Epilogue: Women under the Bō tree

Summary

In May, 1992, nearly three years after completing my field study, I returned to Sri Lanka for three months. Though I was in Sri Lanka to explore an entirely new dimension of my research, I visited many of the lay nunneries where I had lived in 1988–89.

When I left the island in September, 1989, I thought that fewer women would renounce the world in the years to come, based on the trends since the 1890s that I had documented. Much to my surprise, however, the lay nunneries were far more crowded in 1992 than they were in 1989. In 1992 Lady Blake's had twenty-five lay nuns and three women who were training to don the ochre robe; in 1989 it housed eight lay nuns. The Madivala Upāsikārāmaya in 1992 had fifteen lay nuns; in 1989 there were eight. Kotmalee Dhīrā Sudharmā had died of throat cancer in April, 1991; Dhammāpālī Mäniyo had replaced her as the loku mäniyo.

In addition to the swelling populations in the lay nunneries throughout the island, there was a disturbing increase in the number of homeless lay nuns around the country, especially in the Anurādhapura area. In fact, in 1988–89, little did I know how prophetic the title of my book was: in 1992, I witnessed and interviewed lay nuns who were actually living in the gnarled and tangled roots of Bō trees in and around Anurādhapura. This was in stark contrast to the situation three years earlier; at that time, I noticed only one homeless lay nun in that area.