Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual [Paperback]

Serinity Young (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415914833 | ISBN-13: 978-0415914833 | Publication Date: February 21, 2004 | Edition: 1

The wisest teachings of Buddhism say that, like all oppositions, one must move beyond gender. But as Serinity Young shows in this enlightening work, the rhetoric of Buddhist texts, the symbolism of its iconography, and the performative import of its rituals, tell different, and often contradictory, stories. In Courtesans and Tantric Consorts, Serinity Young takes the reader on a journey through more than 2000 years of biographical writings, iconographic depictions, and ritual practices revealing Buddhism's deep struggles with gender.
Juxtaposing empowering images of women with their textual repudiation, beginning with the Buddha himself who abandoned his wife; tantric courtesans who are considered necessary to male enlightenment with fertility rituals designed to ensure male offspring; tales of gender-bending gods and goddesses with all male heavens; Serinity Young draws on a vast range of sources to reveal the colourful, and often troubling, mosaic of beliefs that inform Buddhist views about gender and sexuality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

By considering both the textual and the art historical data, this interdisciplinary study offers us many new insights concerning both women and women's relationships to men. An erudite book that, while taking into account all of the most recent scholarship in the field, goes beyond it to offer us fresh new insights....A major contribution to the literature on women in Buddhism.
–José Ignacio Cabezón, XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

This book is excellent...wonderfully detailed, full of substantial narrative and anecdote and liberal in its comparisons.
–Ellison Findly, Professor of Religion and International Studies, Trinity College

Clearly structured, lucidly written, judiciously illustrated with examples from the primary texts, and accessible to the nonspecialist...it will be an important resource for students and teachers alike.
–Eugene V. Gallager, Connecticut College

This book is a tour de force, marshalling a broad range of materials--textual, ritual, and iconographical--to tackle a complex issue in the forefront of Buddhist studies today, that of sexuality and gender. This book is not to be missed and is a significant contribution to our understanding of the Indo-Tibetan culture of Buddism.
–Ellison Findly, Trinity College, Hartford

About the Author

Serinity Young is Whitney Tibetan Scholar-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History, division of Anthropology. She is the author of Dreaming in the Lotus: Buddhist Dream Narrative, Imagery, and Practice, General Editor for the two volume Encyclopedia of Women and World Religion, and editor of An Anthology of Sacred Texts by and About Women. She currently resides in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (February 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415914833
• ISBN-13: 978-0415914833
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #207,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Serinity Young lives in New York City where she is a Research Associate in the Dept. of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History and teaches at Queens College. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1990 and has received numerous grants and awards, including a Fulbright and being a fellow at the Center for Writers and Scholars of the New York Public Library. She has done fieldwork in India, Tibet, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Russia. Three of her books have been written for high school students: Buddhism: An Introduction, and Hinduism: An Introduction, and Richard Francis Burton: Explorer, Scholar, Spy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking, July 26, 2005

By 

Robert (www.kushan.org) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual (Paperback)

Clever, insightful, well-written and though provoking.

This is an account that is somewhat wider than its title implies. It examines various categories of women (including courtesans and consorts) through the use of Buddhist texts. Young provides a pleasingly nuanced analysis of how male monastic writers have suppressed and marginalised women in the Buddhist tradition in an attempt to control and co-opt their power.

Worth reading for anyone with an interest in gender and Buddhism.