Antique copper female Buddha statue, Ayutthaya Kingdom Thailand (?), circa 1000-1800 AD Antique handmade Thai copper Buddha statue. Height: 14.6 cm. Base: 4.0 x 3.7 cm; Weight: 177.66 g; Provenance: private collection in Sarasota, Florida, USA Not attracted to the magnet. Timeline of women in Buddhism: • 6th century BCE: Mahapajapati Gotami, the aunt and foster mother of Buddha, was the first woman to receive Buddhist ordination.[4][5]. • 5th century: Prajñātārā was the twenty-seventh Indian Patriarch of Zen Buddhism and teacher of Bodhidharma.[6] While Prajñātārā has generally been assumed to be male and is listed among the Chan Patriarchs (all of whom are male), 20th century Buddhist practitioners have suggested that Prajñātārā might have been a woman.[7] • 13th century: The first female Zen master in Japan was the Japanese abbess Mugai Nyodai (1223–1298).[8][9] • 1844: Elizabeth Peabody became the first person to translate any Buddhist scripture into English, translating a chapter of the Lotus Sutra from its French translation.[10][11] • 1880: Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott became the first Westerners to go for refuge and take precepts, the ceremony by which one traditionally becomes a Buddhist; thus Blavatsky was the first Western woman to do so.[12] Foremost female disciples of Gautama Buddha: The Buddha provided the names of women, both mendicant and lay, who were exemplars of attainment and character. These are listed in the Pañcama Vagga and Chaṭṭha Vagga of the Aṅguttara Nikāya respectively: • Foremost in seniority: Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī: • Foremost in great wisdom: Khemā: • Foremost in psychic power: Uppalavaṇṇā; • Foremost in memorizing the Vinaya: Paṭācārā; • Foremost in speaking the Dhamma: Dhammadinna; • Foremost in absorption: Sundari Nandā; • Foremost in energy: Soṇā; • Foremost in clairvoyance: Sakulā; • Foremost in swift insight: Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā; • Foremost in recollecting past lives: Bhaddā Kāpilānī; • Foremost in great insight: Bhaddakaccānā; • Foremost in wearing coarse robes: Kisāgotamī; • Foremost in faith: Siṅgālakamātā;