In the Footsteps of Gautami and the First Buddhist Women:
A slideshow with storytelling
Hosted by award-winning author, Wendy Garling
Join us for this unique presentation through Buddhism’s motherland in Nepal and India where for the first time after 2,500 years, a small group of lay and monastic pilgrims retraced the footsteps of the first Buddhist women led by Wendy Garling with special guest Venerable Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo.
Featuring long-forgotten sacred sites and stories, this remarkable journey captures a huge missing piece in the story of early Buddhism while highlighting the women who were crucial to its development.
About Wendy Garling
Wendy Garling is an independent scholar with a BA from Wellesley College and MA specializing in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
She is author of the 2022 Nautilus Book Awards-winning The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati, with Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Shambhala Publications, 2021) and Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (Shambhala Publications, 2016).