Kalmyk students of the Drepung Gomang monastery have completed their annual exams

The exams of the Drepung Gomang monastery have concluded at the Central Khurul “The Golden Abode of Buddha Shakyamuni.” According to the abbot of the Central Khurul, Andzha Gelong, due to the closure of borders, students from Mongolia and Russia who returned home during the pandemic were unable to return to the monastery to take their exams and appealed to the administration of Drepung Gomang with a request to hold the exams in their homelands. “The leadership of the Drepung Gomang monastery met them halfway and granted the request of the students and monasteries of Mongolia, Kalmykia, and Buryatia to take the exams at their own datsans and khuruls,” the abbot noted.

The exams took place over three days. On the first day the students took a written exam in Buddhist philosophy, on the second — grammar. On the third day debates were held in which the student monks demonstrated the depth of their knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, their debating skills, and their ability to prove the truths of the Buddhist teaching with sound argument. The students' opponents were their fellow students and senior monks of the khuruls of Kalmykia. The examination board included: one of the oldest monks of Kalmykia, Geshe Jamba; the abbot of the Tsagan-Nur khurul “Tashi Gomang,” Geshe Mutul; the umze of the Central Khurul, Geshe Tsoglam; and the Dugan keeper of “The Golden Abode of Buddha Shakyamuni,” Geshe Jamyang.

In Kalmykia, traditional monastic debates were held in the higher religious schools of Tsannid Chöra until their closure in 1930. Today, a hundred years later, monastic debates have been held in Kalmykia for the first time. “I think that with the creation of a Buddhist Institute in Kalmykia, this tradition will be fully restored,” expressed the hope of the senior administrator of “The Golden Abode of Buddha Shakyamuni,” Yonten Gelong. “The system of education in our tradition proceeds precisely through such monastic debates, when monks do not simply take the words of the sacred texts on faith, but comprehend the Teaching of the Buddha through analysis and logical reasoning. This ancient tradition of philosophical monasteries has its origins in Nalanda University in Ancient India,” he added.