Saṅghamittā
A figure from the books
#Sanghamitta
Saṅghamittā · c. 282–203 BCE
In the books · 1 chapter
Who this is
Buddhist nun and missionary — founder of the bhikkhunī (nuns') order of Sri Lanka, and bearer of the Bodhi tree cutting that is now the oldest living human-planted tree on earth with a known planting date.
“A tree she planted around 2,250 years ago is still alive at Anuradhapura, tended without interruption ever since — and the ordination lineage she planted beside it, extinguished at home a thousand years later, survived because it had emigrated to China, and sailed home again in 1998.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“Her great-grandmother-in-dharma had built the nuns' order so that only women could admit women. When an island full of women wanted in and had no nuns to admit them, that rule summoned an emperor's daughter across the sea — carrying a living tree as her luggage.”
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