Unheard Voices: Women's Roles in Medieval Buddhist Artistic Production and Religious Practices in South Asia

Previous scholarship on women's involvement in Buddhism in medieval India assumes that women, both lay and monastic, disappeared from the scene by the ninth century. This view may be rooted more in our way of seeing (or not seeing) than in historical reality. By exploring neglected material evidence that shows patronage patterns of Buddhist religious objects, such as inscriptions, manuscript colophons, and visual representations of donors, this article suggests that women played a visible role in supporting medieval Indian Buddhist institutions. First, two objects donated by two nuns are examined to discuss the continuing existence of the bhikṣuṇī (Buddhist nuns) order in twelfth-century India that had a considerable command over economic resources. The second part of this article attempts to uncover the voice for lay female donors and addresses their participation in religious practices in a medieval Indian Buddhist context based on a socioeconomic analysis of art historical and epigraphic evidence.