts off his own head and gives it to aBrahman sup named Candraprabha This awe-inspiringdeed of self-sacrifice is presaged by two ominous plicant.42 dreams experienced by the king's twochiefministers, both ofwhich involve the loss of jewels.The firstminister dreams that the king's jeweled crown is taken made out of all kinds of jewels"be away,and the second dreams that a "boat to the king isbroken intohundreds of pieces. In both dreams, the loss longing head. This identificationbe of jewels augurs the loss of King Candraprabha's tween the king'shead and a jewel is further reinforcedby theministers' sub sequent attempt to persuade the supplicant to accept a pile of "jeweledheads" inplace of the king's actualhead. More explicit jewel-as-head imageryoccurs throughout theManicudava
40 HarvardOri Hendrik Kern, ed., TheJataka-mala:Storiesof Buddha'sFormer Incarnations, ental Series, vol. 1 (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1943), p. 27, v. 32. 41 of The story inquestion isno. 64 inAgvaghosa'sSatralarnkara. translation the passage is My based on Huber's French translationof the Chinese version; see E. Huber, trans.,Asvaghosa Ernest Leroux, 1908), 332. Satralarmkara (Paris: 42 Cowell andNeil, 314-28.

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dana, inwhich the bodhisattva is a king namedManicuda ("Jewel Crest")who is bornwith a jewel attached to his head, "brilliantand beautiful, excellent in The text consistently em eightways, and admiredby thousands [ofpeople]."43 the fact that the jewel coversKing Manicuda's head (having "grown phasizes over three-fourths of his head") and penetrates very deeply inside his head (having"entered down into the roof of his palate" "withvery deep roots").44 When KingManicuda decides to give awayhis crest-jewel, the textemphasizes the fact that it can be removed only by splittingopen his skull; in fact,when the jewel is removed, his very brain comes out along with it. In King Manicada's case, then, the gift of his body is the gift of an actual jewel. Though many more examples could be cited, these few should suffice to when applied to a show the strikingdifference in the use of jewel imagery woman's body andwhen applied to the body of amale bodhisattva. Whereas a woman uses jewels as an artificialdisguise to conceal the true nature of her body, amale bodhisattva'sbody itself constitutes a jewel-the genuine thing, devoid of false advertisingor artifice. Whereas awoman's body has an impure inside concealed by the artificialbeauty of jewels on the outside, amale bo dhisattvahas an ordinaryphysical head thatmust be split open to reveal the precious jewel lyingunderneath.Thus, just aswe saw in the case of tathagata garbha imagery,themale bodhisattva'sbody is depicted using quasi-feminine imagery(thatof jeweled ornaments)but in away thatdirectly reverses the in side/outsidevalues typicallyassociatedwith the body of awoman. This gender-related use of jewel imagerycan also be elucidated in terms of the notion of "open"and "closed"bodies. Bernard Faure, in speaking of Chan notions of the body, contrasts the "open,porous,messed up body"of or deluded people with the closed, bounded, and impenetrablebody of the linary Chan practitioner.45 similar contrast is drawn by LizWilson, who borrows A Bakhtin'snotions of the "grotesque" and "classical" On bodies.46 the one hand, Buddhistmeditation on the foulnessof the body tends to conceive of the body in "grotesque"terms-an arrayof nine orifices continuouslyoozing allmanner of vile substances.On the other hand,much of Buddhistmonastic discipline is concernedwith producing a "classical" body-one clearly bounded, carefully material exchangeswith the outsideworld.Wilson regulated,and shut off from
43 Ratna Handurukande, ed., Manicacdavadana, Being a Translation and Edition, and Lo

and Synopsis, SacredBooks of theBuddhists, vol. 24 (London:PaliText kananda,a Transliteration Society, 1967), 8.
44 Ibid., 77, 79, 85.

45 Bernard Faure, "Substitute Bodies inChan/Zen Buddhism," inReligious Reflections on the Human Body, ed. Jane Marie Law (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1995), 211-29; the rele
vant passage is on 212-13. 46 Liz "The Female Wilson, Body as a Source of Horror and Insight in Post-Ashokan Indian

Buddhism," inLaw, 76-99; the relevantpassage ison 91-94.

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furtherassociates the "open"and "closed" bodies with specific genders. In sto ries involving"horrifictransformations" the female body, thewoman is de of or body,with undue emphasis on the orifices of picted as a "grotesque" "open" her body and the substances they emit. The aversion and repulsion caused by Wilson contends, produces in themale spectator a "classi viewing this body, cal"or "closed"body, characterizedby complete physical closure and impene trable boundaries. (Once again,women serve as the body formen and thus allowmen to deny their own corporeality.)Furthermore,Wilson claims that this associationof the two bodieswith specific genders is not limited to stories of horrific transformation holds true forBuddhist thought in general. but The differential use of jewel imagery in regard towomen andmale bod hisattvas that I have outlined accordswell with this general picture of "open" and "closed"bodies. A woman's body is "open"and "grotesque"-a porous, leaky sieve that is constantlyand involuntarily oozingwith impurebodily sub stances.The onlyway she can disguise thisopen body isby patching it together with an artificialexteriorbuilt out of makeup, clothing, and jewelry.Jewels are an especially effective disguise precisely because of their impenetrableand al together "closed"nature. A male bodhisattva'sbody, by contrast, is a "closed" and "classical" body. Despite the fact that stories of bodily self-sacrifice fre quently depict the bodhisattva cutting open his body and sheddingblood and pus, this cutting is compared to the cutting of a jewel and only serves to reveal the pure, impenetrable, and adamantine jewel-body that constitutes the bo but is dhisattva'strue form.Thus, thewoman's bodymay appear to be "closed" but is whereas the bodhisattva's bodymay appear to be "open" actually"open," "closed." The bodhisattva thus executes an exact transpositionof the actually with the bodies ofwomen, evenwhile inside/outsidevalues typicallyassociated use of feminine imagery in his contrastwith the thoroughly masculine making Buddha. I hope that these far-flungexamples substantiate basic argument that my within the IndianBuddhist gender system, amale bodhisattva's body occupies a fluid and versatile position inbetween the bodies of awoman and aBuddha. much of the im On the one hand, descriptionsof the bodhisattva's body invoke the two bodies parallel to each other in agery of the woman's body, making their inferiorityto themasculine body of the Buddha; on the other hand, such depictions may reverse and resignify the values typicallyassociatedwith the woman's body inorder to give the bodhisattva's body a positive valuation as the to the Buddha'sbody, rather than the negative valuationnor proper precursor mally granted to the body of awoman. Such depictions constitute both a fan tasy thatmen can actuallyhave the alluringbodies of women without their im purity and at the same time a recognition that this alluring beauty remains "female" in nature-nothing more than a physical precursor to the transcen dent, spiritual,and disembodied beauty of theBuddha,which is implicitlygen

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dered asmale. Returning once again to the image of the jewel,we might say that whereas awoman wears jewels as an outer deception, andwhereas amale bodhisattva'sbody itself constitutes a jewel, the Buddha takes off his jewels permanently on the night of his renunciationbecause his physical body itself has come to bear the spiritual and transcendent beauty that can only metaphorically be represented by jewels.The Buddha'sbody thus represents themale fantasy's culmination. The Bodhisattva and the Reversal of Values Let me conclude the arguments I have made by suggesting that gender and gender imageryare not the only realm inwhich the figure of the bodhi of sattvaengages in a "reversal values." In fact, a lot of Buddhist discourse on the bodhisattva revolves around the idea that those thingswhich would ordi narilybe conceived of negativelywhen undertakenon behalf of oneselfmay be conceived of positivelywhen undertakenby the bodhisattvaout of compassion for others. This is the logic thatunderlies, for example, the famousmeditation on the "exchangeof self and others" that appears in chapter 8 of the Bodhi Here, the bodhisattva is instructed to cultivate the negative carydvatara.47 emotions of hatred, jealousy,and envy; but instead of directing them toward others from his own perspective, he should direct them towardhimself from the perspective of another. In thisway, he will come to sympathize with other minimize his own needs, and put all his energy intobenefiting others. beings, Thus, emotions thatwould keep an ordinaryperson in a state of delusion and bondage insteadpromote the bodhisattva'scompassion and his progress on the Within the context of the bodhisattva'sextreme compas path toBuddhahood. sion and "other-oriented" values of such emotions perspective, the traditional are reversed. Taking such a strategy to its extremes,many Mahayana texts revel in their depiction of the bodhisattva as a being who reverses all of the values of tradi tional Buddhist terminology. Thus, the Vinayaviniscaya-Updli-pariprccha states that the bodhisattva should have no fear of sins involving "passion" (raga), since passion brings him closer to other beings.48The Mahayana siltralarmkracelebrates the intense "suffering"(duhkha) that the bodhisattva and the Bodhi experienceswhen he contemplates the suffering of others;49
47 Bodhicaryavatara8.120-73. For an English translation,see Kate Crosby andAndrew Skil OxfordUniversity Press, 1996), 99-103. ton, trans.,TheBodhicaryavatara (Oxford: 48See Pierre Vinayaviniscaya-Upali-pariprccha: Enqueted'Upalipourune exe Python, trans., gese de ladiscipline (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1973), 116-17. 49See SylvainL6vi, ed.,Mahayanasatralarmkara, expose de la doctrine du Grand Vehicule selon le system Yogacara (Paris: Champion, 1907-1911), 1:218-19. H.

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(trsna) caryavatara states that the bodhisattva ismotivated solelyby his "thirst" for thewell-being of others, and compares the bodhisattva'sintense suffering for others to a bodywholly enveloped in flames.50 Thus, concepts and images thatwould normally have negative connotations in a Buddhist context-pas sion, suffering, thirst,and a body enveloped in flames-are revalorizedand re when it comes to the bodhisattvaand his great signified as positive terminology extreme eleva for others. In short,with theMahayana tradition's compassion virtue of compassion and itsphilosophical claim that samsara is no tion of the different from nirvana, the bodhisattva becomes a radical figurewhose con duct is determinedwholly by his compassionate intentions rather thanby any formal criteria. Thus, some Mahayana texts describe bodhisattvaswho kill, steal, lie, and have sex-all in the serviceof compassion.Bernard Faure has de scribed this as an "ideologyof transgression"that has its roots inMahayana thought and finds even fuller expression in theChan/Zen andVajrayanatradi tions.51Iwould add to this the further claim that a similar ideologyof trans gression is impliciteven innon-Mahayanastoriesdealingwith the bodhisattva's compassionatedeeds. extravagantly of Perhaps, then, the bodhisattva's"reversal values" in the area of gender and gender imagery is just a part of this largerpattern. Perhaps the bodhi sattva,as one who is capable of reversing the values of all traditionalterminol without being ogy, ismore susceptible to being describedwith female imagery tainted by the negative connotations that such imagerynormally bears. Per haps the bodhisattva's "ambiguousmorality" is inscribed upon his body througha sometimes ambiguousgender identity.

50 ed., Bhattacharya, Bodhicaryavatara Bodhicaryavatara8.109 and 6.123; seeVidhushekhara Asiatic Society, 1960), 164, 111. (Calcutta: 51See BernardFaure, TheRed Thread:BuddhistApproaches to Sexuality (Princeton: Prince tonUniversity Press, 1998), esp. 39-48 and chap. 3.