Becoming Nuns

Abstract

Chapter 6 begins with the life story of a village-based nun to demonstrate how a woman’s path to religious attainment can be strewn with obstacles rooted in gender roles and ideologies. The chapter then explores the motives parents have for making their daughters nuns, the advantages young women perceive in pursuing a religious vocation, and gendered notions of virtue that affect life opportunities for nuns. The main theme of the chapter centers on how the modernizing of Buddhist institutions and educational migration are transforming the nun’s role from a servant in her parents’ village household to a disciple of the Buddha’s teachings who resides in an urban institution.