Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature (Women in Culture and Society, #1996) (Women in Culture & Society Series WCS (CHUP))

by Liz Wilson

Catharine Stimpson (Foreword)

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In this study of sexuality, desire, the body, and women, Liz Wilson investigates first-millennium Buddhist notions of spirituality. She argues that despite the marginal role women played in monastic life, they occupied a very conspicuous place in Buddhist hagiographic literature. In narratives used for the edification of Buddhist monks, women's bodies in decay (diseased, dying, and after death) served as a central object for meditation, inspiring spiritual growth through sexual abstention and repulsion in the immediate world. Taking up a set of universal concerns connected with the representation of women, Wilson displays the pervasiveness of an drocentrism in Buddhist literature and practice.
  • ISBN10 0226900541
  • ISBN13 9780226900544
  • Publish Date 1 December 1996
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint University of Chicago Press