Bhiksuni Voramai Kabilsingh

Thailand

Bhiksuni Voramai Kabilsingh (ordained as Bhiksuni Ta Tao Fa Tzu) was born in 1908. She started her education in a Catholic school and was the first woman to graduate with a degree in physical education. In 1932 she traveled from Thailand to Singapore by bicycle with a group of boy scouts. She spent many years as a journalist and editor of a local weekly magazine. She married in 1946, and bore one child, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh.

Voramai Kabilsingh started her monastic life by receiving the 8 precepts from Pra Prommuni, the Vice Abbot of Wat Bavornnives. Later she went to Taiwan and received bhiksuni ordination in 1971. For 32 years she authored a Buddhist magazine. Also, she cared for the poor and needy by providing food and clothing.

She sponsored the ordination of more than one hundred bhikkhus in Thailand, and cast an equal number of Buddha images for rural temples.