Shayne Clarke's Family Matters is truly a welcome addition to scholarship in the field of Buddhist Studies. Modern scholarship has long promulgated a conception of Indian Buddhist monasticism in which the ordination of the monk signifies a complete disavowal of relationships to parents, spouse, children, and the broader kinship network. In spite of Clarke's significant caveat that his study is “experimental and exploratory” (p. 36), it cannot be denied that his book is the first extended treatment of Indian Buddhist monks and nuns which offers a direct and sustained challenge to this conception of the monastic figure as a religious practitioner who has abandoned all family ties. In addition to the primary task Clarke has set himself of challenging preponderant conceptions of the monastic as solitary wanderer, Family Matters also offers valuable object-lessons in how to properly interpret the Buddhist legal codes, or vinaya.

In Chapter 1, Clarke offers a comprehensive overview of scholarly conceptions about the relationship of the monk or nun to his or her family. In particular, he notes the great extent to which scholars have represented the Buddhist monk in accordance with rhetorical ideals which come from texts in the early Indian Buddhist tradition emphasizing the role of the monk as a solitary wanderer set apart from society (pp. 4–10). He suggests that the images of the early Indian Buddhist monk found in modern Western scholarship are rooted in two formative conceptions: “(1) European notions of medieval Christian monasticism and (2) visions of the ideal monk from within modern, particularly Theravāda, Buddhist traditions and their canonical texts” (p. 2).

These two sets of images are supported by a certain textual strand in Indian Buddhist literature which valorizes the ideal of the “asocial” renunciant (p. 5). Focusing on the influence exerted by the scriptural ideal articulated in the Pāli Rhinoceros Horn Sūtra on modern Buddhist Studies, Clarke concludes that “scholarly consensus has painted a picture in which Indian Buddhist monks and nuns severed all ties with their families when they left home for the religious life …” He goes on to suggest that the prevailing view in the field of Buddhist Studies is that “monks and nuns remained celibate, and those who faltered in their ‘vows’ of monastic celibacy were immediately and irrevocably expelled from the Buddhist order” (p. 2). Clarke demonstrates that the ideal of the solitary ascetic wanderer captured the imaginations of the early European scholars of Buddhism both because of their exposure to the anchoretic ideal found in the Western monastic tradition and because of the bias in the field favoring Pāli Sūtra literature of the Theravāda tradition as the primary vehicle for understanding Indian Buddhism. Indeed, many of these scholars came to view any other instantiation of Buddhism as “degenerate” (p. 5) and out of step with the original intentions of the Buddha and his early community of monks.

Clarke makes a distinction between the solitary ideal of Rhinoceros Horn Sūtra and what he calls the ideals of “settled monasticism” (p. 7). He argues that the rhetorical stance of the Rhinoceros Horn Sūtra is a function of Sūtra literature in general, as this genre was regarded by monastic authorities as the proper conception of the Buddhist order for public consumption. In Family Matters, Clarke sets himself the task of articulating a monastic figure cut from cloth which differs dramatically from the publicly disseminated image of the Pāli Sūtra literature which, in modern scholarship, has long defined what it meant to be a monk in ancient India. It is for this reason that Clarke—following the path well-trodden by Gregory Schopen—has drawn primarily from the vinaya. According to Clarke, the vinaya contains narratives which were not for public consumption. The vinaya was an “in-house” document (p. 7), and thus provides a very different perspective on monastic life from that of Sūtra literature. Clarke also notes that his study does not rely primarily on the Pāli vinaya, but on the more narratively sophisticated vinaya traditions preserved in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan.

Clarke's methodological orientation, set forth in the introduction but exemplified consistently throughout the later chapters of the book, is to articulate a conception of the monastic's relation to his or her family based on two types of narrative evidence from the vinaya. The first type of evidence is the set of “incidental details that betray the authors/redactors’ assumptions vis-à-vis the monastic life.” Incidental details culled from vinaya narratives are generally regarded as valuable evidence for developing a conception of the early monastic lifestyle because this data about daily routine, monastic furniture, sanitation, or interpersonal squabbles is treated by vinaya authors as mere background information that their audience could easily relate to without extended explanation or justification. The second type of evidence he pulls from is a more direct testament to ongoing relations between monastics and their kin (after ordination) in that these are rules set forth by monastic jurists to deal explicitly with the minutiae of family matters (p. 35).

In the subsequent three chapters, Clarke presents evidence from the full range (as opposed to sole reliance upon the Pāli version) of vinaya traditions, which suggests that the Indian Buddhist monk was not a solitary figure, disconnected from family. On the contrary, Clarke demonstrates that Indian monks and nuns were bound to the mainstream of ancient Indian life in large part because of their continuing obligations, both practical and emotional, to family members.

In Chapter 2, entitled “Family Matters,” Clarke marshals a wide variety of evidence from the vinaya—supported by inscriptional evidence, Sūtra literature, and Sanskrit drama—to argue that the stock phrase representative of the ideology of renunciation, “‘to go forth from home into homelessness’ (agārād anagārikāṃ pra $\surd $vraj)” should, in many circumstances in which it is employed, be understood only rhetorically (p. 37). His careful readings of vinaya narrative uncover “incidental details” from the stories of Rāṣṭrapāla and Dharmadinnā, which suggest that these two monastics did not, in fact, leave home even after they were ordained. Clarke's keen eye for the conventions of vinaya narrative alerts him not only to the presence of revealing details but also to the absence of editorial comment. As Clarke suggests in his discussion of the story of Sudinna, the absence of criticism by monastic jurists indicates that a given social phenomenon is taken for granted by the editors of the vinaya (p. 51). Clarke also notes the methodological value of passages in which Buddhist authorities regulate – often in substantial detail – the behavior of their monastic charges. “We cannot know how common it was for Indian Buddhist monks or nuns to return home to their families for meals. But it was presumably common enough that the monastic authors/redactors felt the need to legislate a set of rules prescribing proper protocol for such situations” (p. 62).

While in Chapter 2 Clarke offers a general and comprehensive critique of the scholarly conception of the Buddhist monk as solitary wanderer, Chapters 3 and 4 dwell on two very specific categories of evidence setting out an alternative conception of the monastic relationship to family. Chapter 3, “Former Wives from Former Lives,” argues that numerous passages from the vinaya suggest that the bond between husband and wife did not end when one or the other, or both individuals, entered the Buddhist Order. The most basic piece of evidence for the continuity of the matrimonial relationship—which many readers will no doubt find surprising—is that monastic authorities did not require husband and wife to divorce for one or the other to join the saṅgha. Clarke then adduces a number of examples by which he demonstrates that it was “commonplace” (p. 98) for monks to continue to visit and even have sex with their wives after ordination. Indeed, he further makes his point by citing stories in which husband and wife enter the saṅgha together and continue shared residence within the monastery.

Chapter 4, “Nuns Who Become Pregnant,” draws from evidence in vinaya narratives, which attest to the prominence of relationships between mothers and their children long after the parent has been ordained. In this chapter, Clarke emphasizes the value of two particular interpretive strategies which have guided his reading of the vinaya. First, he demonstrates that much of previous scholarship has mischaracterized the vinaya tradition not only for the reasons detailed above, but on account of the disproportionate attention given to the purely normative prātimokṣa section of the legal codes (p. 146). In addition to his intensive use of the narrative sections of the vinaya (as opposed to the narratively impoverished prātimokṣa), Clarke signposts for his reader his appeal to the full range of vinaya texts in order to demonstrate the consistency of evidence for motherhood among nuns in the monastery across the entire Buddhist legal tradition.

In his conclusion, Clarke summarizes the broad range of evidence presented in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, suggesting that the “pan-nikāya [Buddhist sectarian] and pan-Indian picture of Buddhist monasticisms … is remarkably consistent in terms of its attitudes toward family” (p. 152). This attitude is one which includes rather than excludes the family of a monastic from the post-ordination lifestyle of the Buddhist renunciant. And, indeed, this reviewer is convinced that Clarke has uncovered a narrative trajectory in the vinaya (and other Buddhist literatures) which has the potential to radically alter scholarly conceptions about the post-ordination relationship of the Indian Buddhist to his or her family.