Scholarship in, and transmission of oral texts
Recent threads debating the rules of Bhikkhunis, female Buddhas and religious conservatism made me wonder about how much of a role female monastics would have played in the transmission of the EBTs?
Given that the Bhikkhuni lineage established by the Buddha himself died out in India and in Theravada countries centuries ago, I presume that it was monks who did the studying, teaching and preservation of the texts.
In terms of learning and reciting the Vedas, traditionally it is only Brahmin boys who learn and memorize them. Although there are instances where a girls are encouraged to go to school ( and marry later of course) so I highly doubt they did much teaching afterwards, whatever their abilities.
I only bring this comparison to Hinduism up because I learned that usually boys ( Brahmin) adept at memorizing were chosen to carry on the oral tradition. For many reasons ( early marriage, baby sitting, housework, menstruation) Brahmin women would not have had anything to do with transmitting sacred texts.
There are some female sages such as Maitreyi who did compose Upanishads but in terms of the subsequent transmission it is likely that was it was mainly an all male business.
Given that Buddhist teachings were first established in the land of its birth ( with all the cultural influences) before being sent else where, could the role of women have been similar? Or were their exceptions ( I.e. bhikkhunis )
So to my questions:
A) historically, is there evidence of Buddhist nuns involved in Early Buddhist and Theravada Buddhist scholarship, teaching and transmission?
B) What about in Mahayana, Tibetan schools?
C) is there evidence of Bhikkhunis learning and teaching in universities such as Nalanda?
Ficus