Rethinking Disability Through Medieval Chinese Buddhist Narratives

Recently, the field of Buddhist studies—and religious studies in general—has witnessed a burgeoning interest in the topic of disability. While disability studies has long challenged the idea of disability as a fixed identity, Buddhist studies has only begun to interrogate how disability is constructed in Buddhist texts. Foundational questions remain: What constitutes disability in Buddhist literature? How is it represented? Is disability treated as a stable category? And what sources can we turn to for answers?

This paper presents the first study of disability in the Chinese Buddhist narrative tradition from the fourth to tenth century. Specifically, it examines both Indian avadāna tales, which were translated into Chinese and widely circulated from the third century onward, and indigenous Buddhist miracle tales, which began appearing around the same period. I approach these sources as an interactive corpus informed by Buddhist doctrinal concerns and Chinese literary conventions. Rather than presenting a singular Buddhist perspective on disability, these texts reveal disability as an ambiguous and fluid condition, shaped by narrative function and broader Buddhist teachings on karma and suffering.

Unlike modern medicalized models that separate physical and mental conditions, Buddhist texts often present bodily difference as an expression of one's karmic history and spiritual capacity. This physio-moral framework shapes representations of disability in complex ways. On the one hand, canonical texts like the Lotus Sutra portray disability as karmic punishment, a warning against slandering the Dharma. Vinaya sources reinforce the idea of bodily impairment as a hindrance to monastic ordination, strengthening the association between physical imperfection and spiritual deficiency. On the other hand, Buddhist narrative tradition complicates these representations. Some tales describe Buddhas and Bodhisattvas deliberately taking on disabled or disfigured forms as “expedient means” to teach compassion and the emptiness of physical form. Other texts depict blind, mute, and crippled figures who, through Buddhist devotion, recover both physical and spiritual capacities, suggesting that disability is not a fixed state but a condition that can be transformed. More questions arise: Do these Buddhist writings reflect lived realities of disabled individuals, or do they employ bodily difference as a rhetorical device? Is disability treated as distinct from other forms of suffering, or does it belong to a broader, shared experience of vulnerability?

To explore these questions, I examine three key narrative framings of disability in Buddhist tales: karmic mimesis, contingent suffering, and ambiguous distinction. These frameworks not only destabilize the category of disability but also invite a more fluid understanding of the body—one that aligns with both Buddhist teachings and contemporary disability theories.

The first category, karmic mimesis, appears in tales that emphasize karmic retribution, where bodily affliction is linked not simply to past wrongdoing but to specific harm done to other sentient beings and material objects. A common pattern involves a person pulling out the tongue of an animal and later becoming mute or peeling the gold off a statue and later contracting leprosy. Instead of simply reinforcing a moralistic view of karma, these tales complicate the notion of disability as a uniquely human condition by extending it to animals and material objects. Here, disability functions as a karmic reflection rather than an inherent trait, inviting moral recognition and empathy rather than merely instilling fear.

The second framing, contingent suffering, appears in miracle tales where disability is treated as a temporary affliction, akin to illness, that can be healed through Buddhist devotion. Unlike the first category, where bodily affliction serves as a direct karmic reflection of harm done to others, these narratives position disability as a condition that can be alleviated through devotion and compassion. Given the long and cyclical nature of the Buddhist path, the distinction between a congenital disability and a transient condition—one that might be classified as an illness in modern medical frameworks—becomes less clear-cut. While karma remains a structuring force, these tales emphasize healing over retribution. More agency is allowed: individuals seek cures, pray for healing, or receive divine intervention without explicit moral judgment. This shift aligns disability with broader sentient suffering rather than marking it as exceptional.

The third category, ambiguous distinction, highlights the context-dependent nature of disability in Buddhist narratives. Some tales depict unusual bodies, such as individuals born with extra bodily features, not as afflictions but as markers of specialness. This theme resonates with the broader Chinese tradition where physical anomalies signal spiritual potential. However, we also find counter-narratives, in which a bodily difference initially perceived as miraculous is later revealed as karmic punishment. These shifting readings suggest that disability is not a fixed category but a condition whose meaning is shaped by social perception and doctrinal framing. Moreover, this category resists the pathologization of disability, portraying it as something beyond the need for cure or correction.

Altogether, these three frameworks demonstrate that disability in Buddhist texts is fluid, contingent, and shaped by narrative context. It is not consistently treated as karmic retribution, nor as a pathologic condition that necessitates healing. Instead, bodily difference is framed in various ways, sometimes as punishment, sometimes as miraculous, sometimes as incidental, depending on the doctrinal context and literary function of the text. Such flexible treatments of the body, I argue, align with both Buddhist teachings and disability theories that challenge rigid boundaries among bodily states and identities. Rather than a permanent identity, disability emerges as a stage of life, one whose vulnerability is shared across other conditions of suffering.

This paper also engages with disability aesthetics and ethics, drawing on scholarship that critiques the rhetorical convenience of disability in literature and film. Just as Western literary traditions have long used disability as a metaphor for moral failure or transcendence, Buddhist texts mobilize bodily difference in ways that reveal deeper anxieties about impermanence, suffering, and karmic justice. By reading Buddhist texts through this lens, this paper illuminates not only the doctrinal significance of disability in Buddhism but also the ethical implications of its literary representation.