So This Is What It’s Like to Be Free: Poems from the Therigatha

he (“Verses of the Elder Nuns”), a collection of poems attributed to early female disciples of the Buddha, is the first known anthology of women’s literature. It is also thought to be the only canonical text of any major religion attributed to women and focusing on women’s religious experiences. The collection is both a celebration of women’s personal experiences of complete freedom, or , and a testimonial of what we now know as the third noble truth, the truth of the possibility of liberation—the end of suffering. As such, these verses have inspired Buddhist practitioners