The sacred paintings have traditionally been created only by monks. Anthropologist Kim Gutschow, who teaches in a new religious studies program at Brandeis, is working on a book offering a rare inside look at the world of Tibetan Buddhist nuns. Tibetan Buddhists have fascinated Westerners, particularly since 1959, when the Dalai Lama led 100,000 followers into exile after a failed revolt against the Chinese government. She says that monks and nuns in Tibetan Buddhism lead vastly different lives in which monks seem to have more ritual, economic, and sexual power. Monks tend to be supported by the faithful, whereas nuns have to work in fields or do domestic labor to make ends meet.
Some nuns also wind up sexually involved with monks.
Gutschow says it is difficult to tell whether the relationships are consensual or forced, but that nuns who become pregnant are ousted. Unlike in some other branches of Buddhism, nuns in Tibetan Buddhism can not attain the highest level of ordination. But the Kyirong nuns are helping to remove some of the limits placed on Tibetan Buddhist nuns by performing, with the blessing of the Dalai Lama, rituals once performed only by men. The nuns are learning, from monks, to make the sand mandalas, which are diagrams of the universe and places where a deity resides, to perform ritual ballets, and to make thangka paintings, which are a form of scroll. Just the fact that the nuns are now making mandalas and learning thangka painting and the fact that they're getting educated more broadly is a response to exposure to the broader world community,'' she said.