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Recently, studies to recognize all territories again in the view of the women are spread. The purpose of these studies is to find women's identity. And new field, ‘Women's Buddhism’ is showing up in Buddhism, as well. Why do this phenomenon get to appear? This starts in recognition there is discrimination between women and men in Buddhism. Śākyamuni's Buddhism is aiming ‘Equality of all living things’. Nevertheless, it is discovered that the Buddhist text contains discriminations constituently about the women. Then, how should we understand these inconsistencies? The purpose of this study is to clear the ambiguity in these inconsistencies.
As we know, Buddhism is the religion based on Śākyamuni's dharma which was achieved through tapas for 6 years by Śākyamuni, who was born as a prince of his country. Of course, there may be the development of the various thought by the change of the society and time. However, the root of Buddhism consists in Śākyamuni‘s dharma. And it is in Buddhist text that we can know this Śākyamuni’s dharma. In other words, everything about Buddhism was recorded in Buddhist text. This means that discussion about the women of Buddhism can not but depend on Buddhist text basically.
But, we must not forget Buddhism is one of the religions that can not help reflecting cultural circumstance at that time. Even though Śākyamuni spoke about the universal dharma that transcend the time and the space, we should never ignore the time or the social circumstance.
That is, Śākyamuni could not always be free in the tradition of the India. Moreover, more than 50% of bhikkhu in saṃha came from the Brahman, which is the leading class in the society of that time. Also it must not be forgotten for the foundation of Buddhism to have been achieved on Brahman society which ignored the right of the women.
Thinking about this, we are sure that the view of the women of Buddhism was based on that of the women of Brahman at that time. At this point, Buddhism is the religion that can not help having not only the universal side but realistic side. Therefore, it might be
possible for the truth to be distorted if we judge only by the contents that Buddhism text has.
Finally, we should discuss both Śākyamuni's view of the women and that of the women of Buddhism considering the two sides of the Buddhism.