Urbanization threatens livelihoods and ecology in the Tibetan grasslands
August 15, 2016
Reuters, August 9, 2016 – Under a twinkling starlit sky, the glow of an electric light is the only sign that a Tibetan nomad’s way of life has changed in hundreds of years.
Yaks are still milked using wooden buckets with rope handles, and the animal’s waste is dried and burned for fuel — a necessity at the high altitude where trees are scarce. But the number of Tibetans maintaining the pastoral lifestyle is dwindling, with the Chinese government pushing to decrease the Tibetan nomad population and move them into resettlement villages, sometimes by force.
Chinese authorities say urbanisation in Tibetan areas and elsewhere will increase industrialisation and economic development, offering former nomads higher living standards and better protecting the environment.
Since 2000, government statistics show that urban residents have leaped by more than half in the Tibet region itself, where officials launched a programme five years ago to establish Communist cadre teams in every locality.
In Qinghai province, much of which is ethnically Tibetan, the urbanisation rate has increased from 40 percent to nearly 50 percent in the past decade, but one Tibetan member of a Communist party committee in the area told AFP that the process was happening “too fast”.
Those sentiments highlight the drastic changes since 1951, when Chinese forces occupied Tibet.
While some pastoralists maintain their traditional way of living, the new urban settlements are increasingly taking up land once used for livestock.
“Because of the villages we can’t get enough grassland for our yaks,” said Jargaringqin, a 31-year-old herder who lives in the mountains of Qinghai, in northwestern China. He spends the winter in a house while the summer is spent roaming across the grasslands in tents. Yaks give the family milk, butter and cheese and occasionally meat.
Environmental experts say grazing is essential to maintaining the ecology of the grasslands, and with fewer nomadic families more invasive plants are taking hold.

As demolitions continue, Larung Gar residents forced to return to family homes
August 15, 2016
Radio Free Asia, August 11, 2016 – As Chinese work crews continue to demolish dwellings at Sichuan’s Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, authorities are forcing many monks and nuns living at the academy back to their family homes in the neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region, sources in the region say.
The move supporting China’s plan to reduce the size of the sprawling complex has been aimed so far only at residents coming from the TAR prefectures of Lhasa (in Chinese, Lasa), Ngari (Ali), Nagchu (Naqu), and Chamdo (Changdu), a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“The family members of monks and nuns from these areas in the TAR have been ordered to come to Larung Gar to take their relatives home,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Academy residents coming from these areas had previously been summoned by authorities and “harassed with questions and ‘political education’ classes,” the source said, adding, “These sessions went on for weeks, and in some cases even months.”
Monks and nuns native to Tibetan-populated areas of China’s Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces have so far not been subject to the expulsion order, he said.
“But monks and nuns coming from Driru [Biru] county in Nagchu were among the first forced out,” he said.
“They were warned of ‘consequences’ to their families in Driru if they refused to leave, including their right to collect cordyceps,” a fungus highly valued for its medicinal qualities and an important source of income.
Tibetans in Driru, a county considered “politically unstable” by Chinese authorities, have long resisted forced displays of loyalty to Beijing, which has imposed tight restrictions in the area for the past several years.
‘Heartbreaking scenes’
Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese study at Larung Gar, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the world’s largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.
The order now to reduce the number of Larung Gar’s residents by about half to a maximum level of 5,000 is not a county plan “but comes from higher authorities,” with China’s president Xi Jinping taking a personal interest in the matter, sources told RFA in earlier reports.
Monastic leaders at Larung Gar have urged the institute’s monks and nuns not to resist the destruction of their homes, and the work is believed to have gone ahead so far without interference, though one suicide has been reported.
“Despite the heartbreaking scenes of the demolition of their houses, the monks and nuns at Larung Gar are exercising patience and restraint and hoping for the Buddhist institute’s survival,” RFA’s source said.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney

A writer’s quest to unearth the roots of Tibet’s unrest
August 15, 2016
By Luo Siling
New York Times, August 14, 2016 – Generations of Chinese have been taught that the Tibetan people are grateful to China for having liberated them from “feudalism and serfdom,” and yet Tibetan protests, including self-immolations, continue to erupt against Chinese rule. In “Tibet in Agony: Lhasa 1959”,’’ to be published in October by Harvard University Press, the Chinese-born writer Jianglin Li explores the roots of Tibetan unrest in China’s occupation of Tibet in the 1950s, culminating in March 1959 with the People’s Liberation Army’s shelling of Lhasa and the Dalai Lama’s’s flight to India. In an interview, she shared her findings.
You’ve drawn parallels between the killings in Lhasa in 1959 and the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing.
China was better able to cover up its actions in Lhasa in 1959, before the advent of instantaneous global media coverage, but the two have much in common. In both, the Chinese Communists used military might to crush popular uprisings, and both involved egregious massacres of civilians. But for Tibetans, what sets the Lhasa massacre apart is their bitter sense of China as a foreign occupying power. The Tibetans were subjugated by force, and they are still protesting today.
What happened in 1959?

The crisis began on the morning of March 10, when thousands of Tibetans rallied around the Dalai Lama’s Norbulingka palace to prevent him from leaving. He had accepted an invitation to a theatrical performance at the People’s Liberation Army headquarters, but rumors that the Chinese were planning to abduct him set off general panic. Even after he canceled his excursion to mollify the demonstrators, they refused to leave and insisted on staying to guard his palace. The demonstrations included a strong outcry against Chinese rule, and China promptly labeled them an “armed insurrection,” warranting military action. About a week after the turmoil began, the Dalai Lama secretly escaped, and on March 20, Chinese troops began a concerted assault on Lhasa. After taking over the city in a matter of days, inflicting heavy casualties and damaging heritage sites, they moved quickly to consolidate control over all Tibet.
Why did the Dalai Lama flee to India?
Mainly he hoped to prevent a massacre. He thought the crowds around his palace would disperse once he left, robbing the Chinese of a pretext to attack. In fact, not even his departure could have prevented the blood bath that ensued, because Mao Zedong had already mobilized his troops for a “final showdown” in Tibet.
When the Dalai Lama left, he didn’t plan to go as far as India. He hoped to return to Lhasa after negotiating peace with the Chinese from the safety of the Tibetan hinterlands. But once he heard about the destruction in Lhasa — several days into his journey — he realized that plan was no longer feasible.
Why were the Tibetans afraid the Chinese would abduct the Dalai Lama?
For Tibetans, he is a sacred being, to be protected at all costs. He had traveled to Beijing to meet Mao in 1954 without setting off mass protests. By 1959, however, tensions had risen, and Tibetans had reason to fear the Chinese theater invitation might be a trap.
The trouble actually started in the Tibetan regions of nearby Chinese provinces — Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, home to about 60 percent of the Tibetan population. When the Chinese Communists forced collectivization on these Tibetan nomads and farmers in the latter half of the 1950s, the results were catastrophic. Riots and rebellions spread like wildfire. The Communists responded with military force, and there were terrible massacres. Refugees streamed into Tibet, bringing their horror stories into Lhasa.
Some of the most frightening reports had to do with the disappearances of Tibetan leaders in Sichuan and Qinghai. It was party policy to try to pre-empt Tibetan rebellion by luring prominent Tibetans from their communities with invitations to banquets, shows or study classes — from which many never returned. People in Lhasa thought the Dalai Lama could be next.
You’ve documented the massacres of Tibetans in the Chinese provinces in the late 1950s.

In 2012, I drove across Qinghai to a remote place an elderly Tibetan refugee in India had told me about: a ravine where a flood one year brought down a torrent of skeletons, clogging the Yellow River. From his description, I identified the location as Drongthil Gully, in the mountains of Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. I had read in Chinese sources about major campaigns against Tibetans in that area in 1958 and 1959. About 10,000 Tibetans — entire families with their livestock — had fled to the hills there to escape the Chinese. At Drongthil Gully, the Chinese deployed six ground regiments, including infantry, cavalry and artillery, and something the Tibetans had never heard of: aircraft with 100-kilogram bombs. The few Tibetans who were armed — the head of a nomad household normally carried a gun to protect his herds — shot back, but they were no match for the Chinese, who recorded that more than 8,000 “rebel bandits” were “annihilated” — killed, wounded or captured — in these campaigns.
I wondered about the skeletons until I saw the place for myself, and then it seemed entirely plausible. The river at the bottom of the ravine there flows into a relatively narrow section of the Yellow River. In desolate areas like this, Chinese troops were known to withdraw after a victory, leaving the ground littered with corpses.
The Tibetans in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai were already under nominal Chinese administration when the Communists took over in 1949. How was Tibet annexed?
It was Mao’s goal from the moment he came to power. Tibet “is strategically located,” he said in January 1950, “and we must occupy it and transform it into a people’s democracy.”
He started by sending troops to invade Tibet at Chamdo in October 1950, forcing the Tibetans to sign the 17-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, which ceded Tibetan sovereignty to China. Next, the People’s Liberation Army marched into Lhasa in 1951, at the same time — in disregard of the Chinese promise in the agreement to leave the Tibetan sociopolitical system intact — smuggling an underground Communist Party cell into the city to build a party presence in Tibet.
Meanwhile, Mao was preparing his military and awaiting the right moment to strike. “Our time has come,” he declared in March 1959, seizing on the demonstrations in Lhasa. After conquering the city, China dissolved the Tibetan government and — under the slogan of “simultaneous battle and reform” — imposed the full Communist program throughout Tibet, culminating in the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965.
How did Mao prepare his military for Tibet?

Mao welcomed the campaigns to suppress minority uprisings within China’s borders as practice for war in Tibet. There were new weapons for his troops to master, to say nothing of the unfamiliar challenges of battle on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
The new weapons included 10 Tupolev TU-4 bombers, which Stalin gave Mao in 1953. Mao tested them in airstrikes at three Tibetan monasteries in Sichuan, starting with Jamchen Choekhor Ling, in Lithang. On March 29, 1956, while thousands of Chinese troops fought Tibetans at the monastery, two of the new planes were deployed. The Tibetans saw giant “birds” approach and drop some strange objects, but they had no word for airplane, or for bomb. According to Chinese records, more than 2,000 Tibetans were “annihilated” in the battle, including civilians who had sought refuge in the monastery.
Mao used his most seasoned troops in Tibet. Gen. Ding Sheng and his 54th Army, veterans of the Korean War, had gained experience suppressing minority uprisings in Qinghai and Gansu in 1958 before heading to Tibet in 1959.
How often was the Chinese military used against Tibetans, and how many Tibetan casualties were there?
We don’t have an exact tally of military encounters, since many went unrecorded. My best estimate based on official Chinese materials — public and classified — is about 15,000 in all Tibetan regions between 1956 and 1962.
Precise casualty figures are hard to come by, but according to a classified Chinese military document I found in a Hong Kong library, more than 456,000 Tibetans were “annihilated” from 1956 to 1962.
How does this history relate to recent Tibetan self-immolations?
I think they’re a direct consequence. I’ve compared a map of the self-immolations with my map of Chinese crackdowns on Tibetans between 1956 and 1962, and there’s a striking correlation. Most of the self-immolations and the worst cases of historical repression are in the same spots in the Chinese provinces near Tibet.
How did you get interested in this?
Like everyone in China, I was raised on the party line. I never thought to question it until I came to the U.S. for graduate study in 1988 and discovered how differently people here think of Tibet.
Since 2007, I’ve been making annual research trips to Asia, where I’ve recorded interviews with hundreds of Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal, including the Dalai Lama and his brother. In 2012, I explored Tibetan historical sites in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan and interviewed people there. I crosscheck what I learn in the field with written data: official annals of the Tibetan regions, Chinese documents, and Tibetan and Chinese memoirs.
How has the Chinese government responded to your work?

The only official response to my books has been to ban them, but I’ve been denied a visa since my trip to sensitive Tibetan regions in 2012. This has been painful because my 84-year-old mother still lives in China.
This article was adapted from a two-part interview on the Chinese-language site of The New York Times and translated by Susan Wilf.

Tibetan Nun Commits Suicide Due to Ongoing Demolition in Larung Gar
A Tibetan nun has died from suicide by hanging at the largest Buddhist academy in Serther County, Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Region in today’s Sichuan Province on July 20, 2016.
According to sources, Rinzin Dolma left a note behind blaming the endless harassment of the Chinese government towards Tibetans and the sight of systematic demotion of the Larung Gar institute as the reason behind her suicide.
In the meanwhile, U.S. State Department urged the Chinese government to “cease any actions that escalates the tension” and calls for respect of Tibetan people’s religious freedom.
The Chinese government, claiming renovation work as the reason for the demolition, has destroyed more than 600 residential structures since the government has begun its demolition operations on July 20.
Founded in 1980 by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, a highly regarded Tibetan Buddhist master, the academy attracts Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns for short- and long-term study in the religion’s more esoteric aspects. They typically stay in a sprawling mountainside settlement made of thousands of log cabin, and the institute houses both Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist students and practitioners.

Former Tibetan prisoner re-arrested and tortured after criticizing Chinese policies
August 1, 2016
Radio Free Asia, July 28, 2016 – A Tibetan man freed under supervision three years ago after serving more than 20 years in prison was released this month from an additional two months of detention during which he was beaten and tortured, Tibetan sources said.
Lodroe Gyatso, aged 55 and also known as Sogkar Lodroe, was released on July 22 from jail in Driru (in Chinese, Biru) county in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s Nagchu (Naqu) prefecture, a source in Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“He was severely beaten and tortured during the two months and six days he was held at Tsamthak jail in Driru,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“He lost about 15 pounds while in detention, and remains in poor and frail physical health,” the source said.
Gyatso had previously spent 21 years behind bars and was sentenced originally for 15 years for killing a man in a fight in 1991, but had his sentence extended two years later for engaging in political activism while incarcerated, sources said in earlier reports.
Following his release under police supervision in May 2013, Gyatso had recently criticized what he called China’s “oppressive policies” in some of the eastern counties of Nagchu prefecture, RFA’s source said.
“He pointed out to higher officials the discrepancies in their implementation of local Chinese policies, adding that this had resulted in harsh and unfair treatment of Tibetans that was contrary to national and international standards of law.”
“He was also critical of local Chinese authorities’ insistence that Tibetans wear traditional clothing lined with fur,” a practice discouraged by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and abandoned by local Tibetans some time before.
“For all these reasons, the Chinese authorities took him into custody again on May 14,” he said.
Bravery, patriotism
Gyatso, a native of Tsadrok township in Nagchu prefecture’s Sog (Suo) county, was previously a member of the Sog Performing Arts Troupe and had a reputation among his former fellow prisoners for “physical strength, bravery, and patriotism,” RFA’s source said.
In an article written last year titled “The Earth and Me,” Gyatso had called for the protection of Tibet’s natural environment, he said.
“He is married and has six siblings, including one younger brother and five sisters.”
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
A total of 145 Tibetans living in China have now set themselves ablaze in self-immolations since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009, with most protests featuring calls for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.
Reported by Pema Ngodup for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney

600 buildings demolished at Larung Gar Buddhist Institute despite international outcry
August 1, 2016
Phayul, July 30, 2016 – The pace of demolition at one of Tibet’s biggest Buddhist institutions at Serthar County in Eastern Tibet is feared to be far graver than earlier expected with more than 600 structures leveled since the Chinese government led operations began last Wednesday.
Chinese workers are demolishing nearly 100 to 250 houses in a day, according to reports. The monastic leaders have instructed monks and lay practitioners not to protest or resist. With many dwellings already flattened to ground, the number of people affected is rising steadily. In the past six days, an estimated 600 dwellings have been torn down, with no sign that this will stop any time soon. Nuns whose living quarters have been destroyed are now staying temporarily with other residents of the institute who have not yet been affected. This means that some dwellings are now holding as many as 15 people each,” a local source told Radio Free Asia.
Although no incident of protest or confrontation has been reported, local authorities are not taking any chances with official Chinese directives to keep a troop of 500 personnel on hold at nearby Draggo County, Tawu County and Kardze County. Armed security guards have been deployed at separate sites in Larung Gar where demolition work is underway.
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy earlier mentioned that an eight-point document was issued by the Chinese authorities that gave step-by-step guide to demolishing dwellings of thousands of monks, nuns and lay practitioners and their expulsion, in view to curb the number of residents to government-set ceiling of 5000.
“A four-page demolition order requires relevant departments including the management and administrative bodies of Larung Gar to reduce the number of residents to 5000 before 30 September 2017,” the rights group announced earlier this month, while explicitly naming authoritative bodies such as Prefecture Public Security Bureau, Prefecture Civil Affairs Department, Prefecture National Security Department, and Serthar County Government who will undertake the task.
The gradual process of reducing the strength of the institute founded by late Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok that once boasted around 10,000 students, including Han Chinese, to half could be a preventive measure since Beijing consider the center a hub for those who disseminate information to ‘exile separatist forces.’
The year 2001 saw the dismantling of Serthar Institute. Over 8,000 students were evicted forcibly from the institute and approximately 2,000 dwellings of monks and nuns were demolished that year.

India expels Chinese journalists who hid identities to visit Tibetan camps
July 25, 2016
By Rajesh Ahuja
Hindustan Times, July 25, 2016 – Two of three Chinese journalists who have been denied visa extension by Indian authorities visited Tibetan settlements in Karnataka late last year but didn’t reveal their identity, government sources said.
All three journalists work for Xinhua, China’s official news agency. While Wu Qiang and Lu Tang head Xinhua’s bureaux in New Delhi and Mumbai, respectively, She Yonggang was a reporter based in Mumbai.
A senior government official said Lu and She — who came to India in January last year — visited the Tibetan settlements. “The Mumbai-based Chinese journalists visited Karnataka-based Tibetan camps late last year and didn’t reveal their true identity. Thereafter, the government decided not to renew their visa,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Established in the 1960s, five settlements house around 40,000 Tibetans in Karnataka. Two of these settlements, or camps, are in Bylakuppe and one each in Mundgod, Hunsur and Kollegal. No foreigner or foreign aid agency can visit these or any Tibetan settlement in India without a protected area permit (PAP), which is issued by the Union home ministry and can be applied online.
“The journalists had not taken the PAP for visiting the camps but their real identities were detected when they reached there,” said the official. The official said the journalists had not been asked to leave India but their “visa has not been extended”. In the absence of an extension, the journalists have to leave India before their visa expires on July 31.
Sources had on Saturday told HT that the journalists came under the “adverse attention of security agencies” for allegedly indulging in activities beyond their journalistic brief.
Non-renewal of visas is a common practice followed by governments to expel foreign journalists. Beijing itself has followed the process several times to expel those whose writing is seen as critical to official policy.
News of their ‘expulsion’ was met with shock in China where it was widely discussed on Sina Weibo, the country’s version of Twitter.
Repeated requests for comment from the Chinese foreign ministry and Xinhua, which works directly under the jurisdiction of the Chinese cabinet, went unheeded on Sunday.
(With inputs from Sutirtho Patranobis in Beijing)

China begins demolition at Tibet’s Larung Gar Buddhist Institute
July 25, 2016
BBC, July 22, 2016 – Campaign groups say China has started demolishing buildings at Larung Gar, one of the largest centres of Buddhist learning in Tibet.
The London-based Free Tibet group says demolitions at the site began on Wednesday and a number of people living there have been evicted.
It follows an order last month by the local authorities to cut the number of Larung Gar residents by half to 5,000.
Chinese officials are reported to have cited overcrowding concerns.
Larung Gar is said to be the biggest Tibetan Buddhist institute in the world.
The academy and monastery, founded in 1980, sprawls over a mountainside in Sertar county in eastern Tibet, and attracts thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns who wish to study there.
The students commonly stay in log cabins and correspondents say the site has grown considerably in recent years.
Free Tibet published several pictures on Twitter and video footage on YouTube that appeared to show wooden buildings razed to the ground. Heavy equipment that could have been used for demolition was seen in some of the images.
The campaign group said the work team had been accompanied by Chinese police and members of the armed forces dressed in plain clothes.
There has been no formal comment by Chinese authorities.
A Sertar county government official contacted by Associated Press said the purpose of the work was to renovate rather than remove the buildings.
One student at Larung Gar was quoted by Free Tibet as saying: “If the only way to solve the overpopulation is destroying the houses, then why is the same policy not implemented in the Chinese cities and towns where the population is overcrowded?
“Where is the equality, rule by law, public welfare, religious freedom and equal rights of all nationalities (as they say) if you crush down the houses of innocent religious practitioners who are living simple lives?”
Chinese authorities have said Larung Gar’s population must be reduced from 10,000 to no more than 3,500 nuns and 1,500 monks by October.
Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren said: “The demolition at Larung Gar is clearly nothing to do with overcrowding – it is just another tactic in China’s attempt to subvert the influence of Buddhism in Tibet.”
Beijing claims a centuries-old sovereignty over the Himalayan region. Tibet has spent some of its history functioning as an independent entity and other periods ruled by Chinese and Mongolian dynasties.
China sent in thousands of troops to enforce its claim on the region in 1950. Some areas became the Tibetan Autonomous Region and others were incorporated into neighbouring Chinese provinces.
Beijing says Tibet has developed considerably under its rule. But rights groups say China continues to violate human rights, accusing Beijing of political and religious repression. Beijing denies any abuses.

China sets July 25 set as date for demolition of world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist institute
July 18, 2016
Lion’s Roar, July 14, 2016 – As previously reported by Lion’s Roar, Larung Gar, the largest Tibetan Buddhist institute in the world, situated in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, was recently threatened with demolitions by the Chinese government. Now, a date has been set.
Demolitions at Larung Gar Buddhist Academy will reportedly begin July 25th following China’s demands to demolish 50 percent of residences at the monastery.
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), monastic leaders at the Academy are requesting residents remain calm and avoid interfering or protesting the demolitions, for fear of repercussions from the Chinese government.
The planned demolitions aim to reduce the monastery’s population, which is estimated at over 10,000 people, to a maximum of 5,000, displacing over half the monks and nuns currently living there.
An anonymous source told the RFA that the demolition crews will consist of Chinese soldiers and workers.
“It will begin with the nuns’ dwellings, as nine of those areas have been marked for action,” the source said.
Speculations arose that China’s demands stemmed from concerns for the monastery’s growing population and subsequent fire risks, but the only direct reason provided has been that the community is in need of “ideological guidance.” Larung Gar has previously been subjected to forced demolitions and evictions since it was founded in 1980.
A petition on change.org is still active and collecting signatures to stop the demolitions and evictions at Larung Gar.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns make history as the first ever to earn Geshema degrees
July 18, 2016
Tibetan Nuns Project, July 15, 2016 – Twenty Tibetan Buddhist nuns have just made history, becoming the first Tibetan women to successfully pass all the exams for the Geshema degree, equivalent to a Doctorate in Buddhist philosophy. Exam results were announced by the Department of Religion and Culture of the Central Tibetan Administration. All 20 candidates for the degree passed.
Their success fulfills a longstanding wish of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and marks a new chapter in the development of education for ordained Buddhist women and is a major accomplishment for Tibetan women.
The Geshema degree (a Geshe degree when awarded to men) is the highest level of training in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. These women pioneers have accomplished a level of scholarship and Buddhist training that, until recently, was only open to men.
The Geshema examination process is an extremely rigorous one that takes four years in total, with one round per year each May. During the 12-day exam period, the nuns must take both oral (debate) and written exams. They are examined on the entirety of their 17-year course of study of the Five Great Canonical Texts. In 2011, a German nun, Kelsang Wangmo, who spent 21 years training in India, became the first female to receive the Geshema title.
The new Geshema nuns will formally receive their degrees from His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a special ceremony at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod in southern India.
This occasion is also a milestone for the Tibetan Nuns Project, which was founded in 1987 to provide education and humanitarian aid to Tibetan Buddhist nuns living in India. A number of the Geshema candidates were illiterate when they escaped from Tibet. To reach this historic milestone, the Tibetan Nuns Project had to build an educational system from the ground up.
“Educating women is powerful,” says Rinchen Khando Choegyal, Founder and Director of the Tibetan Nuns Project. “It’s not just about books. It is also about helping nuns acquire the skills they need to run their own institutions and create models for future success and expansion. It’s about enabling the nuns to be teachers in their own right and to take on leadership roles at a critical time in our nation’s history.”
Earning the Geshema degrees marks a turning point for the nuns. This degree will make them eligible to assume various leadership roles in the monastic and lay communities, previously reserved for men.
The Tibetan Nuns Project supports 7 nunneries in India as well as many nuns living on their own for a total of nearly 800 nuns. Many are refugees from Tibet, but the organization also reaches out to the Himalayan border areas of India where women and girls have had little access to education and religious training.