Nun

A nun (bhikkhuṇī) is a woman who has renounced ordinary Template:Wiki to live a celibate monastic life. As in Theravadin countries, Tibetan women practitioners (generically called ani) could not traditionally attain the full ordination of bhikshuni, since the ordination lineage was held to have died out. There were numerous communities of ani, but there were fewer of them than male monastics and their Template:Wiki was lower.

The contemporary terms ‘Template:Wiki monk’ or ‘Template:Wiki priest’ are misnomers.

Nuns are the second of the four members of the Buddhist Template:Wiki (parisā), the others Template:Wiki monks, lay men and lay women.

To be properly ordained, a nun must be ordained first by a quorum of monks and then a second time by a quorum of nuns.

Some nuns in the scriptures are described as Template:Wiki learned (bahussuta), eloquent (bhāṇika), confident (visārada) and outstanding at teaching the Dhamma (paṭṭha dhammaṃ kattaṃ katuṃ, Vin.IV,290).

At the time of the Buddha nuns were usually addressed both by other nuns and by lay people as ‘noble lady’ (ayye). Monks would usually address them as ‘sister’ (bhaginī).

In Theravāda lands, the nun’s lineage died out around the turn of the first millennium and Template:Wiki do not believe that it can or should be revived because there are no nuns to ordain new nuns.

However, the nuns’ lineage continues in most Mahāyāna countries, and in places like Template:Wiki, nuns are a dynamic and respected presence within the Buddhist Template:Wiki.

See Household Life and Mahā Pajāpatī Gotamī.

Women Under Primitive Buddhism, I. B. Horner, 1990. Template:R www.buddhisma2z.com