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Podcast: New Books in Ancient History
Episode: Matty Weingast, "The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns" (Shambhala, 2020)
Description: A radical and vivid rendering of poetry from the first Buddhist nuns that brings a new immediacy to their voices.The Therigatha ("Verses of the Elder Nuns") is the oldest collection of known writings from Buddhist women and one of the earliest collections of women's literature in India. Composed during the life of the Buddha, the collection contains verses by early Buddhist nuns detailing everything from their disenchantment with their prescribed roles in society to their struggles on the path to enlightenment to their spiritual realizations. Among the nuns, a range of voices are represented, including former w...