Dhamawatti Guruma hounored with “Mahasaddhammajotikadhaj” award

The Government of Myanmar has honoured Dhammawati Guruma with Mahasaddhammajotikadhaj award. The envoy of Myanmar to Nepal handed over the highest Therbad Buddhism award to venerable Buddhist nun amidst a ceremony at Dharmakirti Mahavihar in Kathmandu On Monday. On the occasion the ambassador said that this was recognisation of her precious contribution to Buddhism that the Government of Myanmar decided to confer her with the award. He expressed pleasure on the ceremony organised to hand over the award here in Dharmakirti Mahavihar. Former Minister and chief guest of the event Krishna Gopal Shrestha said that the award conferred to Dhammawati Guruma is also matter of prestige of Nepal. The people of Myanmar consider Guruma as the representative of the Buddha from Nepal. He also added that Guruma at the age of 14 had travel on foot to Myanmar to study Buddhism in Myanmar. On the same occasion Dharmakirti Mahavihar handed over a purse of Rs 3.06 million to the Myanmar envoy which was collected to support the recent earthquake victims in Myanmar.

The Government of Myanmar conferred the Guruma with the “Aggamahaganthwachak Pandit” award 31 years back. DhammawatiGuruma, born Ganesh Kumari Shakya in 1934, is a renowned Buddhist nun and teacher based in Kathmandu, Nepal. At the age of 14, she ran away to Myanmar to pursue her education in Buddhism where she became friends with Aung San Suu Kyi. She is the founder of the Dharmakirti Mahvihar in Kathmandu. She 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.

‘Eminent Buddhist Women’, the published in the United States of America in 2014 mentions that Dhammawati is an extraordinary among Nepalese nuns of her time, for she travelled abroad and also took an active role in international Buddhist circles. It also states her a pioneer in taking the ‘Bhikkhuni’ 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.