Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler

TEXTUAL BODIES

1. MATERIALIZATIONS OF VIRTUE: Buddhist Discourses on Bodies

SUSANNE MROZIK

Introduction: Using Butler to Read Buddhist Literature

In Bodies That Matter Judith Butler investigates the regulatory practices that both produce and destabilize normative heterosexuality. I draw on Butler’s work to explicate and contest normative representations of body ideals in premodern South Asian Buddhist literature. Butler argues that sex, like gender, is socially constructed. In place of a concept of construction, however, she proposes that of materialization, because concepts of construction leave untheorized the materiality of sex.¹ Sexed bodies are materialized through the compulsory performance of gender norms that train, shape, and form the very contours of a person’s body (BTM, pp. 54, 17). Gender norms, Butler maintains, operate by requiring the embodiment of certain ideals of femininity and masculinity (BTM, pp. 231–32). These regulatory ideals are not the product of a choice, but the forcible citation of a norm, one whose complex historicity is indissociable from relations of discipline, regulation, punishment (BTM, p. 232). The repetitive nature of gender performance makes sex appear stable and natural (BTM, p. 10). It is precisely this stability and naturalness of sex that Butler contests.

While Butler’s work is focused specifically on contesting heterosexual ideals and exclusions in Western cultures, her ideas are equally suggestive for challenging traditional representations of body ideals in Buddhism. Given the temporal, cultural, and conceptual distances between Butler’s sources and my own, this chapter is not intended as a direct application of Butler’s theories to a premodern South Asian Buddhist context. Rather I read Butler selectively in order to explore the possibilities for a resignification of body ideals in Buddhist traditions—ideals that are in some respects quite different from those Butler contests. My paper is an example of what Butler calls an unanticipated reappropriation of a given work in areas for which it was never consciously intended (BTM, p. 19).

My concern in this paper is what gives or denies value to bodies. What makes some bodies matter and others not? For Butler the key issue is sexual identity. Buddhism has a long history as a pan-Asian movement and has incredible internal diversity. A central concern in evaluating bodies in South Asian Buddhist literature is the association of morality with a range of physical conditions that include, but are not limited to, sex and sexual identity.² For instance, virtue is commonly associated with beauty, a fair complexion, health, and high caste. The close relationship Buddhists posit between body and morality means that bodies rarely appear as morally neutral in Buddhist literature. To the contrary, bodies are valued—albeit not systematically or consistently—on a continuum from abject to virtuous.

The Buddhist literature I discuss concerns the materialization of very particular kinds of virtuous bodies, namely those of a Buddha and Bodhisattva. A Buddha is a fully awakened, i.e., liberated being, representing the highest ideal in Buddhist traditions. A Bodhisattva is a nascent Buddha, a being who has dedicated him- or herself to becoming a Buddha.³ One of the reasons why I find Butler good to think with is because she illumines a process of subject formation that enables me to see a similar process at work in the formation of a Bodhisattva or Buddha. Butler argues that normative heterosexual subject positions depend on and are articulated through a region of abjected identifications (BTM, p. 112). Let me first explain Butler’s concept of abjection and then explain how I use this concept to think through the Buddhist material.

Butler argues that heterosexist gender norms compel the materialization of determinate types of bodies—heterosexual male and female bodies—and preclude the materialization of bodies that do not appear properly gendered, i.e., homosexual bodies (BTM, p. 8). She calls these improperly gendered bodies abject bodies. The abject is the constitutive outside of the normatively sexed subject without which that subject could not exist:

The abject designates here precisely those unlivable and uninhabitable zones of social life which are nevertheless densely populated by those who do not enjoy the status of the subject, but whose living under the sign of the unlivable is required to circumscribe the domain of the subject. This zone of uninhabitability will constitute the defining limit of the subject’s domain; it will constitute that site of dreaded identification against which—and by virtue of which—the domain of the subject will circumscribe its own claim to autonomy and to life.

(BTM, p. 3)

Thus, Butler argues that the abject is at once the constitutive outside of the subject and also inside the subject in that it functions as the subject’s founding repudiation (BTM, p. 3). In her critical reading of the psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan, Butler demonstrates that the subject assumes a sexed position (i.e., gender) through a dual process of identification with and repudiation of an abject homosexuality. Significantly, Butler claims that repudiation of an abject homosexuality is necessary only if on some level an identification has already taken place, an identification that is made and disavowed (BTM, p. 113). Therefore sex is both produced and destabilized (BTM, p. 10) by the reiteration of heterosexist norms since these depend on abjected identifications—identifications that might be affirmed rather than disavowed. Pheng Cheah writes: Since these hegemonic norms form bodily boundaries through exclusion, Butler suggests that the instabilities of reiteration offer the possibility of counterhegemonic rematerializations through the resignification of those alternative ideals of sex previously repressed as abject bodies deprived of symbolic value.⁴ In other words, if sex is not natural, but is rather the material effect of the performance of inherently unstable heterosexist gender norms, then new kinds of bodies, formerly excluded from the domain of the social, may attain cultural legitimacy.

Identification with an abject body image is also a critical aspect of the process of materializing a Bodhisattva or Buddha.⁵ Because of the distance between Butler’s and my sources, I have defined and employed the concept of abjection differently than Butler. In the first instance, Buddhists believe in rebirth. Therefore the materialization of a Bodhisattva or Buddha is a process that occurs over multiple lifetimes. Further, Butler describes a psychological process that is at least in part subconscious. Identification with an abject body image in the context of Buddhism is a conscious and intentional performance. Finally, abjection is defined and evaluated differently in my sources. In certain circumstances abjection is even valorized. In such circumstances identification with an abject body image is affirmed and not disavowed, because such identification is individually and communally liberative. There are, in fact, two different discourses on abjection and bodies in general in my sources. These two discourses, the conventional and ascetic, are both critical to the formation of a Bodhisattva or Buddha. Although I appropriate Butler’s concept of abjection in unexpected ways, I use the concept, as she does, to denaturalize the normative representations of body ideals. I am particularly interested in challenging the assumption in my sources that male sex is a marker of superior virtue. I do so not by demonstrating the presence of female virtuous bodies but instead by challenging the very notion that there are only two sexes (male and female) in these sources. To that end I explore the counterhegemonic materializations of virtuous bodies marked by non-normative, that is, indeterminate and alterior sexes. I use the term indeterminate sex to characterize bodies that blur the boundaries between male and female sexes. I use the term alterior sex to characterize bodies constituted by a sex that is radically other to both male and female sexes. I hope to demonstrate the way in which engagement with Butler’s work provides significant critical resources for revisioning what virtue looks like.

My paper focuses on a premodern South Asian Sanskrit Buddhist narrative, The Story of Beautiful Woman, found in an anthology of Sanskrit Buddhist stories.⁶ The story displays concepts associated with two different Buddhist traditions, Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, without invoking such sectarian labels, suggesting a degree of fluidity between these traditions. The story does not reflect engagement with tantric Buddhist ideas—an important point since tantra offers significantly different representations of gender.⁷ I have chosen this story both because its views on bodies reflect broader South Asian Buddhist perspectives and because it provides a particularly complex exploration of sex. The subject of this narrative is a common one in Buddhist literature, namely, the past lives of Śākyamuni Buddha, the historical founder of Buddhism who is believed to have lived in Nepal and India between the sixth and fifth centuries b.c.e. Because Buddhists believe in rebirth, the Buddha’s life begins long before he became a Buddha.⁸ It begins in the remote past when, in the course of countless lifetimes, the Buddha to be, referred to as the Bodhisattva, cultivates the virtues requisite for Buddhahood. The Story of Beautiful Woman recounts three successive lifetimes of the Bodhisattva. In these three lifetimes the Bodhisattva cultivates the virtue of generosity by feeding the Bodhisattva’s own body to starving humans and animals.

Narratives of bodily mutilation and sacrifice on the part of the Bodhisattva are common fare in Buddhist literature,⁹ but this narrative is unusual in that the initial bodily mutilation is performed by a female Bodhisattva, that is, a female past incarnation of the future Śākyamuni Buddha. (Śākyamuni Buddha is traditionally represented in art and literature as male.) The female Bodhisattva, called Beautiful Woman (Rūpāvatī), cuts off her breasts to feed a starving human mother about to eat her live newborn son. I interpret Beautiful Woman’s bodily mutilation as a conscious and intentional identification with an abject body, an identification that is not disavowed but rather is performed in order to materialize a virtuous bodied being. Beautiful Woman’s long-term goal in performing this act of bodily mutilation is to become a Buddha. Ostensibly her immediate goal is to acquire a male body. Male sex is commonly regarded as a marker of superior moral development. Many Buddhist traditions consider male sex a prerequisite for attaining Buddhahood.¹⁰ Hence its acquisition marks significant progress in a Bodhisattva’s path to Buddhahood.¹¹ Yet I shall question whether Beautiful Woman really produces a male body or, more precisely, whether she produces only one kind of sexed body. Reading against the sexist discourse of the narrative, I shall argue that a. Beautiful Woman’s bodily mutilation produces non-normatively sexed but virtuous Bodhisattvas, b. the Buddha is not male in this narrative, but a radically alterior being, and c. the narrative offers a vision of the Buddha as omnibodied, omnisexed, and omnigendered.¹² Embodiment is not static, but fluid. Virtue therefore has multiple and counterhegemonic forms.

The Story of Beautiful Woman

Ironically, the construction of virtuous Bodhisattva and Buddha bodies begins with a deconstruction of these bodies—literally, a series of dismemberments.¹³ The story describes three successive lifetimes of the Bodhisattva, in each of which s/he engages in bodily mutilation or sacrifice. These extraordinary acts of generosity materialize ever more virtuous Bodhisattva bodies and ultimately the virtuous body of a Buddha. My essay focuses primarily on the Buddha’s lifetime as Beautiful Woman because her story displays the most complex representations of sex. Her story is as follows:

Beautiful Woman lives in a time of famine. As she is walking about one day, she comes upon a starving human mother about to eat her live newborn son. Beautiful Woman does not have time to rush home and get food because the mother is at the point of death. Beautiful Woman reflects that she has experienced countless forms of suffering throughout her many lifetimes. Again and again wherever and however she has been reborn—whether in the many hells or other horrific realms of the Buddhist cosmos, whether as animal or human—repeatedly her hands, feet, ears, noses, various body parts—large and small—have been cut off. She reflects further that she has experienced such torture, along with unspecified other forms of torment, to no avail. In all her many lifetimes her suffering has brought her no benefit. She resolves now to gain some benefit for herself by intentionally mutilating her body. She benefits by beginning to cultivate generosity, which is a requisite virtue for Buddhahood. She asks the starving mother for a knife, cuts off her two breasts, and satisfies the woman with her own flesh and blood.¹⁴ She then extracts a promise from the mother that she will refrain from eating her son until Beautiful Woman has a chance to bring some more food. Bleeding profusely, Beautiful Woman goes home to her husband. She tells him what happened and then asks him to prepare food for the starving mother. Her husband, however, tells her to prepare the food, and, instead, he performs a declaration of truth (satyavacana). Such declarations are a common feature of Sanskrit literature—Buddhist or no—and reflect the South Asian belief that words of truth have the power to alter reality. The truth Beautiful Woman’s husband declares is that no one has ever seen or heard before of a deed as marvelous as that performed by Beautiful Woman. Beautiful Woman’s husband requests that both her breasts reappear through the power of this declaration of truth. They do, and, presumably, Beautiful Woman goes off to the kitchen.

Immediately the narrative shifts to the realms of the Buddhist cosmos inhabited by numerous gods. Gods live long and pleasurable lives, but their lives are not eternal. Eventually they die and are reborn, usually, in less advantageous states. The only way to avoid the endless cycle of birth and rebirth is to attain liberation. The king of gods, Śakra, is worried that Beautiful Woman has earned so much merit by her act of generosity that when she dies she will be reborn as Śakra and the present Śakra might die and be reborn as something else sooner than he had bargained for. Disguising his divine identity, Śakra pays Beautiful Woman a visit to find out if she is as good as she looks. In order to determine her frame of mind before, during, and after the time she cut off her breasts he asks her a series of questions. Specifically, he wants to know if she felt any regret. An ideal donor derives pleasure from her or his gift—never regret.¹⁵ Beautiful Woman assures Śakra that she did not feel regret and that her motive in performing this great sacrifice was to become a Buddha so that she could help others to attain liberation. At this point in the narrative Beautiful Woman makes her own declaration of truth: "By this truth, by this declaration of truth may my female sex faculty (indriya) disappear and may a male sex faculty (indriya) appear."¹⁶ The sex faculty (indriya) is the faculty or power that determines masculine and feminine primary and secondary sexual characteristics, as well as gender-role behavior.¹⁷ According to Buddhism there are separate indriyas, or faculties, that govern eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, male and female sex, and life or vitality. The male sex faculty (puruṣa indriya) and the female sex faculty (strī indriya) control both physical appearance and conduct—what we would define as sex and gender.¹⁸ Beautiful Woman’s declaration of truth has the desired effect. The grammatically feminine Beautiful Woman (Rūpāvatī) becomes the grammatically male Beautiful Man (Rūpāvata). To boot, Beautiful Man gets appointed king of the region because of his great merit. When Beautiful Man dies he is reborn in a wealthy merchant family as a male Bodhisattva named Moonlight whose body at birth emits a great radiance. Moonlight gives his entire body to a flock of starving birds who eat him to the bone. Moonlight is then reborn as a male Bodhisattva named Brahmalight. Brahmalight is born into an even more prestigious family (brahmins, or priests) than that of Moonlight, and his body also emits greater radiance than Moonlight’s.¹⁹ Brahmalight offers his body to a starving tigress and is also eaten to the bone. The story now comes to a close. The Buddha praises generosity since it enabled him to progress toward Buddhahood. He exhorts all present to practice generosity as well.

Conventional Discourse on Bodies: Virtuous Bodies and Abject Bodies

There is much to be learned from this story. I shall begin by discussing the different discourses on bodies—conventional and ascetic—manifest in this story. Note that conventional and ascetic discourses are both present in one story. This is the case in general in South Asian Buddhist literature, although some literature may emphasize one form of discourse more than the other. This discussion of conventional and ascetic discourses will further the analysis of The Story of Beautiful Woman and also provide the reader with information relevant to South Asian Buddhist representations of bodies in general.

Clearly, the generous deeds of Beautiful Woman, Moonlight, and Brahmalight have increasingly beneficial, i.e., virtuous material effects. Virtue is embodied in terms of sex, kingship, family, caste, and bodily radiance. The single most important feature of a conventional discourse on bodies is that such discourse foregrounds bodily differences, defining bodies as more or less abject or virtuous. Most Buddhists, not just Bodhisattvas in narrative literature, were concerned with producing virtuous bodies and preventing the materialization of abject bodies. How are virtuous and abject bodies defined? How are they