Exploring women's space

This chapter examines the multi-layered pluralism in the roles of a Buddhist bhikşūņī and to bring out the tension between the social and spiritual roles of a Buddhist practitioner, experienced by virtue of being a woman. It deals with the interactions between bhikşūņīs and the lay community and examines how this interaction defines the social space for bhikşūņīs . The interface between bhikşūņīs and the social world led to the formation of rules and guidelines for the bhikşūņīs , and the implementation of these rules had a significant bearing on the lives of these monastic women in the social as well as the monastic sphere. This study seeks to inquire how they defined their domestic as well as religious space, and how they negotiated the dichotomy between the public and the private spheres.