THE FEMININE BODY IN BUDDHISM

Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature, with a foreword by Catherine R. Stimpson (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1996) (From the backcover: "In this highly original 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 a salutary sense of revulsion and a deepened commitment to chastity." "Taking up a set of universal concerns connected with the representation of women, Wilson displays the pervasiveness of androcentrism in Buddhist literature and practice. She also make persuasive use of recent historical work on the religious lives of women in medieval Christianity, finding a common emphasis on disfiguration in Buddhist and Christian hagiography.").