The Therigatha, often translated as Verses of the Elder Nuns, is a Buddhist text, a collection of short poems of early women who were elder nuns. The poems date from a three hundred year period, with some dated as early as the late 6th century BCE. In the Pāli Canon, the Therigatha is classified as part of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the collection of short books in the Sutta Pitaka. It consists of 73 poems organized into 16 chapters. It is the companion text to the Theragatha, verses attributed to senior monks. It is the earliest known collection of women's literature composed in India.
Overview
The poems in Therigatha were composed orally in the Magadhi language and were passed on orally until about 80 B.C.E., when they were written down in Pali. It consists of 494 verses; while the summaries attribute these verses to 101 different nuns, only 73 identifiable speakers appear in the text. Like the Theragatha, it is organized into chapters that are loosely based on the number of verses in each poem. While each poem in the Theragatha has an identified speaker, several of the Therigatha texts are anonymous, or are connected with the story of a nun but not spoken to or by her—in one case, no nun seems to be present, but instead the verse is spoken by a woman trying to talk her husband out of becoming a monk. More so than the Theragatha, there seems to have been uncertainty between different recensions about which verses were attributable to which nuns—some verses appear in the Apadana attributed to different speakers. Longer poems later in the collection appear in the Arya metre, abandoned relatively early in Pali literature, but include other features indicative of later composition, including explanations of karmic connections more typical of later texts like the Petavatthu and Apadana. A section of the Paramathadippani, a commentary attributed to Dhammapala, provides details about the Therigatha.
Significance
Despite small size, the Therigatha is a very significant document in the study of early Buddhism as well as the earliest-known collection of women's literature. The Therigatha contains a passages reaffirming the view that women are the equal of men in terms of spiritual attainment as well as verses that address issues of particular interest to women in ancient South Asian society. Included in the Therigatha are the verses of a mother whose child has died, a former sex worker who became a nun, a wealthy heiress who abandoned her life of pleasure and even verses by the Buddha's own aunt and stepmother, Mahapajapati Gotami. An additional collection of scriptures concerning the role and abilities of women in the early Sangha is found in the fifth division of the Samyutta Nikaya, known as the Bhikkhunī-Saṃyutta "Nun's discourse". A number of the nuns whose verses are found in the Therigatha also have verses in the book of the Khuddaka Nikaya known as the Apadāna, often called the Biographical Stories in English. The majority of these have been translated into the English language.
Translations
Psalms of the Sisters, tr C. A. F. Rhys Davids, 1909; reprinted in Psalms of the Early Buddhists, Pali Text Society, Bristol; verse translation
Elders' Verses, tr K. R. Norman, volume II, 1971, Pali Text Society, Bristol
The two translations have been reprinted in one paperback volume under the title Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns, without Mr Norman's notes, but including extracts from the commentary translated by Mrs Rhys Davids.
Verses of the Elder Bhikkhunis, translated by Anagarika Mahendra, 2017, Dhamma Publishers, Roslindale MA;.
Songs of the Elder Sisters, a selection of 14 poems from the Therigatha translated into verse by Francis Booth, 2009, digital edition.
Therigatha: Canti spirituali delle monache buddhiste con il commento Paramatthadipani di Dhammapala, traduzione di Antonella Serena Comba, Lulu, 513 pages,.
A new translation of Dhammapala's commentary has been published by the Pali Text Society:
Commentary on the Verses of the Theris: Therigatha-atthakatha : Paramatthadipani VI, translated by William Pruitt, Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1998, 443 pages,
, London: Pali Text Society, 1909. Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids' 1909 translation of the complete Therigatha. "The 73 songs are organized by length; each is prefaced by Dhammapala's commentary of the 400s CE. The appendix gives translations of 10 songs by theri from another source, the Bhikkhuni-samyutta, apparently contemporary with the Therigatha. Note especially the second section of Rhys Davids' introduction, in which she discusses the lives and beliefs of the theri, and from which you can link to songs that deal with specific themes, e.g., freedom, peace."
