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 1 2|           monks) and an order of bhikkhunis (nuns). The two orders practiced
 2 2|     changes to the status of the bhikkhunis which were made to bring
 3 2|        and made the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis equal. After his death,
 4 2|          lower the status of the bhikkhunis, and this story was invented
 5 2|         made the rules about the bhikkhunis' subordinance to the bhikkhus
 6 2|      mitigate action against the bhikkhunis. These rules call for gestures
 7 2|    submission on the part of the bhikkhunis, but in no way diminish
 8 2|       but in no way diminish the bhikkhunis' ability to meditate and
 9 2|         equality of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, and these limitations were
10 2|    thousand to join the order of bhikkhunis. Women joined for all sorts
11 2|     reasons as well. Some become bhikkhunis because their husbands or
12 2|          bhikkhus. Others became bhikkhunis when they were widowed,
13 2|      lives of sex left to become bhikkhunis. Some young women chose
14 2| independence within the order of bhikkhunis than anywhere else in society.
15 2|        anywhere else in society. Bhikkhunis were not anyone's slave
16 2| enlightenment songs of the early bhikkhunis. Although the Therigatha
17 2|        us a glimpse of the early bhikkhunis' delight at their freedom.
18 2|          that dragged me back".5~Bhikkhunis were not the only women
19 2|        did not join the order of bhikkhunis. Quite a number of these
20 2|         food to the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis was done by lay women, as
21 2|          the freedoms allowed to bhikkhunis. ~So what happened to the
22 2|         happened to the order of bhikkhunis in the centuries after the
23 2|     third century B.C.E., 96,000 bhikkhunis once gathered in Jambudipa.
24 2|    wisdom. They wanted to become bhikkhunis, but he told them that he
25 2|        both ten bhikkhus and ten bhikkhunis to ordain a bhikkhuni. Mahinda
26 2|          came, with eleven other bhikkhunis, and started the nuns' order
27 3|                          III~The bhikkhunis in Sri Lanka propagated
28 3|        century C. E., Sri Lankan bhikkhunis went to China and established
29 3|          and less mention of the bhikkhunis. By the third century C.
30 3|          is almost no mention of bhikkhunis in India, although we know
31 3|     little mention of Sri Lankan bhikkhunis. ~We do know that the bhikkhunis
32 3| bhikkhunis. ~We do know that the bhikkhunis were declared wards of the
33 3|         a new nun, ordination of bhikkhunis stopped. Since that time,
34 3|      ordained order of Theravada bhikkhunis. ~Thus, for the last millennium,
35 3|          women live very much as bhikkhunis used to. To most people'
36 3|          they would appear to be bhikkhunis. They shave their heads
37 3|       colored robes, just as the bhikkhunis did. They spend much of
38 3|      insist that the DSM are not bhikkhunis, because they could not
39 3|         properly ordained by ten bhikkhunis and ten bhikkhus, as was
40 3|       Lanka who claim to be real bhikkhunis. They live in a cloister
41 3|         claim that the women are bhikkhunis by pointing out that the
42 3|          is this that makes them bhikkhunis. This argument, however,
43 3|    Lankans. This order of modern bhikkhunis does not seem likely to