Women Status and Eastern Religions

The Eastern religions are a major part of the world religions. They have a significant influence on the women status. We will try to examine Korea’s Shamanism, Japan’s Shintoism, and India’s Buddhism and attempt to see how women status be change throughout the course of the time.

Since two thousand five hundred BCE, Shamanism is an indigenous religion in Korea. Shaman is a medium between the physical and spiritual worlds. Typically, Shamans are mostly women. They are responsible to contact spirits, to obtain wisdom, guidance, future knowledge, healing cures, and good fortune. In order to becoming a Shaman, there are three steps. First, one is called to be a Shaman. One cannot be a Shaman by one’s will and need to be chosen. Second, one will first experience a lot of suffering. For example, one will have illness, madness, poverty, family issues. Third, one will experience spontaneous prophecy and trances. If the one refuse the call, one will suffer more illness and misfortune. If the one accept the call, it will lead to relief of the suffering. If the woman is in a marriage, the marriage tends to dissolve. Shaman bonds with other shaman. The young shaman will get train by the older shaman. After the initiation ceremony, prophecies will come pouring out of the new Shaman. She is able to make a living. She will provide wisdom from the spirits: great mother spirit, deceased ancestors (clan leader individual). Primary Korean ritual is called Kut. The Shaman will perform a space purify ritual. She also plays the music instruments during the ritual. Shaman will bring a suitcase of costumes which she changes into representing different spirits. She can only receive the spirit one at a time. The tradition ritual will last about two hours. During the ritual, it will have an intermission. The clients will dance to entertain the spirits. A typical ritual is divided into three segments. Different spirits will speak in each segment. The Mountain God/Mother Goddess speaks first. Ancestral spirits will be second. The warriors and officials (civic leaders from the past) will speak last. Mostly, the Shaman will pray for fertility and the children’s health. After each segments, the Shaman will change her cloth that will represent different spirit. In ancient times, Shamans were respected but in modern times they are looked at suspicion and discrimination. It is because this was traditionally an “outcast” (chonmin) profession requiring women to sing and dance in other people’s houses like courtesans and dancing girls, embarrassing their kin and compromising their children’s and grandchildren’s future marriage prospects (Marcos, 96). The physical, emotional, and economic demands of shamanship are a reason for resistance. Accepting a divine calling requires a total life commitment, and shamans who break their relationship with their spirit risk illness and serious misfortune, afflicting both themselves and their families (Marcos, 97). Also the modern science thinks the shaman and shamanism is unscientific and superstition. The Korean women status steadily decline throughout the course of the history. Recently, Korean Shamanism is making a comeback as a treasured national cultural phenomenon and is taught in universities. The modern feminist movement has promoted female roles outside the home. It helps accepting female shamans.

Shinto is an indigenous religion of Japan. The essence of Shino is a communion with the Divine energies of Nature. Japanese call their divine energies are Kami. It means gods. Shinto means the way of the gods or Kami. In beautiful settings in nature, a space is marked out – purify space stones, rectangular shapes, carpet space with pebbles. At each corner, pillars are put up, ropes connecting pillars, pieces of rice paper placed on rapes. These things will purify the space. Over the course of time, shrine or torii may be built at the purified space. In the earliest shrine, it is a very simple construction thatched roof or pillars. Inside the shrine, alter mirror represents an invisible Kami. Water stream or basin is outside of the shrine. Using the water to wash the hands and mouth, it is a part of purification rituals. When people go in and out of the shrine, they will need to bow and clap. These gestures notify the Kami in the shrine that the people are coming or leaving of the shrine. The Shinto priests are a communion with the nature spirits, and the clan deities or deceased ancestors – guardian spirits of family. In the early times, there is lot more of female priests in Japan. Each clan has their own priest. The position of the priest is hereditary. Shinto believes the divine energies – hundred of Kami – will help the planet growth, change the seasons, create the water ways and earthquakes, and control all in nature. Shinto believes the beginning of the world was all watery chaos. Afterward, gods emerge from the watery chaos. Two of these Kami were Izanami – mother and Izanagi – father. They create the islands of Japan. God of fire burned Izanami and she died. Her spirit goes into underworld and her husband cry in the ocean. His tear becomes the goddess of sun, Amaterasu. Shinto and Japanese believe they are the descendent of Amaterasu. The sun goddess Amaterasu, the primary deity, is enshrined at Ise Temple. After a while, the other deities are also placed in the temple. Over a period of the time, goddess Amaterasu is turned into a male god, Tenshodaijin. In the early part of the time, the high priest at Ise is a priestess. Later on, the high priest position is occupied by the male. There are five major Shinto religious festivals, New Year’s Day, Girl’s Festival, Boy’s Festival, Star Festival and Chrysanthemum Festival. Japanese will also visit the shrines for time of crisis, marriage, blessing, and first time newborn is taken out of a house. After Sixth Century, Buddhism and Confucianism brought to Japan. Both religion and philosophy have a significant and negative impact on the status of women in Japan. By the medieval times, Shinto shrines would have statues of Buddha and Confucius. By mid 1800s, Emperor Mustsuhito in Meiji Era makes Shinto a state religion. He brings back the idea that Emperor is divine and changes Shinto to militaristic religion. During the prime of State Shinto, Buddhism is banned and women are not allowed to be priests. After World War II, State Shinto is banned by the Allies and the indigenous Shinto makes a come back.

In the article, A Shinto Priestess, a young woman name Mine who come from a hereditary line of priests is serving as a priestess at the Suwa Shrine in Nagasaki. She goes to university in Tokyo and studies Shinto. She returns home after her schooling and serves at the Suwa Shrine. She believes she can guide people in the metropolis about how helpful Kami can be. She should not be doing menial tasks at the shrine. She hopes she can go back to her village and becomes a priestess at the local shrine.

The founder of the Buddhism is Siddhartha Gautama who is a royal, wealthy prince born in India in Five hundred sixty BCE. When he goes out of the palace, he encounters an old man, a diseased man, and a decaying corpse. He feels the world is full of suffering. Afterward, he saws a homeless Hindu monk who is happy and content. He likes the vibe from the Hindu monk. So he decides to leave home and in search of enlightenment. He practices meditation and asceticism for several years. During his meditation, he discovers three revelations. He aware he has a previous life. He realizes the Karmic law which governs cycle of rebirth. He discovers four holy truths: to live is to suffering, suffering comes from desire, to end suffering one need to end desire, and one can end desire by the following the Eight-Fold path. The Eight-Fold path contain the right knowledge, right attitude, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness and right composure. Siddhartha has his first sermon at a Deer Park at Benares. He preaches no ritualism; no worship of gods; “be your own lamp”. Buddha also teaches Karma, reincarnation, liberation from Karma, The Four Noble Truth, The Noble Eight-Fold Path, Nirvana, and Dharma.

There are three branches of Buddhism. Therevada Buddhism believes an ideal person is the one who has reached nirvana. Mahayana Buddhism believes a person of great compassion as well as being enlightened. Vajrayana Buddhism believes a person of miracles. Women have highest status in Vajrayana, Mahayana is second and Therevada is last. In the early period of time, women can join Sangha, Buddhist community of monks. Around three hundred BCE to two hundred BCE, Buddhists are debating whether women could achieve full enlightenment. Some believes that women had to be reincarnated as a male first in order to achieve full enlightenment. In earlier Buddhist scriptures, there are stories of women reaching enlightenment. Today, only Vajrayana Buddhists recognize that female can be fully enlightened. Mahayana Buddhists believe women can reach the bodhisattra – wise and compassionate – level. Therevada Buddhists believe women have to be reincarnated as men in order to reach enlightenment. Barbara Crandall quotes from Psalms of the Sisters by Ryhs-Davids

Despite the restrictions placed on women who joined the Buddhist order, they flocked to the Buddha, converted and became lay devotees or pleaded to become nuns. Some joined because the Buddha’s teaching offered a positive alternative to an arranged marriage. In all, some jointed because they were attracted by the Buddha’s message and some because they were repulsed by the world. Some of the first nuns described their traditional women’s role in the Psalms of the Sisters. (Crandall, 63)

Women are not ordained as often as men. In Taiwan, there are more nuns than monks. When Buddhism spreads east to China, Japan and Korea, Confucianism has a significant influence on Buddhism. Confucianism is a philosophy and begins in China in the Six Century BCE. Confucius teaches the five great relationships to make society run more smoothly. In the Confucian structure of society, women, who enjoy equality in early China, are to be subordinate and subservient to men in marriage. Confucianism teaches that women are to be subordinate to their fathers before marriage, to their husband after marriage, to their son after her husband pass away. Since Confucianism spreads throughout Asia, his teachings relegate women to second class status throughout Asian culture for the last two thousand years.

As we can see the Eastern religions have the same progress as the Western religions. The women status is gradually decline throughout the course of the history. Since the modern feminism rise in the Nineteenth century, the women status is keep on rising. Feminists are demanding religious equality as well. They believe it will be a reality in the future.

References

Crandall, Barbara. Gender & Religion.BookSurge LLC, 2006

Marcos, Sylvia. Women and Indigenous Religions. Ed. Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Liallian Ashcraft-Eason, and Karen Jo Torjesen Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010.