Voramai Kabilsingh

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Voramai Kabilsingh Thai : วร มัย กบิล สิงห์ , RTGS transcription and pronunciation Woramai Kabinsing (born April 6, 1908 , † June 24, 2003 ) was the first fully ordained Buddhist nun ( Bhikkhuni ) in Thailand . From her full ordination in Taiwan in 1971 until her death in 2003, she headed Thailand's first nunnery, Wat Songdhammakalyani ( Thai : วัด ทรงธรรม กัลยาณี , RTGS transcription Wat Songtham Kanlayani , pronunciation [ wátˑsoŋˑtʰamˑkanˑláˑjaːˑniː ]) in Nakhon Pathom, and was called 'Luang Ya Pathom' by her followers .

Life

Voramai Kabilsingh was born in 1908. Her mother Somcheen was ignorant of reading and writing, but very religious and was ordained as Mae Chi in old age . Voramai enjoyed an education and eventually became a teacher, journalist and writer. According to her daughter, she once rode a bike from Bangkok to Singapore at a young age . Through her work as a journalist, she met the MP Kokiat Satsen (Thai: นาย ก่อ เกียรติ ษัฏ เสน ) from Trang Province, from whom she later separated. In 1956 she was ordained as Mae Chi by Pra Prommuni at Wat Bowonniwet , but wore a light yellow robe instead of a white one. In the early 1960s she bought some rice fields near the city of Nakhon Pathom from the family of the former Queen Indrasakdisaci in order to build a house there. After all, she was the first woman in Thailand to receive full ordination in 1971. She transformed her house, which also had an orphanage and a school attached, into a temple in which her daughter Chatsumarn and the three foster children grew up. When she died in 2003, she was able to give the temple to her daughter, who had also become a bhikkhuni .

Act

Voramai Kabilsingh, who also mastered jiujitsu and sword fighting, was a pioneer for women's rights in Thailand, especially with regard to women's right to higher nunnery and education. She is also considered an advocate of Engaged Buddhism . For more than 30 years she published and produced her own Buddhist magazine in order to make her ideas heard. She earned money with a soapstone factory and an attached sales market in order to maintain the temple and the up to 80 nuns and orphans in the house. She bought land for two more temples, one in Sam Phran district and one in Lamphun , near Chiang Mai .

literature

Ellison Banks Findly (Editor): Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal, Wisdom 2000. ISBN 0861711653

Remarks

  1. ^ Yasodhara Newsletter on International Buddhist Women's Activities Oct-Dec, 2003
  2. ^ Yasodhara Newsletter on International Buddhist Women's Activities Oct-Dec, 2009

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Voramai Kabilsingh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Luang Ya; Ta Tao Fa Tsu (ordination name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Thai suffragette and Buddhist nun (Bhikkhuni)
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1908
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 2003
Place of death Nakhon Pathom