--- title: "Women in Buddhism: Bhikkhunis, Female Lamas and Tara" url: "https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/women-in-buddhism/" date_published: "2026-10-03T00:26:57+00:00" date_modified: "2026-10-03T00:26:57+00:00" author: "Maris Dreshmanis" language: "en-US" site: "Reincarnatiopedia (https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/)" license: "© 2026 Reincarnatiopedia / Maris Dreshmanis. All rights reserved. Cite with a link to the source URL." --- # Women in Buddhism: Bhikkhunis, Female Lamas and Tara Can a woman become a fully ordained Buddhist nun, a lama, even a Buddha? In Buddhism the answer has changed over 2,500 years — and it is still changing. The order of nuns, the **bhikkhunis**, began with the Buddha’s own foster-mother; in Tibet a line of female reincarnate lamas has continued since the fifteenth century; and in June 2022, in Bhutan, women received full ordination within Tibetan Buddhism for the first time in modern history. This article is part of our guide to [women in religion](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/women-in-religion/). ## What is the role of women in Buddhism? Women in Buddhism have been nuns, teachers, yoginis and, in Tibet, recognised reincarnations of great masters — yet for centuries they had fewer rights than monks. Both things are true at once. The early texts preserve the poems of enlightened nuns, the *Therīgāthā*, one of the oldest collections of women’s religious verse in the world. At the same time, the same canon contains rules that place nuns below monks, and in several countries the line of nuns’ ordination was lost for almost a thousand years. Did other religions treat women the same way? Compare the story of [women and the priesthood in Christianity](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/can-women-be-priests/) → ## Who was Mahapajapati, the first Buddhist nun? Mahapajapati Gotami was the Buddha’s maternal aunt and foster-mother — she raised him after his mother died — and, in Buddhist tradition, the first woman to ask for ordination and the first bhikkhuni. The canon tells that she and many women of the Sakya clan cut their hair, put on robes and walked after the Buddha to ask to be admitted. The Buddha’s attendant Ananda pleaded for them, and ordination was granted on condition that she accept eight “rules of respect” (*garudhammas*) that placed nuns under the guidance of monks. Modern scholars, among them the monk-scholars Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Anālayo, point out that the background stories of these eight rules show them arising at different points in the order’s early history, which casts doubt on the account that they were all laid down on the first day. Mahapajapati’s own verses are preserved in the *Therī-apadāna*, where she is honoured with the title “Mother of the Buddha”. ### Mahapajapati’s past lives Buddhist texts tell her story as a chain of lives. According to the *Therī-apadāna*, many ages earlier, in the time of the Buddha Padumuttara, she saw that Buddha honour his aunt, a nun, and made a wish to hold the same place under a future Buddha. Through many births — as a god in a heavenly realm, as a leader of five hundred women who fed and housed wandering sages — she kept that wish, until it came true as the foster-mother of Siddhartha. In the Lotus Sutra the Buddha predicts that she herself will one day become a Buddha. How karma carries a wish from life to life is explained in [how karma is balanced between lifetimes](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/how-karma-is-balanced-between-lifetimes/). ## What is a bhikkhuni? A bhikkhuni (Sanskrit *bhikṣuṇī*) is a fully ordained Buddhist nun — the female counterpart of a bhikkhu, a fully ordained monk. A novice nun takes ten precepts; a bhikkhuni takes the full set of monastic rules, which in most surviving codes is longer for nuns than for monks: 311 rules for nuns against 227 for monks in the Theravada code, 348 in the Dharmaguptaka code followed in China, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and 364 in the Mulasarvastivada code of Tibet. Because full ordination traditionally requires both monks and already-ordained nuns, once the nuns’ line dies out in a country, it cannot simply restart there. ### Why were there no Theravada nuns for centuries? In the Theravada tradition of Sri Lanka the bhikkhuni order appears to have lapsed in the eleventh century, and in Burma by about the thirteenth. With no nuns left to give ordination, the monastic councils of Thailand and Myanmar still hold that full ordination of women is impossible. Women in these countries live as renunciants with fewer vows — the *maechi* of Thailand in white, the *thilashin* of Myanmar in pink. ### The revival: Sarnath 1996 and Bodh Gaya 1998 In December 1996, at Sarnath in India, a group of Sri Lankan women received full ordination with the help of Korean nuns — the first step in reviving the Theravada bhikkhuni order. In February 1998 a large international ordination followed at Bodh Gaya. Thai scholar Chatsumarn Kabilsingh took full ordination in Sri Lanka and returned home as **Dhammananda Bhikkhuni**, becoming a pioneer for Thai women. Today there are bhikkhunis in Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United States, Australia and Europe, though not every monastic authority recognises them. Islam faced a similar question about women’s religious authority. See [female imams and women scholars in Islam](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/female-imams-women-scholars-in-islam/) → ## Women in Tibetan Buddhism: full ordination in Bhutan, 2022 For most of its history Tibetan Buddhism had novice nuns but no fully ordained nuns, because the bhikkhuni line had never been brought to Tibet. That changed on 23 June 2022: below the sacred site of Taktsang in Bhutan, the Je Khenpo — the spiritual head of Bhutan’s Drukpa Kagyu school — presided over the full ordination of 144 women, according to the Buddhist magazine Lion’s Roar. It was the first ceremony to fully ordain women within Tibetan Buddhism in modern times. The ceremony followed the Mulasarvastivada monastic code using ordination by monks alone, one of two options Tibetan scholars accept as valid. The 14th Dalai Lama has long supported full ordination for nuns but has said that such a change requires agreement among senior monks; a committee to study it was formed at his request in the mid-2000s. Education changed even earlier. The geshe degree — the highest qualification in Tibetan monastic philosophy, often compared to a doctorate — was closed to women for centuries. In April 2011 the German-born nun Kelsang Wangmo became the first woman to receive it; Tibetan nuns were first admitted to the examinations in 2013, and in 2016 twenty Tibetan nuns became the first Tibetan women to earn the degree, now called *geshema*. ## Female lamas: Tibet’s line of female reincarnations Tibetan Buddhism recognises *tulkus* — teachers who are believed to return life after life and are found again as children. Almost all are male, but not all. The most famous female line is that of the **Samding Dorje Phagmo**, which is often described as the highest female incarnation in Tibet. The line began with Chökyi Drönma (1422–1455), a princess of Gungthang, whom the yogi-engineer Thangtong Gyalpo recognised as an emanation of the goddess Vajravarahi. Her successors served as abbesses of Samding Monastery on the shore of Lake Yamdrok, a community that once included both monks and nuns under a woman’s leadership. The line continues to this day. How are tulkus found? The search, the tests and the signs are described in our overview of [reincarnation beliefs across world religions](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/reincarnation-beliefs-across-world-religions-and-cultures/) → ### Khandro Rinpoche Mindrolling Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, born in 1967 in Kalimpong, India, is one of the best-known female lamas teaching today. She is the daughter of the late Mindrolling Trichen, head of the Nyingma school. At the age of two she was recognised by the 16th Karmapa as the reincarnation of Khandro Urgyen Tsomo, “the Great Dakini of Tsurphu”, a celebrated woman master of the early twentieth century. In 1993 she founded the Samten Tse retreat centre in Mussoorie, India, for nuns and lay students. ### Yeshe Tsogyal, the “Mother of Tibetan Buddhism” Yeshe Tsogyal (traditionally c. 757 or 777 – 817) is the highest woman in the Nyingma lineage and is revered as a female Buddha by the Nyingma and Karma Kagyu schools. Tradition holds that she was a princess who fled arranged marriages, became the closest disciple of Padmasambhava, the master who brought tantric Buddhism to Tibet, and wrote down and hid his teachings as *terma* — “treasures” to be rediscovered by later generations. Historians note that her biography is a sacred life-story, and how much of it is historical remains an open question. ### Machig Labdrön and Chöd Machig Labdrön (1055–1149; some sources give 1153) was a Tibetan yogini who created **Chöd**, the practice of “cutting through” the ego by offering one’s own body in visualisation. It is one of the very few Buddhist lineages founded by a woman. Tibetan tradition regards Machig as a reincarnation of Yeshe Tsogyal — and Khandro Urgyen Tsomo, whose rebirth Khandro Rinpoche is, was in turn regarded as an emanation of Yeshe Tsogyal. So within Tibetan Buddhism one can trace a chain of women recognised as the same awakened mind returning across a thousand years. ## Can a woman become a Buddha? The story of Tara Yes — at least in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. **Tara**, “the Saviouress”, is revered in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Mongolia as a female Buddha. In the best-known form, Green Tara, she is the source of swift compassionate action; White Tara is associated with healing and long life. Tibetan practitioners recite the *Praises to the Twenty-One Taras*, adults and children alike. Her origin story is about rebirth. Aeons ago a princess named Yeshe Dawa, “Moon of Primordial Awareness”, made offerings to the Buddha of her world and awakened the wish to free all beings. Monks advised her to pray to be reborn as a man so that she could progress further. She replied that only the worldly-minded see gender as a barrier to enlightenment, observed that few wished to work for beings in a woman’s form, and vowed to be reborn as a woman in every life until she reached Buddhahood — and to remain a woman then too. The 14th Dalai Lama has retold this story and called it a true feminist movement within Buddhism. ## Western women in Buddhism: Tenzin Palmo Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was born Diane Perry in Hertfordshire, England, on 30 June 1943. At 18 she read a library book on Buddhism and realised she was a Buddhist; at 20 she went to India, met her teacher, the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche, and in 1964 became the second Western woman ordained in the Tibetan tradition. In 1973 she received full ordination in Hong Kong. For six years she was the only nun in a monastery of a hundred monks. She later recalled that the monks told her they prayed she would be reborn as a man, so that she could join all their activities. In 1976 she moved into a cave about three metres wide in the Lahaul region of the Indian Himalayas and lived there for twelve years, three of them in strict retreat, through winters far below freezing. Her vow, which inspired Vicki Mackenzie’s biography *Cave in the Snow*, became famous: to attain enlightenment in the female form, no matter how many lifetimes it takes. In 2000 she opened **Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery** in Himachal Pradesh for women from Tibet and the Himalayan regions, and there revived the Togdenma line of women yogis. In 2008 the head of the Drukpa lineage gave her the rare title Jetsunma, “reverend lady”. ## Women in Buddhism and reincarnation Buddhism is the tradition where the question “can a woman lead?” is bound up most tightly with rebirth. The old idea that a female birth is a lower one rests on the doctrine of karma; the answer women gave to it — Tara’s vow, Tenzin Palmo’s vow, the female tulku lines — rests on the same doctrine, turned around: a mind can choose to return as a woman again and again. In Tibetan Buddhism the time between death and the next birth is described in the Bardo teachings; compare them with modern life-between-lives research in [the Bardo Thödol and modern life-between-lives research](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/the-bardo-thdol-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-and-modern-lbl/). Has a woman ever sat on the papal throne in Rome? Read [Pope Joan: was there ever a female pope?](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/pope-joan/) → ## Frequently asked questions ### Can women be monks in Buddhism? Women can be nuns. Full ordination as a bhikkhuni exists in East Asian Buddhism, was revived in Theravada from 1996, and was given within Tibetan Buddhism in Bhutan in 2022. Some Theravada authorities, notably in Thailand and Myanmar, still do not recognise it. ### Who is the most famous woman in Buddhism? Among historical figures, Mahapajapati Gotami, the first nun. Among revered figures, Tara, the female Buddha. Among living teachers, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and Khandro Rinpoche are widely known. ### Are there female Dalai Lamas? No Dalai Lama has been a woman. The 14th Dalai Lama has said in interviews that a future Dalai Lama could be a woman. A separate line of female reincarnations, the Samding Dorje Phagmo, has existed since the fifteenth century. ### What does Buddhism say about rebirth as a woman? Older texts treated a female birth as less fortunate. Mahayana teachings, above all the story of Tara, answer that gender is no barrier to enlightenment. Women in other traditions: [female rabbis](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/female-rabbis/), [the Sufi saint Rabia al-Adawiya](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/rabia-al-adawiya/), [women who founded religions](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/women-who-founded-religions/). All topics: [Women in Religion](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/women-in-religion/). ## Sources 1. *Therīgāthā* and *Therī-apadāna* (Pali Canon); Aṅguttara Nikāya 8.51 on the ordination of Mahāpajāpatī. 2. Bhikkhu Anālayo. *The Foundation History of the Nuns’ Order*. Bochum: Projektverlag, 2016. 3. Lion’s Roar. “Women receive full ordination in Bhutan for first time in modern history”, June 2022. 4. Hildegard Diemberger. *When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet*. Columbia University Press, 2007. doi:[10.7312/diem14320](https://doi.org/10.7312/diem14320) 5. The Treasury of Lives: biographies of Chökyi Drönma, Yeshe Tsogyal and Machig Labdrön (treasuryoflives.org). 6. Vicki Mackenzie. *Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo’s Quest for Enlightenment*. Bloomsbury, 1998. 7. Miranda Shaw. *Buddhist Goddesses of India*. Princeton University Press, 2006. 8. Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. “Ordination in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition” (dalailama.com). 9. Darcie M. Price-Wallace. “The Fragility of Restoring Full Ordination for Tibetan Tsunmas (Nuns)”. *Religions* 13(10), 2022, 877. doi:[10.3390/rel13100877](https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100877) 10. Michelle Hannah. “Colliding Gender Imaginaries: Transnational Debates about Full Ordination for Tibetan Buddhist Nuns”. *Asian Journal of Women’s Studies* 18(4), 2012, 7–44. doi:[10.1080/12259276.2012.11666134](https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2012.11666134) 11. Padma’tsho (Baimacuo) and Sarah Jacoby. “Gender Equality in and on Tibetan Buddhist Nuns’ Terms”. *Religions* 11(10), 2020, 543. doi:[10.3390/rel11100543](https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11100543) --- Source: [Women in Buddhism: Bhikkhunis, Female Lamas and Tara](https://reincarnatiopedia.com/en/women-in-buddhism/) — Reincarnatiopedia, Maris Dreshmanis. License: © 2026 Reincarnatiopedia / Maris Dreshmanis. All rights reserved. Cite with a link to the source URL.