Dharamsala: A group of 20 Tibetan nuns has earned Geshema, a degree equivalent to doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.
They have successfully completed all exams necessary to reach this highest level of training in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism that was until now available only to men.
The Department of Religion and Culture of the Central Tibetan Administration Exam, based at Dharsamsala in Himachal Pradesh, announced the results in the second week of July.
All 20 candidates for the degree passed, fulfilling a dream project of the Dalai Lama. According to school sources, the women’s achievement marks a new chapter in the development of education for ordained Buddhist women, lionsroar.com reported July 15.
The extremely rigorous Geshema examination 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 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 seven 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.