Mahaprajapati was the only mother the Buddha ever knew. His birth mother, Maya, died shortly after childbirth, and her sister Mahaprajapati took the infant to her breast, nurturing and raising him into adulthood. While there is a lot of ambiguity overall in the Buddha's biography, this detail remains consistent across all Buddhist traditions and literature.

In this first full biography of Mahaprajapati, The Woman Who Raised the Buddha presents her life story, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. Drawing from story fragments and canonical records, Wendy Garling reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati's role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati's journey is finally presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.

The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati, Wendy Garling, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 255 pp, $18.95

Wendy Garling has a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and authorized dharma teacher who has studied with Buddhist teachers of different schools and lineages, primarily His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the late Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden.

For many years Wendy has taught women's spirituality focusing on Buddhist traditions, including original research into ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature investigating seemingly "forgotten" women's stories, especially those embedded in the earliest biographies of the Buddha. In Stars at Dawn, Wendy re-introduces these ancient women's stories, weaving them into a refreshing new biography that shifts the traditional patriarchal paradigm to a more accurate, gender-balanced and female friendly understanding of the Buddha's life and early Buddhism. Her dream is to restore the stories of women in early Buddhism to their rightful place in Buddhist history and reawaken the women's voices to ensure that their stories are not just told, but remembered and valorized as integral to the roots of Buddhism.

Wendy is the mother of 3 sons, lives in Concord, Massachusetts, and is currently writing her second book. She is available for author events and workshops related to women and the sacred feminine in early Buddhism. Contact her at: [email protected].

CONTENTS: The Woman Who Raised the Buddha
	Foreword by H.H. the Dalai Lama	xi
	Foreword by Tracy Cochran	xii
	Acknowledgments	xiv
Introduction		1
	What Do We Call Her? Mahaprajapati's Name	5
	The Journey to Awakening	8
	Stories of the Buddha's Previous Mothers	9
	Reading Women's Stories	14
Prologue: Her Story Begins		17
1. Growing Up in Devadaha		25
	The Koliyans	26
	Family Life	29
	Twin Prophecies	31
	Co-Wives	37
2. Birth of the Buddha		39
	Maya's Death: Two Stories	46
3. Mother and Queen		52
	On Becoming Siddhartha's Mother	54
	Motherhood Stories	57
	Mahaprajapati's Birth Children	60
	The Great Departure	70
	Mahaprajapati as Siddhartha's Birth Mother: Past-Life Stories	76
4. Reunion of Mother and Son		85
	The Buddha to Kapilavastu	85
	Turning to the Dharma	87
5. Empowerment of the Sakya Women		92
6. Mahaprajapati Makes a Robe for Her Son		99
	A Mother's Grief	102
	A Mother's Gift	106
	On Giving the Robe to the Sangha	111
	Guardian of the Robe	117
	Investiture of Maitreya Buddha	123
7. The Fall of Kaplivastu and Rise of the Sakya Women		125
	A Family Dispute	126
	The Death of Suddhodana	128
8. Ordination of Mahaprajapati and the Five Hundred Women		131
	From Upasikas to Bhikkhunis	132
	Requesting Ordination in the Nigrodha Grove	136
	Who Were the First Buddhist Women?	142
	The Journey to Vaishali	146
	Ordination of the Sakya Women	149
9. Mahaprajapati: Foremost in Seniority		165
10. A Patchwork of Stories		174
	Mahaprajapati's Mastery of the Dharma	176
	The Rape of Bhadra	177
	The Crude Brahman	178
	Kindness toward Rahula	179
	Allowing Women Equal Access	179
	Mahaprajapati Falls Ill	180
	Mahaprajapati Advocates for the Nuns	180
	Mother and Daughter Excel in Debates	181
	On Choosing Dharma over Marriage	182
	The Betrothal of Dharmadinna	183
	Hardship for the Nuns	184
	Three Stories Concerning Robes	185
11. The Parinirvana of Mahaprajapati		188
	The Last Day of Mahaprajapati's Life	190
	Funeral of Mahaprajapatis and the Five Hundred Women	203
Epilogue: Her Story Continues		210
	Notes	214
	Bibliography	233
	Credits	242
	Index	244
	About the Author	256