Click here return to the Hualin main page.
Click here return to the Hualin E-Journal Vol 8.2 Table of Contents page.
Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 8.2 (2025): 23–50; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.08.02.03
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Buddhist Epigraphy and Women’s History)
Three Women’s Voices
Kate LINGLEY
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
lingley@hawaii.edu
Abstract: Although women’s voices are rarely recorded in historical writing in early medieval China, the prominence of many Buddhist women among the patrons of fifth- and sixth-century monuments provides a glimpse into their social and religious lives, and the dedication inscriptions on such monuments often speak from their first-person perspectives. In the three inscriptions selected here, female patrons speak to their relationships to their families and communities, and the role of Buddhist practice in those relationships.
Keywords: patronage, monuments, memory, voice
About the Author: Kate A. Lingley’s research focuses on Buddhist votive sculpture of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, with a particular interest in the social history of religious art in medieval China. Her articles in this area have been published in Asia Major, Ars Orientalis, Early Medieval China, and Archives of Asian Art, among others. She is currently working on a book manuscript on the lives of Buddhist women in medieval China, as seen through the votive monuments they dedicated.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
