Meet 'Kung-Fu Nuns Of Drukpa', An Ancient Buddhist Order Known Martial Arts And More

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Tuesday honoured the Kung Fu Nuns with the International Women's Day Award at a ceremony here for their extraordinary achievements in the field of women empowerment, disaster relief, environmental conservation and breaking societal barriers.

The Kung Fu Nuns of the Drukpa lineage is led by the Gyalwang Drukpa. These nuns come from Nepal, and Ladakh in India.

Kung Fu Nuns

As their name suggests, these nuns go through years of martial arts practice as part of their initiation into the sect.

This is apart from the religious training they get in the monastery.

Kung Fu Nuns

"We start our day at 3 am and end at 10 pm. We have kung-fu training for around three hours every day. Some days the kung-fu training can go up to 8-10 hours. It is not necessary to train in Kung fu to become a nun in the Drukpa lineage, but it helps us focus and be physically strong," Jigme Lotus Zangmo, a nun told Indiatimes.

The rest of the day is spent studying religious texts, hymns, and sermons.

Kung-Fu Nuns

"I joined the monastery at the age of 10 and in the initial days, it was very difficult. I struggled with the kung-fu training and I could not even ride a bicycle. But with the support of the other nuns, I was able to overcome all these," Jigme Yangchen Lhamo, another nun said.

Kung Fu Nuns

The nuns also do their own farming and other related activities.

According to her, there are around 800 nuns in Drukpa lineage, from across the Himalayas including Nepal, Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh.

Kung Fu Nuns

The nuns are strict vegetarians and since their daily activities involve a lot of hard labour, they get the energy required from this from plant-based protein.

"We have our own Himalayan dishes which we take turns to cook in the monastery. We do not eat from outsides and we are vegetarians. We take a lot of plant-based protein like pulse and raw vegetables. It is tasty and healthy. In Buddhism, we firmly believe that it is not right to kill an animal," Yangchen Lhamo said.

The Kung Fu Nuns also teach martial arts to promote self-defence to young girls in their communities.

Kung Fu Nuns

"We feel that it is important for women and girls to have some self-defence training. We need to be our own heroes. We believe that every girl has their own power and they can defend themselves. We have been training girls martial arts since 2013 and so far we have trained hundreds," she said.

Other than this, the nuns are also involved in a number of humanitarian and environmental awareness initiatives.

"Every year we undertake an Eco Padyatra across the Himalayan region on foot to pick up plastic litter and educate locals on environmentally-friendly ways of living. We are also Bicycle Yatras across all of India and Nepal to promote world peace and green transportation. We also go to the remote areas of the Himalayas to promote cleanliness, gender equality and the harms of plastic," Jigme Lotus said.

Kung-Fu Nuns

The nuns have also planted thousands of trees across the Himalayas over the years.

In 2015, following the devastative earthquake in Nepal the Kung Fu nuns had refused to evacuated and stayed back to help others in need

Their services have received recognition from across the world.

Kung Fu Nuns

The Kung Fu Nuns were Vaclav Havel Humanitarian Prize finalists in 2021, Asia Society's Game Changers recipients in 2019 and Atlantic Council's Unsung Heroes in 2020.

In 2021, UNESCO International Centre for Martial Arts conferred their Martial Arts' Education Prize to the Kung Fu Nuns.

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