Grandeur of Tibetan Monastic Training: Some Reflections

I have lived in Nepal for almost one year and I feel extremely fortunate to study Tibetan at the
Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI). RYI, being the Buddhist Studies center of the Kathmandu
University, is a very unusual kind of a school considering the Western notions of academic
colleges and universities. The most noteworthy feature of RYI is its location in a Buddhist
monastic environment of the Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling monastery. While RYI has its rigorous
academic curriculum taught by professors trained in American and European universities, it
neighbor, the monastery has monks studying in the traditional Tibetan methods.

As a Bangladeshi, brought up in a traditionally Theravāda country, having studied in Sri Lanka

for almost ten years, I have often been asked to express my impressions about Tibetan Vajrayana
Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is a large subject and making categorical statements about the
distinctions between Theravāda and Vajrayāna requires careful observation and analysis. It is not
possible to do that with my limited experience. However, I would like to reflect on a few points
about the Tibetan monastic training that have drawn my attention during this past year.

First and fore-most, I think the grandeur of Vajrayāna Buddhism visible in almost every aspect
of material and religious culture is hard to miss. This is evident for example in the monasteries
with hundreds of monks; shrine halls with large Buddha statues and intricate murals; elegant
thanka with paintings of mahāsiddhas, Buddha-fields, and cycle of existence; the pujas with
magnificent drums and dungchen or dharma trumpets and so on. In all of the Theravāda world, it
would be hard find monastic institutions as large as Drepung Loseling, Ganden, Sera Je and so
on. Monasteries in Kathmandu are not as big as the ones in Tibet or South India, I feel Ka-Nying
Shedrub Ling and Schechen monasteries in Boudha with more than 300 hundred monks in each
mini-models of the Tibetan monastic systems. My Tibetan monastic friends find hard to believe
when I say there are only three monks in the monastery at my village in Bangladesh. We have
extremely few institutions for monastic training accommodating fifty to hundred students or little
more than that. The training in these institutions is also insignificant compared to the elaborate
curriculum and nine to eighteen years of rigorous training in Tibetan institutions. I am sure it
requires excellent organizational skills in maintaining these great monasteries while providing
high quality training for monastics. I am fascinated by not only the organizational aspect of
maintaining these large monastic establishments but also their monastic curriculum.

The Tibetan monastic education system takes pride in retaining the intellectual and scholastic
culture of Nalanda. The subjects included are: ….. The monks go through not only a rigorous
academic training – memorizing important root texts, studying commentaries, and debating on
them – but also elaborate daily rituals dedicated to protective deities or commemorating
important auspicious. The art schools at Scechen training young monastic members for Thanka
painting, the Cham or Lama dances are also important aspects of the Tibetan monastic training.
In that way, I feel the curriculum in these monasteries as very extensive and complete – in the
sense that academic, ritualistic, and artistic aspects are all included. Compared to Theravāda
institutions, the debate, paintings, and lama-dance are especially distinct elements of Tibetan
monastic training. HH Dalai Lama’s openness to science – sending monastics to study science
and establishing laboratories is yet another dimension to the far sightedness of Tibetan monastic
training….

In spite of this grand, rigorous, multifacteded training however I see a short-coming as regards
their attitude to Theravāda Buddhism. In many conversations, I had with monks trained in this
kind of education system and even foreigners who have been studying Vajrāyāna Buddhism, I
observe a common misperception when they refer to Theravāda as Hīnayāna based on their
reading medieval Indian Buddhist texts. This is not merely a mis-recognition but also complete
misunderstanding of the Theravāda Buddhist practice. I have heard many tell me that there is no
bodhisattva practice in Theravāda Buddhist tradition. Such ideas ensue from a presentation of
Buddhism in Tibetan manuals defending the Mahāyāna tenets and referring to other traditions of
Buddhism in medieval India as lower. I have come to realize through these statements that
despite their extensive academic curriculum and openness to science the Tibetan monastic
curriculum pays minimal attention to the contemporary Theravāda Buddhist practices.
Buddhaghosa, the great fifth century Theravāda scholar and commentator is completely
unknown. The Milindapañha, recording the debates between a Buddhist monk named Nagasena
and the Greek king Menander (Pāli: Milinda). Texts like Buddha-vaṃsa, Cariyā-piṭaka, Jātaka-
aṭṭhakathā, Dhamma-padaṭṭhakathā – that present elaborate ideas of bodhisattva practice are
also unknown to them. What I find most astonishing is how the past Tibetan translators who
tirelessly translated the Buddhist texts from Indian languages, mostly from Sanskrit, have missed
the Pāli nikāya texts of the Suttapiṭaka, available in the parallel Chinese translations of the
Sanskrit Sarvāstivāda āgama, forming important documents for early Buddhist literature! In
brief, I observe that while Mahāyāna texts like Saddharmapuḍarīkasūtras, Nāgaārjuna’s
Mūlamadhyamikakārikā, and Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra are studied modern Theravāda
countries, Tibetan institutions have yet to include Pāli texts into their curriculum. Theravāda
scholars study Nāgārjuna not only as a Mahāyāna philosopher but also as an important thinker in
the history of Buddhism. While I am aware that Theravāda institutions can be still more inclusive
of Mahāyāna and Tantric Buddhist traditions, I think the Tibetan Buddhist can also make rooms
for Buddhist texts from other traditions. The Nalanda-centric understanding of Buddhism
reflected in their pedagogical training as well simply overlooks the point that long before the
establishment of Nalanda, Buddhist scholars of Sri Lanka, China, Middle East etc. had already
made important contributions to Buddhism.

Yarney