作者：玄奘大學宗教與文化學系助理教授、佛教弘誓學院研究部教師 Author: Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and Culture, Hsuan Chuang University; Teacher of Buddhist Hongshi College
While Shakyamuni Buddha was alive, his maternal aunt Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī (摩訶波闍波提) entered the Buddhist monastic system (出家) as the first bhikkhuni. Then, the Buddhist Sangha started a renewal, which means the Sangha of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis have been made unified since then. Among the Tripitaka (or The Buddhist Canons 三藏教典) are a great number of bhikkhunis, who were not only prominent at hearing, contemplating, cultivating, and realizing the Buddha’s teachings (聞思修證) but also attained full enlightenment. At that time, they were so distinguished at every field that the Buddha paid a great deal of compliment on them. However, in the Abhidharmapiṭaka (阿毘達 磨論藏), there was little information about “the Buddhist nuns”. Meanwhile, there were still few records about them in the Chinese monks who went on a pilgrimage for Buddhist scriptures during their journeys to India. Where on earth have the bhikkhunis gone? The present paper aims at searching for their whereabouts. Firstly, in the logical theory, this paper discusses the correlation between “bhikkhunis (女眾出家)” and “Dharma’s forever lasting (正法久住)” and the reasons why Dharma (正法) would either exist or expire. Besides, in the historical events about the Dharma’s extinction, this paper explains whether it is everyone’s responsibility to keep Dharma (正法) working and whether it is ideology (意識型態) when there is the blame on someone or some part of it. Secondly, from the classical statements and worldly discriminations about the nuns’ figures (身影) stated by the author of Abhidharma Mahāvibhāṣā Śāstra and seen by the Chinese sutra-exploring monks (取經僧), the reasons why the bhikkhunis were disappearing at the very time will be studied and explored here.
