This chapter turns away from the discourse on motherhood examined in the rest of the book to look at the relationship between motherhood and Indian Buddhism as it actually existed “on the ground.” It draws on the work of Gregory Schopen and Shayne Clarke to show that Buddhist monks and nuns in India—in spite of their renunciation of the world—continued to experience a variety of familial entanglements, with parents and children alike; likewise, nuns who were mothers often continued to act as mothers, and the Saṃgha went out of its way to accommodate motherhood within the monastery. The...

This chapter turns away from the discourse on motherhood examined in the rest of the book to look at the relationship between motherhood and Indian Buddhism as it actually existed “on the ground.” It draws on the work of Gregory Schopen and Shayne Clarke to show that Buddhist monks and nuns in India—in spite of their renunciation of the world—continued to experience a variety of familial entanglements, with parents and children alike; likewise, nuns who were mothers often continued to act as mothers, and the Saṃgha went out of its way to accommodate motherhood within the monastery. The chapter tries to make sense of this contradictory data, in part by drawing on contemporary monastic biographies from around the world. The chapter also draws on modern Buddhist material to explore the possibility that mothering itself might be interpreted as a form of spiritual cultivation fully compatible with Buddhism’s goals.