ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017
Tradition, Power, and Community
among Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka
Nirmala S. Salgado
Augustana College
This article focuses on the relationship between two aspects
of monastic comportment among Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka. How nuns present
themselves is embedded both in a discourse of power and in a discourse of
morality. Their comportment is the subject of public debate insofar as it
relates to disputes about tradition and the recognition of the higher
ordination of Theravāda nuns. Yet that comportment also relates to the
cultivation of moral dispositions (sῑla),
such as restraint and discipline, which are intrinsic to tradition and the
daily work of nuns in the communal life of a nunnery. The article argues
that nuns live a communal form of life in which their cultivation of moral
dispositions relates to questions about power and tradition that they
cannot ignore, even though they may seek to do so.
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