OF THE HANDFUL OF WELL-KNOWN women in the life story of the Buddha, Yasodhara—his wife before renunciation—and Mahaprajapati—his aunt and foster mother—certainly rank amongst the most important. Yet accounts of these two women’s lives are either frustratingly scarce or confusingly fragmented. Two recent publications make sense out of this disarray, reclaiming them as protagonists in the story and history of Buddhism.
The first is Barbara McHugh’s debut novel (Monkfish), told in the first person by Yasodhara herself. This Yasodhara, visited by grief and touched by anger, was not blindsided by Siddhartha’s decision to leave; on the eve of his departure she knew, she suffered, and she accepted. In fact, among the many reversals and revelations in this clever
