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A new schoolhouse has opened at the Tibetan exile Gongkar Choede Monastery near Dehradun, in northern India.
The building, funded by Ockenden International, will house 35 trainee monks, giving them the opportunity to develop their vocation in the Tibetan language, which has come under growing pressure since Tibet was incorporated into China in 1951.
Ockenden International channelled its funding through the Nangchen Children’s Trust which has a presence in the area.
The grant is separate from the Ockenden International annual prizes for work with refugees and internally displaced people and was made possible by a legacy from Mrs Felicity Summers, who gave enormous support to exiled Tibetans during her lifetime.
Gongkar Choede is a community of 80 monks and the school building will be used to give the younger monks both a traditional and a modern education with emphasis on the study of Tibetan language.
The original Gongkar Choede Monastery was founded in 1464 in the Lhoka district of Central Tibet, playing a significant role for nearly six centuries, contributing to the traditional, cultural and political aspects of Tibet’s Bhuddhist culture.
In the 1990s, a group of its monks escaped to India, in search of their chief spiritual leader. Gongkar Choede Monastery was inaugurated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and His Holiness The Sakya Trizin in 2003.
More than 80 monks, from some of the most remote regions of the Himalayas – Nepal, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh in India – are learning and teaching in the monastery.
Historically, all of the significant translated Teachings of the Buddha were preserved only in Tibet, the main reason why their Buddhist exams are most clearly understood in the Tibetan language, making study of the Tibetan language extremely important to the preservation of Tibetan culture and identity.
There will be more about this Ockenden building project, including photographs and the text of the main speeches at www.ockendenprizes.co.uk
