Kurtis R. Schaeffer's "The Autobiography of a Medieval Hermitess: Orgyan Chokyi (1675-1729)" provides a critical reading of the earliest known Tibetan autobiography by a woman. Attentive to the potential strengths and weaknesses of the literary genre of life writing, Schaeffer considers the specific rhetorical strategies Orgyan Chokyi deploys as a Buddhist, a female, and an author in the cultural milieu of Dolpo. Providing a possible explanation for the dearth of writing by or about women in the Tibetan literary corpus, Schaeffer draws attention to Orgyan Chokyi's desire to write her life story against a proscription to do so by her teacher. Through close readings of several of Orgyan Chokyi's songs, Schaeffer explains her use of the trope of the female body as sa?s?ra, noting that this strategy authoritatively links Orgyan Chokyi's narrative to the Buddha's teaching of the first noble truth of the existence of suffering.
