Gender Dynamics in Buddhist Communities: Navigating nunhood in Zanskar and beyond

For citations / sources: use as many as needed; Please make reference to the youtube short movie + “Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas (2004) Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, an ethnography* by the anthropologist Kim Gutschow” (see attached instructions for chapters required)

Some notes on the youtube video: 

Daughter: Palkit

Mum: liberal (let the daughter choose what she wants to do) vs Dad: traditional (women should stay and work at home; only daughter, must get married; Grandma said on her death bed for Daughter to never become a nun)


“You must make your own decision, the secret is in your heart” – Becoming woman in Zanskar


Tenzin – Palkit’s friend

  • Parents drank chang without telling her, accepted on her behalf, brought by some men

    • Drinking and making offerings of chhaang are part of many pan-Tibetan social and religious occasions, including settling disputes, welcoming guests, and wooing

    • Tradition: once parents drink chang, have to get married

    • Need to sign marriage contract – marrying off their daughter is just a transaction?

  • But Tenzin does not want to leave fam and friends and home

    • Her mother – contradictory – in front of Tenzin speaks of how she knows Tenzin will be happy with the marriage – behind Tenzin admits she does not know, that Tenzin does not know anyone in the new family

    • When horses came, neither father or mother was happy – so why sell her off in the first place – seems like they are blindly following tradition without much consideration?


Becoming nun to break free of the social norm of parents marrying off their daughters to a completely unknown family?

  • “Becoming a nun, the only way for a women to be free, and the refuge for a broken heart” – Becoming woman in Zanskar


Girls never went to school, only boys – joining a nunnery can change that


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