Who was the first female disciple of the Buddha?

Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī was the Buddha’s first female disciple in the traditional Buddhist account. She was also his maternal aunt, foster mother and the first woman to receive bhikkhunī, or Buddhist nun, ordination.

Gautamī raised Siddhartha after her sister Māyā, his birth mother, died shortly after his birth. Later, after King Śuddhodana’s death, she asked the Buddha to admit women to the monastic community. When he initially refused, she cut her hair, put on robes and travelled to Vesālī with 500 women.

According to the Vinaya tradition, Ānanda interceded on her behalf. The Buddha then permitted women to enter the Saṅgha, provided Gautamī accepted the Eight Garudhammas. This made her the founding figure of the Buddhist nuns’ order. She is also listed as foremost among the Buddha’s female disciples in seniority.

Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā were highly prominent female disciples, but they held different distinctions: Khemā was foremost in wisdom, while Uppalavaṇṇā was foremost in psychic powers. Yasodharā was the Buddha’s former wife, not the first ordained female disciple.