The
Therigatha, often translated as
Verses of the Elder Nuns (Pāli:
theri elder (feminine) +
gatha verse), is a Buddhist scripture, a collection of short poems supposedly recited by early members of the Buddhist
sanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose...
in India around 600 BC. In the
Pali CanonThe Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
of
TheravadaTheravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
Buddhism, the Therigatha is classified as part of the
Khuddaka NikayaThe Khuddaka Nikaya is the last of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...
, the collection of short books in the
Sutta PitakaThe Sutta Pitaka is the second of the three divisions of the Tipitaka or Pali Canon, the Pali collection of Buddhist writings, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...
. It consists of 73 poems, organized into 16 chapters. It is the earliest known collection of women's literature.
Despite its small size, the Therigatha is a very significant document in the study of early
BuddhismBuddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. The Therigatha contains a number of passages that re-affirm the view that women are the equal of men in terms of religious attainment, as well as a number of verses that seem to address issues that might be of particular interest to women in South Asian society. Included in the Therigatha are the verses of a mother whose child has died (Thig VI.1 and VI.2), a former prostitute who became a nun (Thig V.2), a wealthy heiress who abandoned her life of pleasure (Thig VI.5), and even of the Buddha's own stepmother, Maha Pajapati (Thig VI.6). An additional collection of scriptures concerning the role and abilities of women in the early
sangha is found in the fifth division of the
Samyutta NikayaThe Samyutta Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the third of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism. Because of the abbreviated way parts of the text are written, the total number of suttas is...
, known as the Bhikkhuni-samyutta.
A number of the nuns whose verses are found in the Therigatha also have verses in the book of the
Khuddaka NikayaThe Khuddaka Nikaya is the last of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...
known as the
ApadānaThe Apadāna is a collection of biographical stories found in the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Pāli Canon, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. It is thought by most scholars to be a late addition to the canon, composed during the 1st and 2nd century BCE...
, often called the
Biographical Stories in English. The majority of these have been translated into the English language.
Translations
- Psalms of the Sisters, tr C. A. F. Rhys Davids, 1909; reprinted in Psalms of the Early Buddhists, Pali Text Society
The Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by T.W. Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pali texts".Pali is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism is preserved...
http://www.palitext.com, Bristol; verse translation
- Elders' Verses, tr K. R. Norman
Kenneth Roy Norman is a leading scholar of Middle Indo-Aryan or Prakrit, particularly of Pali. He saw military service in India and Malaya and studied classics at Cambridge University, and spent most of his career teaching Prakrit at Cambridge University.He was a visiting professor at SOAS and...
, volume II, 1971, Pali Text Society, Bristol
The two translations have been reprinted in one paperback volume under the title
Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns, without Mr Norman's notes, but including extracts from the commentary translated by Mrs Rhys Davids.
Online in English
External links