Miranda E. Shaw is an American author and scholar of
Vajrayana Buddhism
Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...
. Her book, ''Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism'', won the James Henry Breasted Prize, the Tricycle Prize for Excellence in Buddhist Scholarship, and the Critics' Choice Most Acclaimed Academic Book award in 1995.
[Poss, 2020, p. 41] Shaw earned her undergraduate degree from
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
, a Master of Theology (MTS) from
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...
, a Master of Arts in Religion (MA), and a doctorate in the study of religion (PhD) from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
[Poss, 2020, p.42] Shaw is an Emerita faculty member of the School of Arts and Sciences at the
University of Richmond
The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...
.
Career
Miranda Eberle Shaw was born in Ohio on May 9, 1954.
As a teenager she read a copy of the
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...
and the
Upanishads
The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...
. Later she became interested in images of female sky dancers,
apsara
An apsaras or apsara ( sa, अप्सरा ' lso ' pi, अक्चरा, translit=accharā) is a type of female spirit of the clouds and waters in Hinduism and Buddhist culture. They figure prominently in the sculpture, dance, literat ...
and
dakini
A ḍākinī ( sa, डाकिनी; ; mn, хандарма; ; alternatively 荼枳尼, ; 荼吉尼, ; or 吒枳尼, ; Japanese: 荼枳尼 / 吒枳尼 / 荼吉尼, ''dakini'') is a type of female spirit, goddess, or demon in Hinduism and Bud ...
, from
Tantric Buddhism
Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...
. These interests led her to the study of Buddhism, art, and the under-explored role of women in Tantric Buddhism. While pursuing her doctorate degree at Harvard University, she was funded as a University Fellow from 1983–85 and received the Bowdoin Graduate Literary Prize in 1986. She received a
Fulbright Fellowship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
for doctoral research abroad in 1987 and several local fellowships to complete her dissertation. While traveling in India, Shaw states that she received the approval of the
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...
to research
Anuttara Yoga Tantra
Classes of Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the categorization of Buddhist tantric scriptures in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism inherited numerous tantras and forms of tantric practice from medieval Indian Buddhist Tantra. There were ...
.
[Poss, 2020, p. 43] Following the completion of her dissertation, Shaw began a career as a professor of religious studies in 1991 at University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia.
In 2003 Shaw contributed to a catalog, ''Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art'', for an exhibition shown at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the
Columbus Museum of Art
The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collect ...
in
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...
.
She co-authored two essays for the catalog. Shaw's contributions to the catalog helped to bring attention to the ritual purposes and not merely to the aesthetic value of the Buddhist art.
In 1994 she wrote her first book, ''Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism''. The book won the James Henry Breasted Prize for Asian History in 1994.
[Poss, 2020, p. 46] The next two years, the book was awarded the Tricycle Prize for Excellence in Buddhist Scholarship and 1995-1996 Critics' Choice Most Acclaimed Academic Book. The book was blessed by the 14th Dalai Lama,
Tenzin Gyatso
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
, at publication. The book, written in English, has been translated into more than seven languages. ''Passionate Enlightenment'' focuses on the role of women practitioners and counters
patriarchal
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...
and
gynophobic interpretations of Tantric Buddhism. In addition, the book reports her research to find forty works authored by women from India's
Pala period (from 8th to the 12th century). According to Shaw, during this period, Tantric Buddhism fostered relationships between women and men that were both mutually liberating and relied on women as a source of enlightenment. In the book, Shaw also counters Victorian British influenced interpretations of Tantric Buddhism as overly eroticized and too grounded in a Western religious understanding of sexuality. According to Shaw, sexual union in Tantric Buddhism focuses on a quest for a right relationship between partners and a deeper spiritual connection. The book includes an 18 page bibliography of further reading and contributes evidence that argues against an assumption that women have a subordinate role in Tantric Buddhism.
To write her second book, ''Buddhist Goddess of India'' (2006), Shaw translated
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
texts about goddesses and took photographs of goddess festivals in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
. In
Kathmandu, Nepal
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, she attended the
Kumari festival and the
Guhyeshvari shrine to observe and to conduct interviews.
[Poss, 2020, p. 54] In her analysis of ritual dance practiced by Tantric Buddhist priests in Nepal, Shaw found that the movements could be understood to be a way to connect the body to a spirit of compassion. To write this book, Shaw received a Fulbright scholarship. After publication, the book won the 2006 Foreword Reviews Gold Award for books in Religion.
[Poss, 2020, p. 55] In a review of her work in this book, Kent Davis described her "as a realist, conducting research where previous scholars have missed crucial connections, or chosen not to make the." Likewise, David Gray, noted that it filled a gap in the scholarship on goddesses in South Asian Buddhism. Similarly, David Hall, observed in the introduction to his own book on the topic, that Shaw's book was "beautiful" and helped to draw attention to the role of goddesses in Buddhism.
Influence
Shaw's research has advanced the understanding of the role of goddesses, goddess practice, and the contributions of women to Tantric Buddhism.
Her work has helped to correct misconceptions about the role Tantric sexual practices and the role of women in Buddhism.
[Poss, 2020, p. 57] In her interviews and in-person teaching sessions, Shaw endeavors to promote a view of sexuality for women that is grounded in the "feminine divine".
She connects this value of Tantric Buddhism to the work of other feminist theologians—particularly by encouraging an embodied divinity that reconnects the mind and body. To this end, Shaw pursued the practice of spontaneous dance to attune the senses to the divine.
As a feminist theologian, Shaw has also contributed to efforts to ensure that goddesses are understood as fully integrated deities in Buddhist traditions. As Shaw states, by "exploring the relationship between human and divine females," she intends to "facilitate increasingly nuanced analyses of the ... contributions of Buddhist women."
Shaw's work has contributed to the understanding of
yogini
A yogini (Sanskrit: योगिनी, IAST: ) is a female master practitioner of tantra and yoga, as well as a formal term of respect for female Hindu or Buddhist spiritual teachers in Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Greater Tibet. The ...
s as valued teachers in Buddhist traditions.
[Child, 2013, p. 84]
Selected works
* “William James and Yogācāra Philosophy: A Comparative Inquiry.” ''Philosophy East and West'', vol. 37, no. 3, 1987, pp. 223–44. .
* “Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Landscape Painting.” ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', vol. 49, no. 2, 1988, pp. 183–206. .
* ''Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism''. 1994. .
* “Weaving and Dancing Embodied Theology.” ''Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion'', vol. 33, no. 2, 2017, pp. 117–21. .
* ''Buddhist Goddesses of India''. 2015. .
* “Buddhist Practice in South Asia.” ''The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice'', edited by Kevin Trainor and Paula Arai, Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 21–36.
* “Dance as Vajrayana Practice.” ''The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice'', edited by Kevin Trainor and Paula Arai, 2022. pp. 266–283.
Notes
References
* ''2006 Foreword INDIES Winners in Religion (Adult Nonfiction)''. (n.d.). Foreword Reviews. Retrieved August 20, 2022, from
https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/winners/2006/religion/
* “Miranda Shaw.” ''Religious Studies, University of Richmond'',
https://religiousstudies.richmond.edu/faculty/mshaw/. Accessed 31 July 2022.
* Child, L. (2013). Relationships and visions: The yoginī as deity and human female in tantric Buddhism. In I. Keul (Ed.), ''“Yogini” in South Asia: Interdisciplinary Approaches''. Routledge.
* Davis, K. (2010, August 10). Buddhist Goddesses of India by Miranda Shaw Book Review. ''Devata.Org - Apsara & Devata of Angkor Wat''.
http://www.devata.org/buddhist-goddesses-of-india-by-miranda-shaw-book-review/
* Edwards, C. (2002). A Few Notes on Norman Dubie’s The Spirit Tablets at Goa Lake. ''Blackbird'', ''1''(2).
https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v1n2/poetry/dubie_n/notes.htm
* Gray, D. B. (2008). Buddhist Goddesses of India. By Miranda Shaw. ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', ''76''(2), 486–488.
* Hall, D. A. (2013). ''The Buddhist Goddess Marishiten: A Study of the Evolution and Impact of her Cult on the Japanese Warrior''. Brill.
http://brill.com/view/title/21972
* LaMothe, K. L. (2017). Dancing on earth. ''Dance, Movement & Spiritualities'', ''4''(2), 137–145.
* Pearlman, E. (1994). Liberating Sexuality: Miranda Shaw Talks about Tantra. ''Tricycle: The Buddhist Review''.
https://tricycle.org/magazine/liberating-sexuality/
* Poss, J. L. (2020). Miranda E. Shaw: A passionate path of women’s active contributions to Tantric Buddhism. In C. D. Hartung (Ed.), ''Claiming Notability for Women Activists in Religion'' (pp. 41–59). ATLA Open Press.
* Samdarshi, P. (2014). The Concept of Goddesses in Buddhist Tantra Traditions. ''The Delhi University Journal of the Humanities & the Social Sciences'', ''1'', 87–99.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Miranda E.
1954 births
Living people
Buddhist studies scholars
Ohio State University alumni
Harvard Divinity School alumni
University of Richmond faculty