ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the discursive construction of birth in middle period Indian Buddhist texts, especially the Garbhavakranti-sutra, from the point of view of the aesthetics of disgust. To truly reject the abject womb is to elevate oneself into an awakened state. A Buddha is, after all, by definition someone not touched by the filth of the womb. Buddhist discourses on bodily foulness have commonly been interpreted in terms of foundational doctrines such as impermanence and suffering, and traditions of male celibacy. Buddhists became Sanskritists during the first few centuries of the first millennium c.e., which likely means they became increasingly sophisticated aesthetes, at least passingly familiar with the rasa theory expounded in, for instance, the Natyasastra. This shift provides historical justification for an aesthetic reading of the disgust language of texts like the Garbhavakranti-sutra. The Garbhavakranti-sutra is notable for its frequent evocation of disgust in relationship to the female reproductive body and the birth process that takes place there.
