SHAR GADEN – Altruistic Clinic Association
Ganden Monastery (also Gaden or Gandain) or Ganden Namgyeling is one of the ‚great three‘ Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet, located at the top of Wangbur Mountain, Tagtse County, 36 kilometers ENE from the Potala Palace in Lhasa, at an altitude of 4,300m. (The other two ‚great monasteries‘ are Sera Monastery and Drepung Monastery.) The Ganden Monastery has been re-established in Karnataka, India by the Tibetan population in exile. The Ganden Monastery is located in the Tibetan settlement at Mundgod. This settlement of Tibetan refugees is the largest of its kind in India and was first established in 1966, from land donated by the Indian government.
Its full name is Ganden Namgyal Ling (dga‘-ldan rmam-rgyal gling). Ganden means „joyful“ and is the Tibetan name for Tuṣita, the heaven where the bodhisattva Maitreya is said to reside. Namgyal Ling means „victorious temple“. Read More: > HERE <
Ganden Monastery is located on Wangbur Mountain, on the southern bank of Lhasa River in Tagtse County, 47 kilometers (29 miles) from Lhasa City. It stands at an altitude of 3,800 meters (12,467 feet) above sea level! Ganden Monastery is one of the earliest and largest Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, and stands atop of the six famous temples of Gelugpa – a branch of Tibetan Buddhism. Its significance as a religious, artistic, political and cultural relic led to it being preserved by the National Key Cultural Relic Preservation scheme in 1961, and is now known as being one of the ‚Three Great Temples‘, together with the Sera Monastery and the Drepung Monastery . Every year, one of the grandest of Buddhist activities – Buddha Painting Unfolding Festival – is conducted in the monastery, attracting thousands of visitors and disciples. Read More: > www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction <
Shar Gaden Library came to life very soon after the monastery was founded and it is located underneath the new assembly hall. It is also a non-profit organization, like the clinic association. The main aims and objectives of the library are to preserve and promote Pure Buddha Dharma, the uncommon monastic education and traditions and to fulfil the hard-working students’ wishes by producing necessary holy texts of Buddha Shakyamuni, as well as commentaries of highly realised Buddhist masters of India and Tibet, especially Panchen Sonam Drakpa, the unrivalled scholar of his time, who is the composer of our monastic syllabus texts and many more. Currently the association is run by the director Ven. Lobsang Jamyang, along with seven members of staff, who are highly capable in terms of computer and other related technologies. It plays a significant role during Shar Gaden School’s yearly and monthly examinations, where all the question papers, booklets, etc are designed and produced by the library with strong involvement of the director of the association. The printing press machine is not available presently, therefore we type, design, etc and take the documents to be printed elsewhere. Since it has a great role to play in terms of development of education and production of better facilities for the students, it has been given the highest priority on the monatery’s agenda so far.
Shar Gaden Altruistic Clinic Association came into being on February 26th, 2008. One of the classrooms is being used as clinic due to insufficient space and is located within the grounds of Shar Gaden school, near the library. Earlier it was known as Shar Gaden dispensary, which provided free First Aid and general medicines to the young students of the school. But later, with generous support from our benefactors and close friends, we expanded medical services by including elder monks and lay people, as well as locals. Since the monastery was established in South India, the population of the monastery has been rising rapidly day by day. A vast amount of young students have been enrolled who came from Tibet, the Himalayan region, Nepal, Mongolia, etc. The climate we have here is not very suitable for most of them and there have been many cases of allergic infections among new-comers.
This scenario has given rise to many mysterious diseases so far and many of them are beyond our ability to treat, hence, we frequently invite well-versed doctors from outside to check up on sick and feeble monks and sometime patients have to visit well known hospitals outside of the monastery if the invited doctor diagnoses the patients with serious infections. We strive to run the medical services only in order to benefit inner and outer monks and lay people who need medical help despite lack of sufficient financial foundation. So, the Shar Gaden Altruistic Clinic Association fully depends on your generosity.
- THLIB – Tibetan and Himalayan Library <
- Articles on Tibetan Medicine <
- The Lotus Sutra: www.sacred-texts.com <
- Meet The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) at fb <
- Meet Shar Gaden Monastery, studies, friends, fans at fb <
- Meet Friends of Tibet, studies, fans at fb <
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