Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun.

• Author: Havnevik, Hanna
• Position: Book review

Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun. By KURTIS SCHAEFFER. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004. Pp. viii + 220. $42.

In Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun, Kurtis Schaeffer translates, contextualizes, and analyzes what is most likely the earliest female religious autobiography in Tibetan literature; it is also a rare document in Buddhist literature. Women in premodern Buddhist societies did not--as a rule--write, and particularly not about their own lives. While Tibetan literature abounds with biographical literature authored by men--we know of several thousand male religious biographies and around 150 autobiographies so far--less than a handful of religious autobiographies by women have come to light.

After a short introduction, Schaeffer divides his work into two parts. The first, entitled "The Buddhist Himalaya of Orgyan Chokyi," has a fivefold thematic subdivision discussing first the religious world of the nun, then Orgyan's life constructed as a religious autobiography, and finally the main themes of the text, identified by Schaeffer as sorrow and joy, women's and men's suffering, and finally religious practice. Part two consists of the autobiography, fifty-odd pages in translation, divided into ten short chapters ranging from two to eight pages. Within each chapter, thematic headings have been inserted by Schaeffer in order to highlight important events. The story of Orgyan Chokyi's death (ch. 10, pp. 181-84) was added to the autobiography by a scribe or an editor. Three manuscripts of Orgyan's life story have survived and are now kept at the Nepal National Archives. Schaeffer writes that the manuscripts abound with orthographic inconsistencies, unorthodox and wrong spellings; the style is rural and unlettered--far from the eloquence of central Tibetan male autobiographical writing. The life story is episodic in style and lacks narrative development; the scenes of each chapter serve as vignettes of a theme.

The nun and female hermit Orgyan Chokyi was born in 1675 in Dolpo in the northern central Nepali Himalayas; she died at the age of fifty-five, when a beam fell on her head. Orgyan's father, suffering from leprosy, was a short-tempered man adhering to both the Buddhist and Bon traditions; the text says he was a scholar. The family was of humble origin. Orgyan's mother struggled to make ends meet in one of the highest inhabited areas on earth, and she was furious because her daughter could not manage simple household chores. The parents wanted a son, not a daughter, and took out their rage by beating the little girl and telling her she was incompetent. Only as a herder could Orgyan make herself useful in the agro-pastoral economy of Dolpo. (1)

Orgyan Chokyi soon left her home to herd the horses for a local monastery, and among the animals the unwanted child found comfort and solace. Having endured emotional and physical pain at home, Orgyan identified with, and developed sensitivity to, the suffering of others, and domestic animals became her childhood's intimate friends.

It was among nuns and monks that Orgyan found understanding. An empathetic senior nun advised her to leave household life and join their community. If Orgyan did not, she said, her life would continue to be a misery; she would be tied year-in and year-out to corvee labor. Since a career in solitary meditation...