Interacts with monks and students of Sera Jey Secondary School

Bylakuppe/Kushalnagar: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu visited the Namdroling Monastery, the Golden Temple in Bylakuppe on Thursday. Khandu was on a two-day visit and the roads on which the CM travelled were decorated with Rangolis like in Tibet.

The board members of the Monastery welcomed the CM. He later visited the main temple and offered a lamp to His Holiness Drubwang Pema Norbu Rinpoche’s relic stupa in Zangdolpari.  After that he met the monks and nuns of Namdroling Monastery from Arunachal.

At Sera Jey Secondary School in Tibetan Settlement, the Arunachal CM said that it is through schools like Sera Jey, learned monks have been able to enlighten the world about the wisdom they gather in the monastery through the languages and scientific approach.

He attended the silver jubilee celebration of the school’s affiliation with CBSE. “While monasteries have preserved the ancient wisdom of Buddhism from the days of Nalanda University, it could not be revealed to the outside world in the right perspective because of the language barrier,” he noted.

The institution, in fact, is the first of its kind, serving as a modern educational wing, catering to younger monks of Sera Jey Monastic University for Advanced Buddhist Studies. With its unique tradition of imparting Buddhist education, blended with modern education, it has carved a niche for itself,” he said.

He said that under the University of Mysore, the Sera Jey Monastic University for Advanced Buddhist Studies has given degrees to over 630 students from the Himalayan region and Tibet and the subjects include ancient Tibetan language, ancient psychology and philosophy.

“I am sure that, in sync with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s preaching that we should be 21st century Buddhists with scientific temperament, the school will be producing a new breed of monks, who weigh Buddhist precepts befitting the requirement of the modern world,” Khandu noted.

Addressing the students, Khandu reminded them of the Dalai Lama’s call to all Buddhists to be 21st century Buddhists with the ability to scientifically analyse even the very teachings of Lord Buddha himself.

Sera Jey Secondary School, run under the Sera Jey Monastic University, was recognised in 1995 by Karnataka’s Education Department, and has been affiliated to the CBSE since 1997. It is the first-ever Tibetan monastic school to have received affiliation with the prestigious body of the Secondary School Education Board of India. Monks and novices from Himalayan region such as Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh and Nepal, study in this school.

Scion of erstwhile Mysore royal family Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, University of Mysore Vice-Chancellor Prof. G. Hemantha Kumar, Tahsildar Chandramouli, the Abbot of Sera Jey Monastery, Rev Geshe Tashi Tsethar, school staff, National Minority Commission member Rinchen Lhamo and others were present.