Beware the Crocodile: Female and Male Nature in Aśvaghoṣa’s Saundarananda
Charming Beauties and Frightful Beasts - Non-Human Animals in South Asian Myth, Ritual and Folklore - Fabrizio M. Ferrari
Alice Collett [+ ]
University of St Andrews
Alice Collett received her Ph.D. from Cardiff University (UK) in 2004. Since then, she has worked in several universities in Europe, North America and Asia. Her research specialism is women in early Indian Buddhism, a subject on which she has published many journal articles, books and book chapters. Her most recent book is I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism. She has also received several grants and awards to develop her research, including awards from the Arts and Humanities Council of Great Britain, Numata, and The Spalding Trust. Prof. Collett has delivered many academic papers and public lectures on her research, having been invited to various countries around the world to lecture on the topic, including, for example, a public lecture at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, a conference paper for the Buddhism and Orientalism conference at the University of Toronto and a public lecture on women in early Buddhist inscriptions as part of an ancient world lecture series for the York Festival of Ideas (UK). As well as her role as General Editor for Buddhist Studies Review, she also serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, and the Academic Advisory Board for Asian Languages and Literatures.
Description
In this chapter, the author looks at anxieties of masculinity as expressed through the figurative language which likens women and men to animals in Aśvaghoṣa’s Saundaranand.