Re-Gendering Buddhism: Postcolonialism, Gender, and the Princess Miaoshan Legend

Buddhology frequently configures monastic, androcentric practices and texts as normative and canonical. Women's Buddhism, by contrast, is often relegated to "special studies." I will study these constructions, as well as recent discursive responses to them through the Chinese Buddhist narrative, the Legend of Princess Miaoshan.;I explore the specific methodologies privileged not just in Buddhology, but in the discourses on the Princess Miaoshan Legend. Both have been dominated by Eurocentric and androcentric methodologies and theoretical biases. I reconsider how political, economic, and social forces have shaped both the Princess Miaoshan Legend and its discourses by combining Postcolonial and Feminist critiques with Historiography and Buddhology.;I demonstrate that the narrative's religious themes significantly resemble those of men's hagiographies, most notably that of Prince Siddhartha. In so doing I reinterpret the Princess Miaoshan Legend as a narrative neither about nor addressed to women; instead it is a chronicle that reflects the values and agendas of men like the author himself: educated and socially elite. The legend thus functions both as a cautionary tale about women that reinforces androcentric, monastic Buddhism. As such, I propose that the primary audience of the Princess Miaoshan Legend was men, not women. Moreover the audience surrogate in the narrative was King Zhuangyan, not Princess Miaoshan.;I further demonstrate that using different historiographical and theoretical models reveals the androcentricity of many narratives on idealized women, and that in truth Chinese female icons like Princess Miaoshan are men "dressed" as women. Indeed, I argue that equating gender studies with women's studies limits our understanding of Chinese secular and religious texts on women. Finally, I propose that every interpretation is invested and value-laden, rather than objective and value-free.;My goal is to re-configure the way Chinese women's narratives and women's Buddhist narratives are understood. Moreover, I attempt to broaden the discussion of what comprises "normative" and "special studies" in Buddhology and Chinese History.