Geshe Kelsang Wangmo - Graduation Day

For the Guinness World Record Book: Ven. Kelsang Wangmo is First Woman to Receive Geshe diploma (conferred by Tibetan Buddhist institution).

His Holiness the Dalai Lama authorized the Institute for Buddhist Dialectical Studies (IBD) to award Rime Geshe degrees in 2009.

The first ceremony to confer the degree took place 27 April 2011 at The College for Higher Tibetan Studies (a newer branch college of IBD with a large campus located in Sarah village, Dharamsala township, Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India).

Our teacher, Ven. Kelsang Wangmo, and her classmates who completed the requirements for the degree in 2010, were the first to receive this Geshe degree.

 
The degree is entitled Rime Geshe [i.e., Non-Sectarian Geshe] because the curriculum includes study with Nyingma, Sakya and Kagyu masters of their respective presentations  of philosophy.  In addition to the normal Geshe curriculum study of the Five Great Canonical Texts, Geshe Wangmo and her classmates  studied tantra for two years at IBD.  Those who receive the Rime Geshe have completed exhaustive annual examinations comparable to those now  administered at the three great Geluk monastic universities in south India, and submitted Tibetan dissertations. 

IBD and The College for Higher Tibetan Studies conferred degrees upon students of all their programs at the graduation.  IBD presented diplomas for Masters of Buddhist Philosophy to the class members (including a nun from Taiwan) who had successfully completed the curriculum through the Madhyamika course:

For those of you in Dharamsala, we will be arranging a 'tea party' to afford you the traditional opportunity to celebrate/pay respects/offer khata scarfs in the near future. Some of us were able to attend the graduation:

In the 1990's, IBD began teaching the Geshe curriculum to a class of nuns from Jamyang Chosling Nunnery, which caters to nuns from Himalyan regions outside of Tibet (primarily located in modern India). This was one of the earliest programs to teach the advanced Buddhist philosophy to nuns in India. For many long years, the nun students lived in shacks without basic amenities. A few of those pioneering nuns are celebrating with Geshe Wangmo! A few years ago, a modern nunnery was inaugurated in the Kangra Valley with its own teachers and geshe program and it has attracted nuns from Nepal and the west.

More photos on earlier post and on flickr.