01 Ching-chien, The First Chinese Nun

high-definition creative commons posters based on Kathryn Ann Tsai’s translation of Pi-chiu-ni chuan, entitled Lives of the Nuns.

A historical biography of the first Buddhist nun in China, named Chu Ching-chien, spanning the Chin dynasty. This text details her early life, including her marriage and eventual widowhood, which led her to teach music and calligraphy to support herself. The account tracks her spiritual journey, explaining how she initially encountered Buddhist teachings through the monk Fa-shih and mastered scripture despite a lack of detailed instruction for women. It also recounts the establishment of the Bamboo Grove Convent and the challenges faced by Ching-chien and her twenty-four disciples in receiving the full monastic rules, since the complete texts and a female instructor were initially unavailable in China. Finally, the text describes how, after the required Mahāsaṅghika rules for nuns were translated, Ching-chien formally became a Buddhist nun and concludes with a description of her miraculous departure at the age of seventy.

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