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FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON 45

Yasodhara as a Model

for Modern Women

By Prof Vanessa R. Sasson

Vanessa R. Sasson is a professor of Religious Studies at
Marianopolis College in Montreal, Canada, where she has
been teaching since 1999. She is also a Research Fellow at
the University of the Free State, and a Research Member
for CERIAS at UQAM. She is the author and/or editor of a
number of books. Yasodhara and the Buddha is her first novel.
Benny Liow had an on-line interview with Vanessa about her
latest book especially how she sees Yasodhara as a model
for modern day women. You can reach Vanessa through her
website: www.vanessarsasson.com.

Benny: You have been a scholar of Buddhism for voice to the library of storytellers before me.
over 20 years. What made you write a book about
Yasodhara, the wife of Siddhartha, as a novel? In the process, I learned something that I had not
appreciated until then: good scholarship needs creativity.
Vanessa: I have indeed been a scholar for a long time. The best scholars in the field are praised as such not
But after almost twenty years of expressing my ideas just for their language skills or the complexity of their
using a traditional academic style, I found myself analysis. What makes them great is the way they see
wondering if there were not other ways to engage my the material. I worried for a long time that, by writing
research. Academic writing can be quite formulaic. creatively, I was breaking rank, but I eventually realized
There is a particular method and rhythm to academic how wrong I was. Creativity is part of scholarship.
writing, and I could not help but wonder if I was Creativity helps us ask new questions, see the world
capable of trying something new. What if I expressed from a different angle. It stimulates our curiosity and
my scholarship differently? What if I took a different helps us remain open to new answers. There is no split
approach, climbed into the story, created characters, between creativity and scholarship. At least, none that
lived the narrative from inside instead of always I can see anymore. So writing a novel no longer seems
standing outside and trying to look in? like a departure from my academic life. On the contrary,
I would now say that it flows directly out of it.
The moment those questions reached me, there was
no turning back. And although I was admittedly quite What were your sources on the life of Yasodhara? Do
worried that I would be condemned by academic you find more similarities or differences in her life
elders for breaking protocol (thankfully, my fear proved story from these various sources?
ungrounded), I could not stop writing once I had begun.
I was building a story out of my research in a whole new Once I decided that I would try to participate in the
way and it was genuinely exhilarating! I discovered that storytelling process and create the story myself, I was
I loved living inside the stories, engaging the narratives faced with this question you have asked here: what
and giving them life. I was participating in a 2500-year- sources do I use?
old tradition of Buddhist storytelling, adding my own