S4E166: The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: Maria Denjongpa on Her Debut Novel, Motherhood & Sikkim | The AboutHer Show
She raised the Buddha, and history barely remembers her name. In this episode, author and paper-mâché artist Maria Denjongpa joins Sangeeta Relan to talk about her debut novel, The Girl Who Became a Buddha, and the real woman behind it: Pajapati, the aunt who became mother to Siddhartha after her sister Maya's death. Maria opens up about writing a 5th-century-BCE woman's grief and duty, what Pajapati would say to women scrolling through guilt on their phones today, and her own journey, from Massachusetts to Brown University to building Taktse International School in Sikkim with her husband Sonam. She also talks about her paper-mâché art, thirteen years of teaching, and what it means to become a storyteller all over again as a grandmother. Stick around for The Reveal, our quick-fire round with Maria.
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Chapters
(0:00) 🌸 Introduction
Meet Maria Denjongpa, teacher, writer and paper-mâché artist from Sikkim
(2:32) 👑 Pajapati Raised the Buddha
Why Maria chose the woman history forgot
(4:27) 🧘♀️ A Woman on Her Own Journey
Pajapati as more than a caretaker of someone else's destiny
(7:00) 💔 Losing Maya
Grief, duty, and raising a child who wasn't hers to raise
(10:08) ⚖️ Rule-Breaker Bound by Duty
The tension that drives Pajapati's character
(14:18) 📖 The Debut Novel
Writing her own words after a lifetime of teaching others'
(18:09) 🏛️ Setting the Book
Capturing a woman's inner life across 2,500 years
(20:57) 📱 Same Guilt, New Century
What Pajapati would say to women today
(24:19) 🤳 Pajapati on Instagram
What the internet would get wrong about her in five seconds
(25:04) 💍 Meeting Sonam
Leaving Massachusetts to build a life in Sikkim
(28:23) 🍎 Thirteen Years Teaching
Balancing motherhood and a career of her own
(29:32) 🎭 The Paper-Mâché Spirits
Giving shape to fear, joy, and pride
(32:13) 👵 Grandmother, Author, Storyteller
Full circle, one cup of tea at a time
(35:06) ⚡ The Reveal
Quick-fire round with Maria Denjongpa
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