Heritage to Convey

The Buddha’s Prediction

Pajapati, step mother of Buddha, approached the Buddha and asked to be received into the Sangha. The Buddha said no. Still determined, she and 500 women followers cut off their hair, dressed themselves in patched monk’s robes, and set out on foot to follow the traveling Buddha.

When Pajapati and her followers caught up to the Buddha, they were exhausted. Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and most devoted attendant, found Pajapati in tears, dirty, her feet swollen. “Lady, why are you crying like this?” he asked.

She replied to Ananda that she wished to enter the Sangha and receive ordination, but the Buddha had refused her. Ananda promised to speak to the Buddha on behalf of her.

Ananda sat at the Buddha’s side and argued on behalf of the ordination of women. The Buddha continued to refuse the request. Finally, Ananda asked if there was any reason women could not realize enlightenment and enter Nirvana as well as men.

The Buddha admitted there was no reason a woman could not be enlightened. "Women, Ananda, having gone forth are able to realize the fruit of stream-attainment or the fruit of once-returning or the fruit of non-returning or arahantship," he said.

Ananda had made his point, and the Buddha relented. Pajapati and her 500 followers would be the first Buddhist nuns. But he predicted that allowing women into the Sangha would cause his teachings to survive only half as long – 500 years instead of a 1,000.