Female-to-Male Body Transformation

Paper Summary:

As Mahayana shifted emphasis from Nirvana to the Bodhisattva path, there emerged sutras regarding transformation of female into male bodies as a prerequisite to reaching the later stages of Bodhisattvahood. This paper proposes that transformation of a female into a male body was an expression of the concept of emptiness and parts of the movement toward of etherealizing the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. The paper suggests that the use of female body imagery is not necessarily a reference to human bodies at all, but an imagery of changes in the manifestation of consciousness of bodies, impermanence, and emptiness, which played such an important role in the early sutras.

From the Paper:

"We can consider Brahmacarya as an appositional concept if we consider that in one case emptiness is used to explain brahamacara and in the other case transformation is used to explain emptiness. They appear to talk about brahmacarya because they are concerned about impediments to celibacy. Viewed in this light we can get around the problem of why women would transform into males where they would have the added difficulties of brahamacaya. The two are simply different matters."

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