Documentary Becoming Geshema by Malati Rao spotlights the nuns' challenge in the monastic order
Considering her health, when Phuntshok's parents took her to a Lama, a spiritual guide in Tibetan Buddhism, he advised them to let her follow her path. 'My parents were reluctant but were obliged to follow the Lama's advice,' says Phuntshok, who later became one of the first nuns to receive the highest honour of 'Geshema'.
Phuntshok narrates her story in the documentary, The Geshema Is Born, directed by Malati Rao. The film highlights the discrimination nuns face under ancient Tibetan Buddhist rules and patriarchy.
Fight for equality
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, to graduate as a Geshe (Geshema, for nuns) means to create a karmic imprint for rebirth in the mythic kingdom of Shambhala. The word 'Geshe', literally refers to 'the one who knows virtue'.
In the film, dressed in red robes, the nuns are seen chanting prayers in monasteries, debating, studying, and performing daily chores. Some wear a special yellow robe, reserved for scholarly nuns.
The film also tells the stories of nuns fleeing Tibet to escape Chinese oppression. 'Ill-prepared to walk the high mountains,' with blistered feet, they remember begging to survive. 'Somehow, we reached Nepal, and then finally to India. Many perished on the way,' one of them recalls.
As shown in the documentary, the eight monastic rules in Buddhism subordinate nuns to monks in all matters. Tibetan Buddhist nuns have long fought against these outdated traditions.
The participation of women in Buddhism dates back to the time of the Buddha in the 5th century BCE. Despite a highly patriarchal society, women were recognised as equally capable of attaining spiritual enlightenment. They were allowed to ordain as full monastics, equal to men, and many became respected teachers who ran their own independent nunneries.
However, over centuries, Buddhism took different forms across Asia. In many communities, women were no longer allowed to ordain as novices or full monastics (bhikkhunis), and their lineages disappeared. But in some countries like Taiwan and South Korea, full ordination of women continues.
The 'Geshema' title–equivalent to a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) in Buddhist philosophy–was officially approved for Tibetan Buddhist nuns in 2012. The degree is earned after a minimum of 21 years of extensive study of Buddhist texts, and training.
The film, The Geshema Is Born, was screened during the event, Women & Buddhism - Films and Discussion, at the India International Centre (IIC) on Thursday (July 10). Another documentary, White Robes, Saffron Dreams–directed by Teena Gill–was also featured during the event.
It was followed by a discussion by panelists including historian Uma Chakravarati, sociologist Renuka Singh, Tibetan monastic Kaveri Gill, and Zen teacher Shantum Seth.
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Ambassadors of the Dharma: Meet the nuns leading Tibetan Buddhism into a new era
Next Story Swati Chawla One of the enduring legacies of the Dalai Lama is that for the first time, Tibetan nuns are leading their own educational institutions. Lounge takes a in-depth look at the nuns who are spearheading this change The Dalai Lama with 'geshema' graduates who subsequently completed the year-long Tantric Studies programme at Gyuto Tantric University, Sidhbari, in February 2025. Also seen in the photograph are Nangsa Choedon and Tenzin Palkyi of TNP. Gift this article "This is a precious human life. And we should do what we can." "This is a precious human life. And we should do what we can." Geshema Dawa Dolma, 43, recalls these words from the Dalai Lama during our phone interview. 'Internal work," she adds, 'is more important than external work. Nuns should work hard." Dawa Dolma teaches Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy at Thosamling Nunnery, Institute, and Retreat Centre in Sidhpur, near Dharamsala, the seat of the 14th Dalai Lama for over six decades. Venerable Chhering Norjom, 47, who goes by Norjom and works as a nurse at the nearby Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, echoes another of the Dalai Lama's exhortations with animation during our phone interview: 'Hum Buddhist hain karke baithe mat raho. Philosophy seekho. Zyada achche se padhai karo. (Don't be content with just saying you are Buddhist. Learn philosophy. Study harder.)" Both women are graduates of Dolma Ling's rigorous 17-year monastic programme, which centres on the Five Great Canonical Texts—Pramanavartika by Dharmakirti, Abhisamayalamkara by Maitreya, Madhyamakavatara by Chandrakirti, Vinayasutra by Gunaprabha, and Abhidharmakosha by Vasubandhu—alongside courses in Tibetan language, English, basic mathematics, computer skills and ritual arts such as sand mandalas and butter sculptures. They represent a radical shift in the landscape of Tibetan Buddhism in exile, which came into sharp focus earlier this year when their alma mater moved from male to female leadership for the first time in its three-decade history. Geshema Delek Wangmo, the new principal at Dolma Ling Nunnery. On 17 April, Dolma Ling Nunnery, home to about 300 nuns, mostly from Tibet and the Himalayan regions of India—from Ladakh to Tawang—and from all Buddhist sects, appointed a trio of senior nuns to succeed a male principal. The team includes two nuns who had escaped from Tibet in the 1990s, and a third from the Himachali district of Kinnaur, which borders Tibet. Two hold the geshema degree, equivalent to a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, a qualification that was formally opened to women only in 2012. The Nunnery was officially inaugurated in 2005 by the Dalai Lama, after over a decade of construction by the nuns themselves. In the month we marked the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday, this achievement by monastic women is one of his quieter but more enduring legacies. To understand the significance of this moment—unimaginable even a generation ago—and why it took so long to arrive, we must trace the long arc of Buddhist ordination all the way back to the first woman ordained by the Buddha. A HISTORY OF DEFERENCE The story goes that a few years after Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha (the enlightened one) around 450 BCE, his aunt and stepmother, Mahaprajapati Gautami, asked to join the monastic sangha along with 500 other women. The Buddha turned her down. 'It is not a good idea," he said. Undeterred, Mahaprajapati and her companions shaved their heads, donned saffron robes, and walked 150 miles east to Vaishali, where the Buddha was teaching. They were refused again. Buddha's disciple Ananda interceded: 'Can women not attain awakening?" 'No, they are equal to men in their capacity for awakening," the master responded, and agreed to ordain them. Thus began the fourfold sangha: laymen, laywomen, monks and nuns. But the Buddha's acceptance came with conditions that have shadowed monastic life ever since. Known as the garudhamma, literally weighty rules, the vinaya (monastic code) mentions eight additional precepts that apply exclusively to women. The first of these lays down that 'a nun who had been ordained for even a hundred years must rise and pay respects to a monk ordained for a day." And the last that 'a monk may point out a nun's transgressions, but it is forbidden for a nun ever to admonish a monk." We cannot know what the Buddha intended. The garudhamma might have been later interpolations, pragmatic concessions to patriarchy, or safeguards for nuns living in vulnerable conditions. Regardless, they proved to be consequential and enduring. Millennia after Mahaprajapati's ordination, Tibetan poet-activist Lhasang Tsering captured the persistence of gendered hierarchies in a roadside scene in Dharamsala. In his poem, The Monk and the Nun, first published as part of the anthology Muses in Exile, edited by Bhuchung D. Sonam (2004), two Tibetan Buddhist monastics look the same, don the same red robes, and live by the same vows. Yet one is 'ample-bellied," 'big," and 'dashing around in a Toyota," and the other is 'frail, sad-looking," 'little," and 'selling postcards by the roadside." Why? 'The big one is a monk/And the other only a nun." There have historically been fewer nunneries than monasteries in Tibet, and they were worse-resourced and did not offer the same education. Many nuns who arrived in India following the Dalai Lama, who came into exile in 1959, were destitute and illiterate. Also Read | Our world is in need of the Mahatma's teachings: Dalai Lama Geshema Delek Wangmo, 49, the new principal at Dolma Ling, says in a phone interview that she was illiterate till the age of 19, and spent her teenage years herding yaks and sheep. There was no school or nunnery in her village. There was a monastery nearby where some nuns could attend classes, but they could not live there and had to take up lodgings nearby. Geshema Tenzin Kunsel, 55, from the very first batch of geshema awardees in 2016, mentioned in a 2017 testimonial released by the Tibetan Nuns Project that she was grateful for a training in philosophy, debating and English at Dolma Ling, when her sister's nunnery in Tibet 'has only prayer and no classes and no studying…" Things were not significantly different for her contemporaries on the Indian side. Norjom shares that the older generations of women who embraced monastic life in her extended family in Himachal Pradesh did not receive a formal education. Norjom and her sister, Geshema Sherab Wangmo, 49, come from a family of apple farmers in Chango, Kinnaur. 'Wahan ani gompa nahin tha. Masi wagera gaon ki ani hain. Padhe likhe nahin hain (There was no nunnery there. My aunties are village nuns. They are not educated)," she says, explaining that they performed pujas but did not know the Bhoti language and did not study Buddhist philosophy. They would wear red suits and mostly stay at home. Nuns during prayer in Shugsep Nunnery, built by the Tibetan Nuns Project, near Dharamsala. Men had enjoyed greater mobility and educational access. Norjom's paternal uncle was a senior monk at the millennium-old Tabo monastery in Spiti valley. 'Woh baahar padhai karne ke liye bhai ko le kar gaye," she says—her uncle had taken her brother to a Tibetan monastery in Karnataka to study. THE PURSUIT OF EDUCATION Most Tibetan nuns mention the prospect of studying the dharma freely when they speak of why they undertook the arduous journey into exile. Delek Wangmo says, 'I had wanted to see His Holiness (the Dalai Lama) and I wanted to study philosophy." After being barred by Chinese authorities from visiting sacred Buddhist sites during a pilgrimage from Lithang to Lhasa and denied access to the Jokhang Temple, she and others journeyed to Mount Kailash and eventually escaped to Nepal and India in 1990. It was during the pilgrimage that she first learned the Tibetan alphabet and received teachings from her lama, belatedly beginning her education. Venerable Ngawang Palmo, 50, who has taken on the administrative leadership at Dolma Ling, escaped to India after some nuns in her nunnery, Gari Gompa near Lhasa, were expelled for celebrating the Dalai Lama's Nobel Peace Prize award in 1989. The Tibetan Nuns Project (TNP) was established in 1987 to support nuns who had fled Tibet. Most arrived in India illiterate. Its founding director is Rinchen Khando Choegyal, 78, a sister-in-law of the Dalai Lama, who also reinstated the Tibetan Women's Association in exile. Registered as a non-profit in the US, with its Indian office in Dolma Ling, the TNP currently supports around 900 nuns and seven nunneries. The TNP also extends material assistance and educational support to individual nuns, including older practitioners living outside nunneries or in long-term meditative retreat. Also Read | The Buddhist ateliers of ancient Magadha Two nuns studying in Dolma Ling Nunnery in Sidhpur Everyone I spoke to traced the course of monastic education for women to the Dalai Lama's encouragement, especially the Tibetan Women's Association's meeting in 1992, where he said that something needed to change urgently, 'In our society, we have as a legacy from the past the notion that nuns engage in ritual only and do not study Buddhist texts." This legacy 'perpetuated the nuns' dependence on monks as teachers," according to Venerable Lobsang Dechen, 65, former co-director of the TNP. The most significant curricular shift introduced by the TNP was the inclusion of rigorous training in philosophy and debate, disciplines central to the geshe degree and rooted in heterodox Indian philosophical traditions—which had historically excluded nuns. The geshe degree, a monastic academic tradition that began in the 17th century during the time of the 5th Dalai Lama and was later reformed and made more academically rigorous under the 13th Dalai Lama, was for centuries open only to men. In 2012, the degree was finally made available to nuns. The first batch of 20 geshemas graduated in 2016; as of December 2024, there were 73 geshemas. Studying for the four-year-long geshe degree requires almost two decades of prior monastic training, and very few nuns had managed that until recently. A WIDE INFLUENCE It is rightly and well acknowledged that no country has done more for Tibetans in exile than India. Just as true, but less often said, is how deeply India—particularly the Himalayan region—has been shaped by the moral presence, public service, and quotidian love of its Tibetan guests. Delek Wangmo notes that about 100 nuns in Dolma Ling are from the Himalayan belt in India. The TNP also supports many nuns and nunneries in Kinnaur, Spiti and Ladakh. For instance, the TNP provided textbooks and a school bus for the 700-year-old Dorjee Zong Nunnery in Zanskar, enabling students to make the 12-mile journey from the nunnery—where classes once ended at class V—to a government school offering education up to class X. Six nuns from Dorjee Zong studied in Dharamsala for years, and three of them have returned to help revive it. Many geshemas now serve as teachers and administrators in under-resourced schools and nunneries across the Indian Himalaya, continuing to strengthen local communities. Youdon Aukatsang, 55, a four-time member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile (TPiE) and part of the TNP's Indian board of directors (Buddhist Women's Education Society), says on the phone that 'Tibetan women have always contributed to the struggle, but earlier they were largely unacknowledged and invisible." She observes that Tibetan society in exile has responded to the changing needs of contemporary times to make women more visible in public life and take on leadership positions. Nuns are indeed more visible in many areas of Tibetan public life. Delek Wangmo was sworn in as an Election Commissioner for the TPiE in 2020. She and Tenzin Kunsel also broke new ground as the first nuns to become teachers at Dolma Ling. Yet gender parity remains a distant goal. Nuns remain a minority among the predominantly male faculty at Dolma Ling: three women (all nuns) among 19 total teachers. The pattern extends to political representation. There are 11 female MPs in the current 45-member TPiE, and of the 10 ecclesiastical seats reserved for representatives from religious schools— two each from the four major sects of Tibetan Buddhism, viz. Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma and two from Bon—all are held by monks. Also Read | A new book looks at the art of Tantric Buddhism A PURPOSEFUL LIFE In her study of Sri Lankan nuns, Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice: In Search of the Female Renunciant (2013), anthropologist Nirmala Salgado notes that renunciant narratives are often misread through a liberal feminist lens that casts nuns as 'indigent subjects" in need of 'empowerment." The nuns she interviewed spoke instead in the idiom of moral discipline (sila) and renunciation. The Tibetan Buddhist nuns I've spoken with also articulate recent curricular changes—especially the introduction of philosophy and debate— as a way to live out the dharma more fully, framing them in the language of service and the responsibility that comes with a precious human life. They emphasise that rigorous study enables them to grasp the subtleties of texts and teachings and, more importantly, to communicate these effectively—a responsibility they regard as central to monastic vocation. Their chance conversations with younger nuns and the laity often change lives. Geshema Tenzin Dolma, 44, who joined Ngawang Palmo at the helm of Dolma Ling's administration, had dropped out of primary school in Kinnaur to help her farming family in the fields. Her life took a different path when a nun from Dolma Ling came to her village for the holidays. Inspired by the interaction, she decided to become a nun and pursue an education in Dharamsala. The nuns at Dolma Ling changed my life, too. I spent a summer with them in 2004 through a fellowship with the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and SPIC MACAY—and returned every chance I got. Norjom made offerings for my mother at the temple in Dolma Ling when she was ill and when she passed in 2007. The nuns anchored me through grief and confusion; gave me food and a room in the nunnery; held my hand and prayed for me. Every minor trigger felt like a crisis then, and the world seemed laced with landmines. Dawa Dolma—then in her 20s—shared the wisdom from the 8th century Indian pandita Santideva: rather than trying to cover the whole earth in leather to avoid pain, one can simply wrap the soles of one's own feet. Through their philosophical counsel, intercessory prayer, and quiet pastoral care, they reminded me that the Tibetan word geshe comes from the Sanskrit kalyan mitra, literally 'a beneficial friend," or someone who can serve as a spiritual adviser or guide. Norjom returns to her village over the lean seasons and teaches the Bhoti language to young girls so that they may read religious texts. People flock to her for counsel—'What do I do about my anger?", they ask, and she tells them that to truly be Buddhist, they must study the dharma: 'Buddhist ho toh matlab bhi aana chahiye." Swati Chawla is associate professor of history and digital humanities at O.P. Jindal Global University and senior fellow in Dalai Lama and Nalanda Studies at the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Topics You May Be Interested In Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
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The princess and the beheaded sisters: The forgotten Indian women gurus of Tantric Buddhism
Bibek Bhattacharya A thousand years ago, generations of Indian Buddhist women fought patriarchy and the caste system, worked miracles and inspired profound religious change. This is their story An 11th century miniature painting from Bengal depicting Bodhisattva Tara as a guru dispensing boons to a Buddhist 'siddha' community. Gift this article When Kali Puja rolls around in Bengal, people come in droves to the pandals to gape at the clay figurines of goddess Kali's frighteningly monstrous, charnel ground retinue. One figure that holds immense awed fascination is Chinnamasta, the severed-headed goddess, one of the 10 mahavidyas of Hindu Shakta tantra. When Kali Puja rolls around in Bengal, people come in droves to the pandals to gape at the clay figurines of goddess Kali's frighteningly monstrous, charnel ground retinue. One figure that holds immense awed fascination is Chinnamasta, the severed-headed goddess, one of the 10 mahavidyas of Hindu Shakta tantra. This fascination is unsurprising, because Chinnamasta stands naked on a corpse or a couple having sex, brandishing a sword in one hand, and her own severed head in the other, while two lines of spurting blood from her neck splatter into the mouths of her two attendants, women as naked as the goddess, Vairochani and Varnani. The third, central stream of blood lands in the mouth of her severed head. Chinnamasta seems to have been a popular—if minor—goddess in Bengal and some other parts of India, for a very long time. One might think that this fascination stems from the strong presence of Shakta cults (tantric groups that worship Shakti or feminine power) in these places. The real reason though, is that Chinnamasta is a tantric Buddhist Vajrayana goddess, who was at the centre of a strong cult in India in 9-10 century CE. Back then she was called Chinnamunda Vajravarahi, and her attendants Vajravairochani and Vajravarnani. Some of the great adepts of this cult were women mahasiddhas (the great awakened ones). THE MASTERS OF TANTRA The subject of the participation of women in Indian Buddhism is not very well understood by historians. While this is in part a result of a paucity of sources, we do know that Indian Buddhist communities, at various times, supported robust sanghas of nuns. This ebbed and flowed depending on the shifting political tides in South Asia, probably reaching its lowest point when Brahminical caste strictures and patriarchal norms became hegemonic around 1,000 years ago. However, what has received even less attention is the role played by Buddhist laywomen in popular Mahayana and Vajrayana cults. The Mahayana placed a great deal of importance in the direct participation of the Buddhist laity in rituals and learning, believing it to be the best way of countering Brahminical social influence. By the time its tantric cousin Vajrayana became widespread around the 8th century CE, the focus had turned firmly towards non-monastic ritual specialists among Buddhist householders. For in Vajrayana, there is no real dichotomy between nirvana and samsara, merely a difference in perception. Anyone could become a Buddha, in just one lifetime. One just needed the necessary spiritual training. Also Read | The Buddhist ateliers of ancient Magadha It is in this context that we find the rise of Buddhist tantric specialists—Vajracharyas, panditas and siddhas. Many of them were women gurus who founded transmission lineages of monks, lay specialists and later Tibetan lamas that exist to this day in Nepal and Tibet. One such woman was Lakshminkara, also known as Lakshmi or Srimatidevi. A Kashmiri princess and the sister of Indrabhuti, the king of Oddiyana (in the Swat Valley in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), Lakshminkara was no ordinary her struggles with a patriarchal society and her ultimate rejection of its strictures to pursue the life of a Vajrayana sadhaka is emblematic of the times. We cannot be entirely sure if there were one or more women gurus with that name, or exactly when she lived, but most scholars place her sometime in the 9th century CE, at a time when the popularity and political prestige of Vajrayana was at its zenith in India. Also Read | The other Kalis Her biography is maintained in quite a few histories of Indian siddhas, though most only survive in the Tibetan translations of lost Sanskrit and Apabhramsa originals. One of these is the well-known 12th century work Chaturasiti Siddha Pravritti (The Lives of the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas) by Bihari monk Abhayadatta. The 84 mahasiddhas are the folk heroes of Vajrayana—masters of the mahamudra (the great seal of enlightenment), composers of mystical dohas(spiritual songs), writers of tantras and workers of miracles who had attained Buddhahood through intense yogic practices. They were a diverse bunch: Princes and kings, basket weavers and fishers, cowherds, wine sellers, tribals, sex workers and Brahmins who had converted to Buddhism. Stories of their lives are replete with miracles and acts of profound kindness, but also trenchant critiques of the caste system and wilful breaking of taboos—from sexual to religious. By breaking every rule, they showed the ultimate meaninglessness of human laws and logic before the ultimate Buddhist truth—the void, or sunyata. But they were scholars too, writing key tantra texts, as well as commentaries on tantras, meditation and visualisation manuals, and songs in local languages in order to introduce esoteric Buddhist concepts to common people. They took disciples from all sections of society, and began transmission lineages that still exist. THE PRINCESS AND THE BEHEADED SISTERS So, who exactly was Lakshminkara? Here's a brief version of her biography, mostly based on the scholar Miranda Shaw's translation in her book Buddhist Goddesses of India. A princess from a Buddhist kingdom, Lakshmi was betrothed to Jalendra, a Hindu king of Lankapuri. When she travelled to her fiancé's kingdom, she was shocked to learn that he was fond of hunting. The sight of piles of slaughtered animals horrified her and she decided not to marry him. She gave away her dowry, stripped off her clothes and retreated to a cremation ground, vowing to give her life over to attaining enlightenment. Lakshminkara would spend seven years meditating and mastering the Buddhist tantric practices in a cave, finally attaining a heightened spiritual state. She was served upon by a large retinue of disciples and celestial spirits. Her reputation as a great siddha attracted people from across Lanka, including Jalendra, who asked her to be his guru. She refused, instead directing him to learn from one of her disciples. A statue of Vajrayogini from the 11th century CE, found in Rajgir, Bihar. Lakshminkara's personal deity was Vajrayogini, and she seemed to have focused especially on the severed-headed emanation of Vajrayogini—Chinnamunda. Of the three extant Buddhist sadhanas on Chinnamunda, two are by her. The Chinnamunda Vajravarahi Sadhana is preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist cannon, translated from the Sanskrit original by a Newari pandit from Kathmandu called Varendraruchi. The other one, called Lakshmi-sadhana, is preserved in Newari, also translated by Varendraruchi. A third Chinamunda sadhana by the siddha Sabara exists in the great Sanskrit Vajrayana meditation manual, the Sadhana-mala, which was compiled in the famous monastery of Vikramashila, near Bhagalpur, Bihar, in the 11th century. Also Read | Chasing Buddhas across Bihar The other main source of Chinnamunda's cult were also women—the mahasiddha sisters Mekhala and Kanakhala. They were from Maharashtra, and likely lived in the 10th century CE, a few decades after Lakshminkara. The story of the sisters is another stark commentary on how the tantric path allowed women to overturn the pressures of patriarchy. They were engaged to be married to two brothers when they were subjected to a sustained campaign of gossip accusing them of being women with loose morals. The joint wedding was broken off and the sisters became social outcasts. It was then that they met renowned Bengali Buddhist mahasiddha Kanhapada aka Krishnacharya. He was passing through their town with a huge entourage of disciples. Mekhala, the elder sister, told Kanakhala that rather than running away from their troubles, they should seek the freedom of the Vajrayana path. When they asked him to teach them, Kanha agreed and initiated them in the practice of Chinnamunda. The sisters undertook the practice together for the next 12 years, before travelling to Bengal to meet Kanha. When they declared that they had attained the siddhi of the Chinnamunda practice, Kanha demanded that they show their mastery by cutting off their heads. Without missing a beat, Mekhala and Kanakhala drew swords out of their mouths and beheaded themselves with a flourish. Brandishing their heads in their hands, they levitated and started dancing and singing: 'We have destroyed all distinctions between samsara and nirvana, we have united vision and action…we know no separation between self and others." A miniature painting from 11th century Bengal of the Tantric Buddhist goddess Kurukulla. Kanha hailed them as great siddhas, restored their severed heads to their bodies and authorised them to teach. According to the 17th century Tibetan historian Taranath's biography of Kanha, Mekhala and Kanakhala's performance even persuaded a local Bengali king to convert to Buddhism. Another time, the sisters came across a group of Shaiva tantric yogis who started heckling them. The sisters magically transported the yogis and their houses to a far away desert, and allowed the yogis to return only once they had apologised. Mekhala and Kanakhala's song of enlightenment survives in Tibetan translation. As does an instruction manual teaching would-be sadhakas the yoga and meditation techniques of visualising the deity Chinnamunda, and through this practice, experiencing the mahasukha (the Great Bliss). A HIDDEN TRADITION Lakshminkara, Mekhala and Kanakhala are but three women in a long list of named and unnamed Indian female masters of Vajrayana. These include the gurus of famous male siddhas like Sarahapada, who was taught by an unnamed tribal arrow-maker, who later became his consort. Then there was the 11th century Niguma, an important teacher in the lineage of the tantric Buddha Chakrasamvara. Others, like the housewife guru Manibhadra, or Vajravati, a Kashmiri Brahmin who rejected prejudice to learn from a siddha from a caste of basket weavers, serve as paradigmatic figures in the radical ideology of equality that underpins Vajrayana. All of them lived at a time when Buddhism was in its final, most socially radical phase in India. Squeezed between the oppressive political power of a resurgent Hinduism and weaponised caste rules, and the ever-present threat of violent military campaigns, the lives of the tantric siddhas became exemplary beacons of a life rooted in love, compassion, self-liberation, and a community of proud outcastes. Also Read | How the Kanheri Caves tell us a secret history of Mumbai Although now entirely forgotten in India, these siddhas were popular enough that many were imported into Hindu siddha traditions like that of the Shaivaite Natha-yogis. The lives and songs of other Buddhist masters were to be adopted by radical anti-caste Hindu groups like the Sahajiya Vaishnavas and later the Bauls. Goddesses like Chinnamunda Vajravarahi, whose entire tradition revolves around fiercely independent women, were absorbed by Hindu tantric traditions as Chinnamasta, in turn making these traditions more popular and humanistic in outlook. This secret revolution from within may well constitute the greatest victory of India's Buddhist women masters. Topics You May Be Interested In
