The Buddha founded the order of nuns in his lifetime and for five or six hundred years nuns played an important role in the spread and development of Buddhism. But for reasons that are not clear nuns never commanded the same esteem and consequently got the same support, as monks and in India and South-east Asia the order died out. However in Taiwan, Korea and Japan the order of nuns has continued to flourish. Today in Sri Lanka and Thailand steps are being taken to reintroduce the order of nuns from Taiwan although some traditionalists are not very enthusiastic about this. However, in keeping with the Buddha’s original intentions, it is only right that women as well as men have the opportunity to live the monastic life and benefit from it.