Pratham Manabir Swar : Therigatha by Swati Ghosh [Hardcover]

The Buddhist nuns, once referred to as Sthaviri, whose verses are compiled in the Therigatha (meaning "Verses of the Elder Nuns") - a collection of songs in Pali, form part of the Tripiṭaka, the Buddhist scriptures. These verses serve as a spiritual autobiography of the Buddhist nuns, detailing their renunciation of worldly life, their embrace of Gautama Buddha's teachings, and their meditation and spiritual experiences. The Therigatha consists of seventy poems written in five hundred and twenty-two verses, which are regarded as a source of religious inspiration. It is almost as if the verses are the nuns' own reflections, conversations with themselves.

In the Therigatha, we witness how the Buddhist faith, through its everyday, small moments, becomes an integral part of life. It tells how moments of sorrow and suffering can transform into joy, how the devotional experience of faith becomes a poetic expression through the unique aesthetic sensibility of women. This collection describes how, through some divine influence, women in ancient India - over two and a half thousand years ago - forgot their bodies and love, and found bliss in the thought of liberation.

What is extraordinary about the Therigatha is how it was able to preserve, in almost forgotten Pali, the first voice of women’s poetry, their first independent expression, and then bring it alive in the vibrant Bengali language. This poetry is so old that its origin is nearly lost, yet it is so original in thought that it is unfathomable. At once personal and universal, the Therigatha transforms spiritual history into a subject of poetic expression. Even after two and a half thousand years, the nuns' collective pursuit of liberation through friendship and auspiciousness continues to resonate as relevant and meaningful today.