296 CHAPTER ELEVENopportunity than monks to gain an academic education; they also tended to
be less sought after than monks for their ritual powers. This was for two rea-
sons: (1) Aside from rituals associated with Tara, men in general were consid-
ered more capable masters of ritual power than women; and (2) nuns tended
to have smaller incomes than monks, because they had fewer supporters seek-
ing their services, which meant that they could not afford the fees charged for
the more powerful initiations. This was a vicious circle, because those without
the powerful initiations would then tend to attract less support. Thus, as is the
case with nuns in Thailand, Tibetan nuns had more time than the monks to
devote to private meditation and the extraordinary uses of their ritual powers.
This pattern still holds in the Tibetan nunneries set up in India, although the
steady influx of refugee nuns from Tibet has imposed added burdens on insti-
tutions already at a severe financial disadvantage.
11.6 A Tradition at the Crossroads
The Chinese suppression of Tibetan Buddhism in the 1950s and 1960s was
unusually cruel, insulting, and thorough. Nuns were raped, monks were tor-
tured and killed, and almost all of the monasteries and nunneries were razed
to the ground. Prayer books were used as shoe linings, mattress stuffing, and
toilet paper; printing blocks for religious books were used to pave roads. As
we noted in Chapter 8, after the death of Chairman Mao the Chinese began
pursuing a policy of guarded religious tolerance throughout their country, and
to some extent they applied this policy to their colony of Tibet as well. As a
result, authorities gave permission for a few monasteries to resume function-
ing and for a handful of religious monuments to be rebuilt. However, in Tibet
this policy of tolerance has been severely restricted because Tibetan monaster-
ies have proven to be hotbeds of anti-Chinese nationalist sentiment. A con-
stant stream of monks and nuns continue to risk the dangers of the Himalayan
passes in order to make their way to safety in Bhutan and India rather than let
themselves be subjected to the continued brutality of the Chinese garrison.
At the moment, the best hope for the survival of Tibetan Buddhism lies in
the monasteries and nunneries being built in India, and among the groups of
meditation students and financial supporters cultivated by refugee lamas
throughout the West. Western children have begun to be recognized as tillkus,
much as happened in Mongolia in the seventeenth century. It remains to be
seen whether this will eventually lead to a priest/patron relationship that will
return the Tibetans to power in their country-using the media and academia
to shape world public opinion so that one of the major world powers will act
as the patron-or to the development of a new home base for Tibetan Bud-
dhism in the outside world.