Presentation Schedule
The Female Narratives of Desiring Gaze at a Monk in Buddhist Literature: Dojoji, Takiguchinyudo, and “Chandalika” (82708)
Session Chair: Gayle Nunley
Wednesday, 30 October 2024 16:45
Session: Session 3
Room: Room 110
Presentation Type:Oral Presentation
The Jataka Tales, a representative of Buddhist literature contains many tales in which a monk is admonished not to be seduced by a woman. In Buddhist literature “love” is nothing but an affliction that prevents liberation. In Dojoji, a Noh play by Kanze Nobumitsu, we see a courtesan who is frantically in love with a monk, and is transfigured into a serpent burning with rage at his betrayal. He hides behind a temple bell, but the serpent surrounds the bell and kills him. The monks of Dojoji Temple chant a sutra in unison, and the serpent jumps into the Hidaka River. A woman with a desiring gaze is often represented as a dangerous because she is characterized as "the impure", who "does not respect [the] boundaries" (Kristeva) on which the symbolic order of society is based.
In Takayama Chogyu’s Takiguchinyudo (1894) Yokobue, a dancer of the court is also represented dangerous because she seduces and ruins Saito Takiguchi Tokiyori who is famous as the best samurai in Rokuhara. Tokiyori gets ordains to get away from his anguish of love. Eventually he becomes a renowned Koya sage. But unlike a courtesan in Dojoji Yokobue challenges Takiguchi Nudo’s way of an ascetic ruthless life when she visits his hermitage to ask for forgiveness.
A more challenging woman in Buddhist literature is Prakriti, an outcaste girl in Rabindranath Tagore’s dance drama, "Chandalika" (1933) which is based on "Sardulkarna-Abadan", one of the Jataka Tales in The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal.
Authors:
Eiko Ohira, Otsuma University, Japan
About the Presenter(s)
Professor Eiko Ohira is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Otusma University in Japan
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