About Women in Tibet

In addition to the Maps link which has posts related to the spaces occupied by Tibetan Buddhist women, this page is intended to give a little bit more information about the specific role women have played in Tibetan Buddhism.

I found it very difficult to study women in Tibet, primarily because Tibetan written history often does not contain facts or stories about women. Additionally, the role of women in Tibet is often kept secret, diminished, or hidden in some other way. In her book Traveller in Space, June Campbell describes this role with the phrases “the Secret Other,” “‘Otherness’ in Female Representation,” and “the Absent Mother.”

One way women’s roles are hidden is through stories surrounding divine birth and the “self-born.” Divine birth of sacred or deified male figures means that the role of the mother in giving birth goes unacknowledged and the fact that she has gone through such labor is eliminated from history. Furthermore, Campbell discusses how boys are often taken away at a young age to live away from their mother and to begin schooling and training, in which case the mother does not have a chance to raise her son and her role in his development is eliminated. “Giving birth and mothering became symbolically usurped by the system,” writes Campbell (97).

Another way women’s roles are kept secret is through the tradition of the sexual consort. Songyum is a term that means wife but also refers to a sexual partner and is literally translated as “secret mother” (Campbell 1996).  Through the songyum, a lama may appear outwards as celibate but would have a secret sexual consort to provide him the opportunity for sexual exploits. This way, a number of powerful men in the Buddhist tradition would have close female companions who remain unmentioned in their biographies and unknown to most of the outside world. The close ties between sexuality and Tibetan Buddhism are another interesting avenue for further research. For the most part, women are either not mentioned in Tibetan Buddhist literature or a described metaphorically/transformed into a deity.

Women do take up a prominent role in some sacred texts in the form of a dakini.  Campbell defines the dakini as follows:

“The female deity who is represented in the iconography as naked and dancing, and whose role is traditionally to clear obstacles on the religious path, and provide insight into the nature of mind. She may appear as human, taking a variety of forms, from crone to virgin or sexual consort. Her name literally means sky or space-goer” (viii).

I want to point out, first, the close ties between the female deity and space. The word used to describe the female deity means “space-goer” or, as Campbell titles her book, “Traveller in Space.” Second, this definition makes very clear the close ties, even as a deity, between women and sexuality in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

All of this being said, it is very difficult to map the sacred space related to women who are made secret and hidden away or who are deities rather than historical figures. It is for this reason that this site focuses on Tibetan nunneries where women are able to study Buddhism. I hope that the maps help provide some insight into the role Tibetan nuns play specifically in Tibet and how Tibetan nuns and women compare with monasteries and men in Tibetan Buddhism.