by DARCIE PRICE-WALLACE
In August 2025, 161 Tibetan Buddhist nuns from religious institutions across India and Nepal – a record number – gathered at the Dolma Ling Nunnery in northern India to take various levels of the “geshema” examination. These exams are in preparation for one day receiving the geshema degree, comparable with a doctorate in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. The nearly four-week gathering was especially notable because until 13 years ago it was completely unavailable to women.
Now, thanks to a greater emphasis on women’s education in recent years, Tibetan Buddhist nuns are increasingly becoming teachers and abbesses. In monastic institutions and in Buddhist centers around the world, nuns are taking on leadership roles and being acknowledged for their religious scholarship, including the geshema degree.
As a scholar of religious studies and gender, I study the changing roles of women in Buddhism. While nuns were long respected in Tibetan Buddhist culture, they were historically not granted access to the same educational or leadership opportunities as monks. But that has changed, in part due to the crucial role played by the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso.
He encouraged nuns to become advanced degree holders as part of his broader goal to increase gender parity. “Biologically there is no difference between the brains of men and women and the Buddha clearly gave equal rights to men and women,” he said in 2013. In addition to nuns reciting prayers and performing rituals, he emphasized they should study classic Buddhist texts, something traditionally reserved for men.
Such guidance has helped challenge historical misconceptions about women’s intellectual abilities that undermined women’s prominence in Buddhism. Indeed, nuns are now teaching philosophy within their own nunneries at home and abroad, becoming principals of their institutions, serving as role models for other nuns and the laity, and entering long retreats – a staple of Buddhist contemplative activities on the path to awakening.
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