I've just finished my last semester of PhD coursework, and my final term paper was such a doozy I thought I'd share some of what I found here. Stay tuned for thoughts on gender, deviance, castration and more in Medieval Buddhist commentaries! #medievaltwitter

Most conversations about gender or sexual deviance in Theravāda Buddhism come back to the term "paṇḍaka." The Vinaya (monastic disciplinary code) tells us that paṇḍakas cannot be ordained - but who is a paṇḍaka? How can you be sure you're not accidentally ordaining one?

The Vinaya isn't much help here. It only really tells us that paṇḍakas are neither men, women, or animals; and that the prohibition against ordination comes from an (almost certainly apocryphal) case of a novice paṇḍaka being "defiled" by horse- and elephant-handlers.

That case tells us pretty clearly that whatever a paṇḍaka is meant to be, the Vinaya REALLY doesn't want monks being associated with such a person. But it doesn't give us a lot of details beyond that. That's where Buddhaghosa steps in!

Buddhaghosa (c. 5th C) is THE authoritative commentator. He's based at the Mahāvihāra monastery in Lanka and his works are arguably responsible for establishing Pali as a significant Buddhist language in the first millennium. SO what does he tell us about paṇḍakas?

(I'm going to give simplified English translations for everything, no Pali here)
Buddhaghosa lists five types of paṇḍakas: fellators, voyeurs, "fortnight-paṇḍakas" (more on this later), castrati and "non-male" by birth.

At first glance this list seems mismatched. A lot of scholars have given some really great explanations of why Buddhaghosa might have put such specific, yet diverse, varieties of sexual and gender deviance under one heading. Janet Gyatso's work is particularly great here!

BUT we know that this list, or slight variations thereof, was circulating among both medical texts and even rival Vinayas in Sanskrit. So Buddhaghosa didn't make this apparently unusual grouping - his innovation was articulating it in a Pali Buddhist framework.

He tells us that although all of these are paṇḍakas, the prohibition against ordination doesn't apply to the first two sub-types (fellators and voyeurs). He doesn't give an explanation for this, and again it might seem odd - do sexual deviants make better monks than castrati?

The fortnight-paṇḍaka is the most interesting. This person is only a paṇḍaka in the "dark fortnight" of the lunar month, but not in the bright fortnight, and so the prohibition only applies to them in the dark fortnight. Fun stuff! But the story doesn't end with Buddhaghosa.

Buddhaghosa leaves some questions open, and later medieval commentators are left trying to fill the gaps. I'm mainly going to focus on Vajirabuddhi (c. 9th C?), Sāriputta in Lanka and Mahā-Kassapa in the Cōla Empire (both 12th C). I'll call them V, S and K from now on.

V introduces 2 new types of paṇḍaka (citing a text now lost, or apocryphal, as an authority here). This pretty much gets ignored by the later commentators, but one of them is specifically a paṇḍaka "whose 'seeds' are destroyed by the power of incantations." Magic castrations!

V also clarifies that a castrati-paṇḍaka is only one who has lost their "seeds" - someone with a destroyed penis isn't a paṇḍaka, and presumably can safely be ordained. He also suggests that a novice later found to have no "seeds" doesn't need to be expelled from the order.

Most interesting, V tackles the question of the paṇḍaka's gender: he maintains that all five types of paṇḍaka have a gender (bhāva), except for the "non-male" paṇḍaka. Here's the twist: "But their bhāva is paṇḍaka." You have to give it to him, it's a neat conclusion!

S rejects V's conclusion that paṇḍakas, and particularly fortnight-paṇḍakas, have a bhāva just called "paṇḍaka". He says "to them, there is neither woman-bhāva or man-bhāva; thus they are called no-bhāva" (just like the non-male paṇḍaka).

S's main innovation is defining paṇḍakas in Abhidhammic terms. The Abhidhamma commentaries, including Buddhaghosa's, have always tried to fit paṇḍakas into their epistemology, but before S there's no real attempt to synthesise that logic into Vinaya disciplinary commentaries

S defines (all 5) paṇḍakas as "unfit individuals" who are the product of "rebirth not conditioned by the roots [of good virtues]," like animals or "those who have two 'marks' (i.e. sexual organs)." Therefore "to them heaven is not obstructed, but the [monastic] path is"

K likes S's approach of defining the paṇḍakas in Abhidhamma terms, but he disagrees with the details. He maintains that only the first 3 (fellators, voyeurs, fortnight) are "unfit individuals," and that all three have penises and male-bhāva (i.e. are normative "men")

K also (finally!) gives us an explanation for why he thinks Buddhaghosa's prohibitions only apply to certain paṇḍakas. He argues the monastic lifestyle can "cure" fellators and voyeurs, so it's actually beneficial to make them into monks. Major conversion therapy vibes...

Fortnight-paṇḍakas, though, are too "overwhelmed by lusty passion like madness" in the dark fortnight, so even renunciation can't cure their paṇḍaka-ness.

K also tells us that the castrati, despite being born normatively male and "rooted" in virtue, loses their masculinity (including the beard? odd concern for a monk) along with their "seeds". This is apparently what inclines them towards "the transgression of lusty passion".

In short: paṇḍakas have a long and complex history well after the "authoritative" commentaries were closed. Monastic commentators were REALLY concerned with defining the specifics of gender and sexual deviance. And beards are, apparently, the sign of masculinity par excellence.