ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 21, 2014
Karma and Female Birth
Bhikkhu Anālayo
Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg;
Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Taiwan
With the present paper I examine the notion that birth as a woman is the result of bad karma based on selected canonical and post-canonical Buddhist texts.
I am certainly not surprised that men have found yet another reason to place women in an inferior role to them. Of course any woman knows that this notion that the birth of a woman is bad karma is ridiculous! Men cannot exist without women and are therefore threatened by them.