Rizong Monastery, Ladakh, India

Gelug Tradition, 19th century, about 40 monks.

Rizong (or Rhizong) gompa, also called Yuma Changchubling, is a Gelugpa monastery.

Rizong Monastery. Photo: Baldiri, Wikipedia.

Location

Located in Ladakh, India, and home for about 40 monks, Rizong gompa is situated at the top of a rocky side valley on the north side of the Indus river, to the west of Alchi on the way to Lamayuru.

History

The monastery was established in 1831 by Lama Tsultim Nima. The monastery is also called "the paradise for meditation" and is noted for its extremely strict rules and standards.

The nunnery, located about 2 km from the monastery, is called the "Jelichun Nunnery" or Chulichan (Chomoling), where, at present, 20 nuns reside.

It is also believed that Guru Padmasambhava meditated in the caves around Rizong, years before the monasteries were built. It is also inferred that in the small caves in the vicinity, lamas used to meditate for years in isolation from the rest of the villages.

They subsisted on one meal a day, which was provided to them by local people through a small square window opening in the cave.

Before the monastery was built in 1831, it was started as a hermitage for teaching the Buddhist religion to the monks, with a strict regimen of a celibate life suited to the monastic order.

In the 18th century, Lama Tsultim Nima who meditated at the rDzong-lung mountains decided to establish a hermitage before building the monastery, for monks to meditate and learn the teachings of Buddha.

Supported by many monks, initially many mud huts were built where they recited gso-shyong (purification of transgressions). He laid down very strict rules of celibacy called the "Vinaya Rules" to be followed by each monk who meditated here. In brief, rules set are the following.

• Monks are not allowed to leave the monastery, except in the case of sickness.
• No comforts of bedding allowed to sleep at night.
• Monks are not to touch anything handled by women (including their own or others’ sisters).
• Before sun rise or after sunset, monks cannot leave their cell, except to bring water.
• Not even a needle worth of possessions is allowed to be owned by the monks.
• Fire cannot be lit in their rooms.
• Any kind of donation received by a monk from his home shall be shared with other monks in the hermitage.
• The boundary of the hermitage was marked by three types of fences and no women were allowed to sleep even in the outer most boundary of the hermitage.
• Any rumor about offences committed by monks would result in being expelled from the monastery.

Over the years, the hermitage became a place of worship and pilgrimage to all Buddhists from Ladakh. It is reported that the king of Ladakh gave rich donations to convert the Hermitage into a retreat center and the queen of Ladakh even visited this place on a pilgrimage.

At this stage, as the number of monks in the hermitage increased, Lama Tsultim Nima decided to build a much larger monastery.

Lama Tsultim Nima selected a site to build a large monastery, away from the villages, at a place known as Ri-rdzong, a place that had adequate water supply and fuel. He launched on a donation campaign to build the monastery for which the villagers also provided voluntary labor during construction.

The hermitage has the distinct reputation of upholding "the Vinaya rules in strict sense of the term", so much so that the lamas of this monastery do not indulge in performances of mask dances or with undue rites and rituals.

The monastery has the distinction of having two incarnate lamas namely, Lama Tsultim Nima and his son Sras Rinpoche, the former is the head of the monastery who generally lives in Manali and the latter is the Abbot of 'rgyud-smad Dratsang' (tantric college).

The Abbott will be elevated to the rank of Dga-ldan Khirpa, the chief of all Tibetan scholastics, after completing a term of two years.

During the absence of these two incarnate Lamas at the Monastery, the duties are well allocated to others; the senior most monk looks after the monastic schedules while his second in command would attend to the housekeeping chores such as food and providing other facilities to the monks.

Features

• The Relic Shrine holds the old relics of the founder of the monastery and is surrounded by several frescoes of Dharmaraja and other deities.

• The Assembly Hall, with the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha in the middle, is flanked to its right by statues of Tse-dpag-med (Amitāyus or Amitābha), rje-Rin po-che (Je Tsongkhapa), Yamāntaka and other deities. To the left of the main deity, idols of Avalokiteśvara and Mahākāla (protector deity of the monastery) are deified. Scriptures of Kangyur and and Tengyur are arranged on the sides. Printing blocks of the biography of Lama Tsulim Nima, and the books composed by the first Sras Rinpoche are housed here.

• The Sacred Chamber on the west, have the statues of Mahakala, the statue of the founder of the monastery, the statue of the second incarnate Gnas-Bstan Tsual–Khrims Dorji and a Stupa.

• The Thin-Chen Shrine, has frescoes depicting Shakyamuni Buddha’s life history, a golden stupa, a silver stupa, images of Avalokiteśvara and Maitreya Buddha.

• Julichen Nunnery is subordinate to the main monastery and sustains its needs. The 26 nuns who reside there are taken care by the Governing Body of the main Monastery.

The nuns fully participate in the economic activity of the monastery and must work whole day to fully support the economic enterprises of the monastery.

It is said that the young nuns who are more educated and candid took to religious curriculum of meditation and Tibetan philosophy, while the older nuns toiled on the fields in the furtherance of the economic activity of the monastery.

The nuns are also trained in spinning, oil extraction from apricot nuts and milking cows. The drudgery and inhospitable living conditions of the nuns are explained by Kim Gutschow in “Being a Buddhist nun: the struggle for enlightenment in the Himalayas”:

“The nuns serve as the worker bees in the monastic hive, which is over seen by monks engaged in their ritual ministrationsNuns work from dawn to dusk processing the monastery’s vast wealth of grain, apples, apricots, and wool. While the monastery soars skyward, at the end of a secluded valley, far above the distractions of human livelihood, the squat and ramshackle nunnery sits amid the monastic fields and orchards. The nuns’ quarters are bursting with odd heaps of barley, drying apricots, woolen homespun waiting to be dyed, abandoned looms, and plowshares in various states of disrepair. Nuns spun most of their waking hours working or cooking for the monastic estate, while living in rooms bereft of religious images.”

The social and economic aspects of the nuns of Julichang nunnery, who practice celibate monasticism, have also been elaborately studied by Anna Grimshaw, as part of her PhD thesis. It has been brought out that the celibate nuns provided the agricultural and animal husbandry labor, free of any payments from the monastery.

They were exploited with provision of fixed ration for their use. Grimshaw adds that the nuns were given "a portion of harvests, in return for feasts on ritual occasions and year-long provision of spiritual protection". They were given very little opportunities for spiritual prayers also.

Buddhist feminism in nunneries received a further boost after a conference was held on this issue and with the great efforts put in by Palmo, a foreigner, who adopted Buddhism and fought for the cause of the nuns in Buddhist nunneries.

The nunnery at Jelichung was expanded, in addition to the Wakahal nunnery, between 1995 and 1998, after awareness was created at the conference.

During this period, four new nunneries were also built in Ladhakh and Zanskar under the Ladakh Nuns Association (LNA) that was established by Palmo. This promoted the education, visibility, and material status of the nuns in Ladakh.

Travel and Visiting

The monastery is 73 kilometers from the town of Leh, which is well connected by road and air links with the rest of the country.

Source

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizong_Monastery

Rizong Monastery, Ladakh, India

Location

History

Features

Travel and Visiting

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