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'Although the full details have yet to be worked out,
it appears that the appearance or presence of monks calling themselves śākyabhikṣus
everywhere in the fourth to fifth centuries C.E. occurred in conjunction with
the marked decline or disappearance of the participation of nuns in recorded Buddhist
religious activity. The fact that these śākyabhikṣus were
almost certainly Mahāyāna monks may seem curious, but it appears that
the emergence of the Mahāyāna in the fourth to fifth centuries coincided
with a marked decline in the role of women in all kinds of practice of Indian
Buddhism. What is important for us to note here, however, is that until that time—contrary
to Oldenberg—nuns, indeed women as a whole, appear to have been very numerous,
very active, and, as a consequence, very influential in the active Buddhist communities
of early India. The female monastics who, like their male counterparts, were so
active in religious giving and the cults of relics and images were, again like
their male counterparts, oftentimes of high ecclesiastical standing: they were
"masters of the Three Piṭakas," "versed in the Sūtras,"
and many of them had groups of disciples.'
– Gregory Schopen, 'On monks, nuns and "vulgar" practices: the introduction
of the image cult into Indian buddhism'
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