- Tathālokā Bhikkhunī
- Jun 26, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Tathālokā Therī
June 26, 2021
#HerStoryOurStory #WomeninBuddhism #anulatheri Mahārahatī Anulā Therī - may we remember her name - #අනුලාමහරහත්තෙරණිය
The first woman recorded to have gained full awakening in the Buddha's teaching outside of India, per the ancient Sri Lankan Pāli-text chronicles, opening the Dhamma eye, gaining true vision of Nibbāna (Nirvāna), plunging into the stream of the deathless -- on the first day after the Poson June/Strawberry/Honey/Jyeshta-Vat Purnima full moon -- listening to the Dhamma as shared by the great arahanta Mahinda Thero becoming a stream-enterer, and on the second day of his teaching, a stream-winner. On the lunar calendar, that day would be today, the day of this post -- so sharing this today seems especially propitious.
It was the 3rd century BCE in the year 250 BCE, per the classical Sri Lankan Theravāda counting, 237 years after the final passing of the Buddha (237 BE). Anulā-devī was the vicereine of Sri Lanka, the wife of the uparāja or viceroy, the crown prince Mahānāga, who was the younger brother of King Devānampiyatissa. She had an especially quick ability to understand and gain insight into the Buddha's teaching upon hearing it for the first time.
Listening to the great arahat Mahinda Thero's teaching, and gaining her own clear knowledge and insight into the path, she requested to "go forth", to enter into the Buddhist monastic life, and fully ordain. She was taken seriously, both by the great arahant Mahinda Thera, as well as by the king.
Her insight and her request set great events into motion:
The calling of the great and fully awakened bhikkhunī sister of Mahinda, the bhikkhunī Sanghamittā Therī. The bringing of the southern branch sapling of the awakening tree, the Jayasri Maha Bodhi to Sri Lanka. The establishment of the Bhikkhunī Sāsana outside of India, in Sri Lanka.
Such great events may have happened in other countries as well. Unnamed numbers of women were said to have similarly gained stream entry and stream winning, and to have been ordained in other countries bordering on India during this time, thousands of them. But we don't know any of their personal names or stories from this period. Anulā Therī we know.
And we know something of her further story, as passed down in the Dīpavaṁsa, the Chronicle of the Island, and other later Pāli-text chronicles. We have the stupa (cetiya, caitya, cedi) with her name, which, although largely ruined still stands in Mihintale, Sri Lanka, dedicated for her by one of the great women in Buddhism who followed in her footsteps, the princess of Kelaniya, Abi Saverā, popularly known later as queen of Rohana (Ruhuna) and as queen mother of Anuradhapura, Vihāramahādevī, who we also have to specially thank for the early Buddhist teachings of the Pāli text traditions having reached us today.
Thanks to them, we also know more such great awakened women's names over the first centuries of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, leaders, luminaries and teachers. They are extremely important in their great rarity.
Like the Therīgāthā, the verses of awakened women disciples of the Buddha from his lifetime, this text was known to other traditions, but did not survive in any tradition other than the Early Buddhist tradition preserved in the Pāli texts. So too, surely there were other great and fully awakened women arahatīs after the Buddha's lifetime, but their names have been lost to us in other traditions,* again, passed down only in the Pāli texts. This is not to say that there were not other great Buddhist women leaders and masters internationally, absolutely there were and are. So, it is all the more a precious treasure that we have hers, nāyikā mahātherī Anulā's...and the names of those, at least for a few centuries, who followed her, on the lovely jewel of an island surrounded by the sea, in Anuradhapura, Mihintale, Rohana...
✍️ Tathālokā Therī at Dhammadharini
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*I am not sure if they have been lost in the Tibetan/Himalayan traditions or not - "In 2013, after years of searching and completing challenging editorial work, the Arya Tare Book Association published the first Tibetan-language anthology of Buddhist writings by and about women titled Garland of White Lotuses: the Biographies of the Great Female Masters of India and Tibet: འཕགས་བོད་ཀྱི་སྐྱེས་ཆེན་མ་དག་གི་རྣམ་པར་ཐར་བ་པདྨ་དཀར་པོའི་ཕྲེང་བ།). BDRC is fortunate to have archived all 16 volumes of the anthology, and you can read it in BDRC’s library here. Original Facebook post.
Photos here are from:
- my pilgrimages to Mihintale and to the Anuladevi Cetiya archeological site. Facebook photo album.
- and from the Sinhalese film "Mahindagamanaya" (මහින්දාගමනය සිංහල චිත්රපටය) special Poson broadcast (විශේෂ පොසොන් විකාශනය): YouTube
