Tantric Buddhism was the crowning cultural achievement of medieval India (7th-12th c. A.D.). The emergence of Tantric Buddhism represented a radical revision of reigning Buddhist values, enlarging the sphere of enlightenment explicitly to include women, the human body, passion, and sexuality. The topic of my work is the roles of women in this movement. This work presents historical and textual data that I have gathered in India and Nepal about the lives, practices, and accomplishments of women in early Tantric Buddhism. A major source of documentation is biographies and writings of the women themselves (in many cases introduced here for the first time), which are analyzed as evidence of the women's practices, levels of attainment, and teachings. This work also documents that women introduced a range of meditation practices, deities, and inner yogas that helped to shaped the evolving movement.
This work examines Tantric doctrines and beliefs regarding women, as well as the terminology used to refer to and categorize women. These reflect gender relations and provide portraits of personality traits and characteristics found or at least valued in Tantric women. These doctrines refute previous characterizations of Tantric women as ignorant, gullible victims of male exploitation. The portrayal of female Tantrics as subordinate and exploited is most prominent in discussions of Tantric sexual yoga. Therefore, this study examines Tantric sexual practices, with careful attention to the subjective aspects of the practices and to explicit references to their performance by women and intended benefits for women. I devote a chapter to one of the earliest and most influential texts on this topic, which was written in the eighth century by a woman.
My analyses depend upon an application of interpretive principles that have arisen in the context of feminist historiography. These include a primary reliance upon documents created by or attributed to women, a focus upon the subjectivity and agency of women, gender-conscious strategies for reading and translation, and cultural contextualization of gender relations and beliefs regarding gender. Further, my analysis has addressed fundamental issues in the interpretation of Tantric values and ideals, showing that sexuality, embodiment, and the spiritual intimacy of men and women were all central to the classical, noncelibate Tantric paradigm in India. My study finds the full participation, leadership, and religious affirmation of women to be consistent with this religious worldview.
