This is a book about Buddhist women in Sri Lanka who have “renounced the world,” or exchanged their lay identity for monastic life. The sources indicate that an order of nuns, a bhikkhunī saňgha, played a significant role in the development and spread of Buddhism in its early history in the island. Though there is not an officially sanctioned order of nuns in Sri Lanka today, there are women who set themselves up in the role of the ordained nun, the bhikkhunī, without changing formal status. These I shall call “lay nuns.” Whether they renounced lay life in the third century, BCE, or in the twentieth century, CE, female renunciants – both lay and ordained – have faced hardships unknown to men. Primarily, this is because for the most part Buddhist Sri Lankans throughout history have been ambivalent about women who renounce conventionally accepted social roles. For instance, the Pāli Dīpavamsa, which chronicles the formative years of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, records that women who entered the monastic community became great Buddhist teachers, and even became arahants, or enlightened beings. It also claims that they were renowned for their scholarly acumen and that kings honored them. In short, the Dīpavamsa values nuns and their contribution to the establishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. However, according to the Pāli Mahāvamsa, Buddhists considered monks more worthy of support than nuns. Though the Mahāvamsa mentions that nuns attained enlightenment, references to them are sporadic; rather, the Mahāvamsa is replete with references to monks, and especially to the beneficence on the part of many kings to the order of monks.