This handbook explores Buddhist women's lives and agency from ancient times to the present in Japan.The book examines lives and representations of Buddhist women by utilizing a thematic approach, with each theme representing a network of interrelated gender roles, norms, and hierarchies that determine the conditions under which women "e;lived"e; and "e;live"e; Buddhism. The contributions highlight what it meant and means to be Buddhist and a woman in the context of gendered power-structures as expressed in the realms of spatial organization, medicine and healthcare, music and sound, embodied gender and sexuality, and visual and material culture.Exploring a topic which has previously been under-represented in scholarship, this will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of religious, Japanese, and gender studies.