Speaking Silences and Moral Selves: Gender, Voice, and Ethical Subjectivity in the Buddhist Jātaka Corpus

Abstract

This article examines how feminine figures in the Buddhist Jātaka corpus are positioned at the intersection of narrative silence and ethical resonance. Drawing on a feminist-narratological methodology, it interrogates how gendered subjectivity is shaped through acts of moral sacrifice, obedience, and silence, even when female characters are denied narrative agency. Through close readings of four tales—Vessantara, Mahājanaka, Mahā-Ummagga, and Sīlavīmaṁsā Jātakas—this study reveals how women function not merely as supporting roles but as crucial ethical nodes within the moral architecture of the tales. These figures are often structurally marginalized yet narratively indispensable, embodying dharma through loyalty, discipline, or sacrifice. The paper foregrounds tensions between voice and virtue, desire and discipline, and examines how these feminine characters both reinforce and complicate the Bodhisattva ideal. It contributes to ongoing debates in Buddhist gender studies by centering feminine ethical presence and narrative function as sites of moral and interpretive complexity.