How a Lalitpur girl walked all the way to Myanmar for Buddhist education

By Aashish Mishra,Kathmandu, Apr. 13: Forced to spend a night in police custody in Rangoon (Yangon), the former capital of Myanmar, for no crime at all, Guruma Dhammawati was anguished. Just a teenager at the time, she was in a squalid cell in a foreign country, alone and needing to meet a person she had never known before. She did not speak the language and had no official identity documents, but she did not feel alone.

Because, in the few minutes of sleep that she had been able to find in the lockup, she had had a vision of the Shwedagon Pagoda and of Lord Gautam Buddha. This was a validation, Dhammawati thought, that she was on the right path, one that had brought her from Nepal to Myanmar, and that would eventually make her the first Nepali and the first non-Burmese to be awarded with the title ‘Sasanadhaja Dhammachariya’ and get her recognised as an Aggamahagantha Wachak Pandit. The former is one of the highest degrees in Myanmar’s Buddhist education system and the latter is an honour conferred by the Myanmar government to venerable monks, nuns and laypersons. 

But how did she get on this path? For that, we would have to travel to 1949 when Guruma was 14 years old, still known by her birthname Ganesh Kumari Shakya and living with her family at her home in Okubahal, Lalitpur. On the Shivaratri of that year, Burmese monk Sthavir U Dhammawuddha had been able to sneak into Nepal amongst the Indian Hindu sages and holy men and had arrived at the Shree Sumangal monastery in her city on the invitation of Buddhaghosh, a Nepali monk who had studied for a while in Moulmein, Dhammawuddha’s home town in Myanmar.

At the time, it was illegal for foreigners to enter the country. However, the Rana government did allow Indians in on the occasion of Shivaratri. At the monastery, he delivered sermons about Theravada Buddhism, Nibbana (Nirvana/Salvation) and suffering. 

On the last day of his sermons at Lalitpur, Dhammawuddha asked the people gathered to hear him speak, “What are the most important sources of suffering and happiness in this world?”

For a while, nobody spoke. Then came a soft but determined voice, “Bhante (Venerable Monk), we do not suffer much in this country.” The voice belonged to Ganesh Kumari, “But speaking for myself, I have little chance to study Buddhist scriptures. That is the greatest source of suffering.”

“Indeed, we did not have any physical discomfort,” Dhammawati, who is now in her 80s, recalled in conversation with The Rising Nepal. As the only girl in her family, she was a pampered child. “My only deprivation was the opportunity to study Buddhist scriptures.”

But it was a deprivation that gnawed at her greatly. Ganesh Kumari, who had been introduced to Theravada Buddhism by her mother Hirathaku, yearned for knowledge and wanted to learn everything there was to know about the religion. But in Rana-era Nepal, when women pursuing education were viewed as immoral and un-virtuous, this was impossible, Dhammawati shared. So, she left the country entirely.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Dhammawuddha stayed in Lalitpur for three months and at the end of his residency, told Ganesh that she could further her studies in Buddhism in nunneries in Myanmar. He also offered to arrange her admission.

This was all she needed to hear. Her determination to study Buddhism now became a determination to travel to Burma. She convinced her friends Shuva Laxmi and Manohara Devi. Her mother, though happy at her child’s tenacity, was scared at the prospect of sending her young daughter to a land far away. 

Hirathaku also did not want her only daughter to renounce household life and shave off her beautiful hair. Ganesh Kumari also dreaded losing her hair, which she felt was her most beautiful feature. Nevertheless, her faith was more important that her hair. This won Hirathaku, and Shuva and Manohara’s mother Laxmi Maya, over.

But Ganesh could not persuade her father. He did not want his favourit child to leave home, at least not at such a tender age. Her elder brother Dhana Kaji also tried to dissuade her. But their opposition only strengthened her resolve and with the help of Hirathaku and accompanied by Laxmi Maya, she, Shuva and Manohara ran away from home. They aimed to reach Kushinagar, India, where Dhammawuddha lived.

The story of her escape is one fit for the movies. Her father left no stone unturned to catch her and bring her back. Her brother, Mana Kaji, who was supposed to be with them till Kushinagar, was captured by the guards at the Chandragiri checkpoint.

Overcoming numerous hurdles, Ganesh, her two friends and Laxmi Maya reached Dhammawuddha’s monastery at Kushinagar. Laxmi Maya put the three girls under the care of the Burmese monk and returned to Nepal. But then, another challenge emerged.

None of the three teenagers had passports or visas to travel to Myanmar, nor could they get them without recommendations from their guardians. Dhammawuddha tried very hard to arrange the necessary travel documents for the youngsters – but to no avail.  

Meanwhile, Ganesh’s father got wind that his daughter was stranded in Kushinagar. So, he began making attempts to bring her back. This prompted her towards a realisation: “As long as I remain Ganesh Kumari, his daughter, his love will drive him to seek me back.” So, she gave up her family, household and even her identity and got ordained as Nun Dhammawati. Her friends Manohara Devi and Shuva Laxmi also got ordained as Magadhi and Madhavi respectively.

Learning of his daughter’s ordination, the father of the girl, now known as Dhammawati, no longer found it right to bring her back to home life. But his paternal heart felt too much to bear the ugly rumours about his beloved girl on cusp of adulthood and her stay abroad, prompting him to send an envoy to bring everyone back home.

Magadhi and Madhavi came back with the emissary, but Dhammawati did not. Instead, she went to Kolkata to try and get a passport from the Nepali consulate. Seeing his daughter’s companions return but not his daughter further flustered him, compelling him to send his oldest son Dhana Kaji first to Kushinagar and then to Kolkata to find and bring her.

However, through a series of happenings that can only be described as fate, Dhammawati kept managing to evade her family and eventually, was on the path to Myanmar – on foot. 

She and her teacher Dhammawuddha walked with a group of Mahouts for more than seven days from Assam to Myanmar. On their journey, they trekked through thick jungles, walked up steep  cliffs, encountered a tiger and a python and spent a night in a tribal village in Nagaland. But finally, they made it to the country of Dhammawati’s dreams – only to land in jail.

Dhammawati had no papers and at one point, Dhammawuddha was accused of being her kidnapper. But again, through the power of devotion, her teacher Dhammawuddha’s unfaltering support and help from several kind and generous people, including Myanmar’s Auditor-General of the time U San Lwin, she got enrolled at Moulmein’s Khemaram Nunnery at 15 years of age. 

Her journey from Lalitpur to Moulmein is much too intriguing and exhilarating to be summed up in one news story. It has spawned an entire book ‘Beloved Daughter: The Story of Dhammawati Guruma’ which is available in Burmese, Nepal Bhasa and English. Could it also be the subject of a movie?

Guruma, which means teacher, spent 14 years in Myanmar, earning many distinguished titles as well as the affectionate nickname Manipo, Nepali. She returned in 1963 at the age of 29 and later founded the Dharmakirti monastery at Shreegha, Kathmandu.

Nepal was not very easy though, at first. “It was an atmosphere of prejudice,” she recounted. Nuns were viewed as inferior to monks and she was even suggested to get the land her Dharmakirti monastery stands on registered in a male monk’s name. 

But the discrimination did not faze her. According to the book ‘Eminent Buddhist Women’, published in the United States of America in 2014, Dhammawati was very unusual among Nepalese nuns of her time, for she travelled abroad and also took an active role in international Buddhist circles. It calls her a pioneer in taking the ‘Bhikkhuni’ (Monastic) ordination against the objections of the Nepalese Bhikkhu Sangha. In 1988, she travelled to Hsi Lai Temple in California, USA, and received the full Bhikkhuni ordination in the Chinese Dharmagupta lineage, becoming the first Nepalese Bhikkhuni in recent history.

Guruma Dhammawati remains committed to women empowerment and has mentored many young women, nuns and laypeople alike. She and her apprentices have established monasteries all over Nepal and abroad too. She also strongly believes in language preservation and has authored over a hundred books in Nepal Bhasa. 

Dhammawati is a teacher, scholar and social reformer and despite being almost 90 and a cancer survivor, she has no plans to slow down. Her work has got her countless national and international honours over the years and now, on April 14, the first day of the Nepali New Year 2080, she is being given a special citizen felicitation in the capital.

Guruma Dhammawati’s disciples and followers call her an epitome of dedication, passion and perseverance.