Tibetan Nuns Project Reports Success in Appeal to Fund New Textbooks for Buddhist Nuns

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Tibetan Nuns Project Reports Success in Appeal to Fund New Textbooks for Buddhist Nuns

By Craig C Lewis
June 7, 2024

Images courtesy of the Tibetan Nuns Project

The Tibetan Nuns Project (TNP), a US-registered charity based in Seattle and in the Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh, India, has reported on the success of its recent fundraising appeal to meet an urgent need for new math, science, and English textbooks for the Buddhist nunneries under its charge.*

“Thank you to everyone who donated to purchase textbooks for the Tibetan Buddhist nuns in India,” the TNP said in an announcement shared with BDG. “Three of the seven nunneries in northern India have already received them and the nuns are delighted with their new books on English, math, science, and general knowledge.”

The TNP supports seven nunneries in northern India from all Tibetan Buddhist traditions—Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute; Shugsep Nunnery and Institute; Geden Choeling Nunnery; Tilokpur Nunnery; Sakya College for Nuns; Sherab Choeling Nunnery; and Dorjee Zong Nunnery—and more than 800 nuns, including nuns living alone and living in retreat.

Dolma Ling, home to 270 nuns, had received 274 new textbooks, the TNP reported, noting that the teachers at Dolma Ling had been seeking higher-grade books that were not previously available, well as books to teach English grammar and composition.

“At Geden Choeling, the oldest nunnery in Dharamsala, the 200 nuns and their teachers are excited to have good sets of books,” the TNP said. “Geden Choeling’s abbot wants the nuns to learn math, but the nunnery didn’t have any math textbooks. . . . Thanks to the generous support of Tibetan Nuns Project donors the Geden Choeling nuns now have . . . 362 textbooks.”

The Tibetan Nuns Project provides education and humanitarian aid to refugee nuns from Tibet and Himalayan regions of India. Established under the auspices of the Tibetan Women’s Association and the Department of Religion and Culture of the Central Tibetan Administration, the TNP supports hundreds of nuns from all Tibetan Buddhist lineages and seven nunneries. Many of the nuns are refugees from Tibet, but the organization also reaches out to the Himalayan border areas of India, where women and girls have little access to education and religious training.

“Eight boxes containing 369 textbooks were delivered in May to Shugsep Nunnery and Institute, home to about 100 nuns,” the TNP announced. “The Shugsep nuns needed math, science, and English grammar and composition books. The English teacher also asked for help to improve the stock of English textbooks so that the students could complete coursework up to Grade 8. The nunnery’s last big purchase of books was many years ago and those books were so well-loved and used that they were falling apart.”

The TNP also explained that an order had been placed for textbooks for Tilokpur Nunnery, which has one busy but very appreciative English teacher.

“Books for Sakya College for Nuns and Sherab Choeling Nunnery are being purchased soon,” the TNP added. “[And] textbooks for Dorjee Zong Nunnery in the remote area of Zanskar will be purchased this summer and brought there.”

The TNP noted that it would continue to work with all seven nunneries to establish good library practices and to ensure library time for the resident nuns for informal reading of fiction and non-fiction books.

“Dolma Ling library is functioning well and the nuns regularly borrow books and read them,” the TNP remarked. “The teachers at Shugsep Nunnery will bring their classes to the library and display a range of books so that the students can look through them easily and choose what they would like to read.”

Craig C Lewis

Craig Lewis grew up in a transplanted Scottish family in southern England before setting off against all advice to seek light and wisdom in far-off places, rather than staying put and looking within. After repeated encounters with the Buddhadharma as a journalist in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and across Asia, he eventually found refuge as senior editor at BDG, where he reports and writes on the diversity of contemporary manifestations of the Dharma. Craig is also a keen mountain trekker and photographer, finding particular inspiration in the peoples, cultures, and Buddhist expressions of the Himalaya. In his column for BDG, “Chasing Light,” Craig seeks to document encounters, experiences, and epiphanies resulting from his own tentative and faltering path toward liberation. Contact: [email protected]

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