Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 불교학연구 ISSN:1598-0642(Print)

With this paper I examine the widespread recognition that birth as a woman is the result of bad karma (pāpa-kamma) or of demerit from the early Buddhist perspective. Early Buddhist texts have little to say about women’s inferior karma, but there exist indirect hints that imply women’s subjugation. The sex-change is taken for granted in the Vinaya-piṭaka with no moral judgments about it. The same thing can be said about sex-change in next lives. A Sākyan woman, Gopika by name, who was a stream-winner, died and was born as Gopaka, the son of Sakka in Tāvatiṃsa. On the contrary, three heavenly musicians (gandhabba) who had come to dance at his father’s palace were identified as three monks he had worshipped in his former existence. This narrative indicates that women’s karma is never inferior to men’s karma and that women’s karma sometimes can exceed men’s karma. The Cūḷakammavibhaṅga-sutta of the Majjhima-Nikāya, in which a detailed exposition of karma and its results can be found, does not broach the topic of maleness or femaleness at all. The same can be said to other similar suttas or sūtras in the Pāli Nikāyas and Chinese Āgamas. The doctrines of dependent origination and the non-self theory indicate the transcendence of gender, suggesting that both male and female genders are nothing but concept. The Buddha agrees that birth as a human being is the best possible birth because only as a human can one make real spiritual progress and attain liberation from the round of rebirth. Furthermore, the idea that birth as a woman is the result of bad karma or of demerit is incompatible with the freedom from defilement incumbent on reaching full awakening, where any prejudice based on caste, social standing, race or gender has been left behind. Therefore, we can safely say that female birth was not seen as something negative in Early Buddhism.