Some figures do not remain confined to the past. They can return to a person’s, a woman’s life as an ancient, intimate, almost visceral call. In Buddhism, we learn the names of Uppalavaṇṇā, Yasodharā, Khemā, and Dhammadinnā—radiant women remembered for their virtues and role in the formation of the early Bhikkhunī Order.
During my years of teaching and practice in Sri Lanka, I have seen temples building and erecting new statues of Yasodharā, which is deeply meritorious. And yet something within me refuses to settle. I could not help noticing that the woman who actually started it all, the entire system, is often mentioned only in passing, spoken of lightly, or acknowledged out of duty rather than gratitude. She is remembered once a year on Binara Poya, and then quietly forgotten.
I believe she deserves better and should be venerated.
Mahāpajāpati Gotamī
For me, Mahāpajāpati Gotamī is not a mythical figure or a character in sacred texts. She is the woman who showed me that women must move toward equality even when the world demands stagnation. Throughout my spiritual journey, she became a central presence. She is a mother, a queen, a teacher: someone who refused to bend even before the Buddha himself, and who, millennia ago, showed us who came after what it means to never give up.
Mahāpajāpati Gotamī was the Buddha’s adoptive mother, the first bhikkhunī in history, and the founder of the Bhikkhunī Order. After the death of the Buddha’s mother Mahāmāyā (who was also her sister), she was the one who raised Siddhattha Gautama from the first days of his life. At that time, she had just given birth to her own son, Nanda—but because the Bodhisatta’s destiny was already sealed, she chose to stop nursing her child to feed him instead. The texts tell us that this was not a unique event of that lifetime, but a choice repeated again and again through many past lives.
The Jātaka Tales—the Buddha’s birth stories—confirm this. Mahāpajāpati’s bond with the Bodhisatta was not forged in one existence but woven through countless lifetimes.
In the Kāsāva-vagga (Khuddaka Nikāya), the Culanandiya Jātaka tells of the Bodhisatta born as a monkey chief who protects and carries his blind mother. The commentary identifies the blind mother as Mahāpajāpati Gotamī, revealing that their maternal bond did not begin in their final life.
In the Maṇikuṇḍalavagga of the Culladhammapāla Jātaka, the Bodhisatta appears as the young prince Dhammapāla, while his mother, Queen Candā, is identified in the commentary as another past life of Mahāpajāpati Gotamī. The text is explicit: “At that time, Mahāpajāpati was Candā, and I myself was Prince Dhammapāla.”
Maternal love, grief, endurance are qualities that echoed across her shared lives with the Bodhisatta, preparing her to cradle, nourish, protect, and guide him in his final birth.
Parents—especially mothers—are sacred in every tradition. Mothers shape the destiny of children. Mothers sacrifice, endure. And in the sacred life of the Buddha, Mahapajapati’s role was no different. She was not merely the aunt or the foster mother. She was the mother. And she is our second mother. But her greatness is not limited to spiritual motherhood. Her most audacious act came when she sought ordination for herself and for five hundred women. It was an unimaginable request in her era, when women had no status, no public voice, no recognized place in religious institutions.
What many forget is that she had already asked twice, long before the march even began. She made two formal, respectful pleas. Two clear refusals. And yet, she did not withdraw. Instead, she made the most radical choice a woman of her time could make: she gathered the five hundred women—those who had generated endless merits with her in past lives—removed her ornaments, donned the ochre robes, and walked. They walked for days and days of dust, heat, and barefoot miles with no attendants or protection. No privilege. Only after this unprecedented march did she make her third request.
She made that final plea to her stepson with respect, yet with extraordinary confidence. There was a royal dignity in her—steady, serene, and impossible to overlook. And when the Buddha finally granted her ordination, she did not see it as a personal triumph, but as a doorway opened for every woman who would come after her—for us, who today can practice, teach, meditate, and study only because of that revolutionary step.
To ask for ordination was not a simple spiritual gesture: it was a social revolution, silent and without anger or weapons. Gotamī transformed fear into possibility, frustration into a bridge, and pain into determination. The image of five hundred women leaving their homes to walk through dust, not knowing whether they would be accepted or rejected, is one of the most powerful in the entire Buddhist tradition. In our modern world marked by crisis, such courage is needed more than ever.
Her monastic life was marked by discipline and luminosity. The texts remember her as a woman of deep wisdom and unshakable balance. She was the most senior and experienced of the bhikkhunīs—not only because she was the first to ordain, but because she quickly realized stream entry. This honor fulfilled the prophecy and aspiration that had accompanied her since Padumuttara’s time: she became the Buddha’s foremost woman disciple in seniority and wisdom.
The commentary explains that rattāññū means “one who was awakened early,” literally “of long standing”—which for her had a double meaning: she spent the longest time as a nun and attained arahantship earlier than the others.
When I first encountered the story of Mahāpajāpati Gotamī, I too was walking in my own dust. It was a time filled with judgment, expectations, unspoken fears, and invisible obstacles. I had not yet found my voice, and I did not know whether I would ever have the courage to change my life.
Her story became the mirror of what I could become: a woman who walks even when no one understands her; who chooses what makes her alive, not the approval of others; who follows an inner calling even when it is difficult to explain.
Her spirit helped me during countless moments: when I was a lost and helpless teenager, when I was a crushed and humiliated young nun, unable to defend myself, and now, after picking up the pieces and rebuilding with courage. Above all, she taught me that a woman must be faithful to her own truth—even when that truth isolates her or exposes her. She did it, even when she was not understood, even when the system labelled her unreasonable or non-conforming. Because she endured it, I likewise cannot turn back—and every monastic, especially nuns, should do their best to live up to it.
Mahāpajāpati Gotamī has given me a model of female leadership that is too often hidden: a leadership born from service, vision, disciplined gentleness, and maternal compassion. Every time I speak in a temple, teach students, or sit before devotees and children, I know that my place exists because she opened that path centuries before me.
In moments of discrimination or hostility, I think of her—of her ability to not react with anger but to continue walking. She is proof that one can be gentle and unstoppable at the same time.
Mahāpajāpati Gotamī is not only the first bhikkhunī in history—she is the beginning of every possibility that has ever opened for us.
She is the invisible hand that pushed me forward when I did not know where to turn. She is the presence I seek in moments of confusion, the unshakable proof that a woman can be free, disciplined, profound, and radiant all at once. Walking in her footsteps is not mere devotion: it is an act of recognition.
Because every step I take today—every teaching, every moment of courage—was born from her ancient journey, from the day she chose to walk barefoot toward liberation and refused to accept a world that denied women a place on the path.
This is why, for me, Mahāpajāpati Gotamī is not an ancient figure: she is a living legacy, an unfading flame, and a timeless mother and queen. And if today I exist as a nun, a teacher, a woman who chooses without fear, it is also because she walked first, leaving a trail in the dust that I can still follow.
Related features from BDG
A New Chapter for Buddhist Nuns
Buddhistdoor View: Reawakening Awareness – Commemorating a Supreme Woman Arahant, Ven. Yasodhara (Bhaddakaccana Theri)
Anula Stupa Relics Unearthed: New Excavations Illuminate the Women’s Order in Sri Lanka and Around the World
