Thai Women in Buddhism
Bangkok · 1991
D
Dhammananda Bhikkhunī
Dhammananda Bhikkhunī
1944 CE · Modern · Bangkok
b. 1944 CE (living)
Dhammananda Bhikkhunī (born Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, 1944) is a Thai scholar-nun who, in 2003, became the first modern Thai woman to receive full bhikkhunī ordination in the Theravāda tradition, taking the step in Sri Lanka because the Thai monastic establishment did not recognize female full ordination. A former professor of Buddhist philosophy and religion, she leads Songdhammakalyani Monastery, the first temple in Thailand with fully ordained women, and is a leading voice in the contemporary movement to revive the bhikkhunī order—an effort that remains officially contested in some Theravāda countries. As a living person she is presented aniconically. She is well documented.
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BangkokThailand
What they did here
Born Chatsumarn Kabilsingh; a scholar of religion who taught for 27 years at Thammasat University in Bangkok before ordaining, and abbess of Songdhammakalyani Monastery in Nakhon Pathom.
About Bangkok
Bangkok, on the Chao Phraya River, is the capital and largest city of Thailand. It grew from a village under the Ayutthaya kingdom, and in 1782 King Rama I moved the capital across the river from Thonburi to Rattanakosin Island, a date taken as the city's founding. The Grand Palace and Buddhist temples such as Wat Pho and Wat Arun stand at its historic core, and it is the seat of the national government and a centre of Thai Theravada Buddhism. The Catholic monk Thomas Merton died near the city in December 1968, at a retreat centre in neighbouring Samut Prakan, while attending a monastic conference.
Across the traditions, in Bangkok at the same time
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Dhammananda Bhikkhunī’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Dhammananda Bhikkhunī’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.