一方之師與佛化之母 -- 《佛教女眾》與《覺有情》「婦女學佛號」之佛教女性論述比較分析=A Buddhist Teacher and Carrying Forward Buddhism's Mother: Comparison and Analysis of the Discourse of Buddhist Women in Buddhist Women and The Bodhisattva: The Special Issue on Women Learning Buddhism
Great changes that took place during early Republican period gave rise to important issues such as female rights. As Buddhism carried out its revolution based on Humanistic Buddhism, topics on Buddhism and women also emerged. As a topic unheard of, relationship between Buddhism and women is an inspirational topic worth investigating. In this study, two periodicals were selected for discussion: Buddhist Women and issues of "Women learning Buddhism" from The Bodhisattva with the former published in 1937 by Bodhi Vihara of Wuchang School of Nuns as China's first Buddhist reading material designed for female containing the words of nuns while the latter established by Grha-pati Chen Fa-Xiang from Shanghai with special issues of "Women learning Buddhism" containing mostly of speeches made by female Grha-pati specially established in February, 1943, for 7 months. By nalyzing and observing various aspects and backgrounds of topics made by the aforementioned Buddhist women which include speeches on revolution, and acts to save the nation and Humanistic Buddhism, Buddhist women were found to be equally responsible for spreading the concept of equality of Mahayana, discovering testimonies and examples in Buddhist scripts, documenting biographies as well as being independent and strong with the ability to self-examine, propagandize female studies and revive female virtues. By differentiating the contents of the above two publications and identifying common and different directions and situations of the nuns and female Grha-pati, definitions on "virtuous teacher capable of propagating Buddhism" and "virtuous woman who teaches her children and holds her family together with teachings of Buddhism" were found to be crucial dividing points.
