As the primary rays of solar pierced by means of the clouds protecting snowcapped Himalayan peaks, Jigme Rabsal Lhamo, a Buddhist nun, drew a sword from behind her again and thrust it towards her opponent, toppling her to the bottom.

“Eyes on the goal! Focus!” Ms. Lhamo yelled on the knocked-down nun, wanting straight into her eyes outdoors a whitewashed temple within the Druk Amitabha nunnery on a hill overlooking Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

Ms. Lhamo and the opposite members of her non secular order are often called the Kung Fu nuns, a part of an 800-year-old Buddhist sect known as Drukpa, the Tibetan phrase for dragon. Throughout the Himalayan area, and the broader world, its followers now combine meditation with martial arts.

Every single day, the nuns swap their maroon robes for an umber brown uniform to follow Kung Fu, the traditional Chinese language martial artwork. It’s a part of their religious mission to realize gender equality and bodily health; their Buddhist beliefs additionally name on them to guide an environmentally pleasant life.

Mornings contained in the nunnery are stuffed with the thuds of heavy footsteps and the clanking of swords because the nuns practice below Ms. Lhamo’s tutelage. Amid a tender rustle of their unfastened uniforms, they cartwheel, punch and kick one another.

“Kung Fu helps us to interrupt gender limitations and develop inside confidence,” mentioned Ms. Lhamo, 34, who arrived on the nunnery a dozen years in the past from Ladakh, in northern India. “It additionally helps to handle others throughout crises.”

For so long as students of Buddhism keep in mind, ladies within the Himalayas who sought to follow as religious equals with male monks had been stigmatized, each by non secular leaders and broader social customs.

Barred from partaking within the intense philosophic debates inspired amongst monks, their function was confined to chores like cooking and cleansing inside monasteries and temples. They had been forbidden from actions involving bodily exertion or from main prayers and even from singing.

In latest a long time, these restrictions have develop into the guts of a raging battle waged by 1000’s of nuns throughout many sects of Himalayan Buddhism.

Main the cost for change are the Kung Fu nuns, whose Drukpa sect started a reformist motion 30 years in the past below the management of Jigme Pema Wangchen, who’s also referred to as the twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa. He was keen to disrupt centuries of custom and needed nuns who would carry the sect’s non secular message outdoors monastery partitions.

“We’re altering guidelines of the sport,” mentioned Konchok Lhamo, 29, a Kung Fu nun. “It’s not sufficient to meditate on a cushion inside a monastery.”

Right now, Drukpa nuns not solely follow Kung Fu but in addition lead prayers and stroll for months on pilgrimages to select up plastic litter and make individuals conscious of local weather change.

Yearly for the previous 20, aside from a hiatus in the course of the pandemic, the nuns have cycled about 1,250 miles from Kathmandu to Ladakh, excessive within the Himalayas, to advertise inexperienced transportation.

Alongside the way in which, they cease to teach individuals in rural components of each Nepal and India about gender equality and the significance of women.

The sect’s nuns had been first launched to martial arts in 2008 by followers from Vietnam, who had come to the nunnery to study scriptures and the right way to play the devices used throughout prayers.

Since then, about 800 nuns have been skilled in martial arts fundamentals, with round 90 going by means of intense classes to develop into trainers.

The twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa has additionally been coaching the nuns to develop into chant masters, a place as soon as reserved just for males. He has additionally given them the best stage of instructing, known as Mahamudra, a Sanskrit phrase for “nice seal,” a complicated system of meditation.

The nuns have develop into well-known each in Hindu-majority Nepal, which is about 9 % Buddhist, and past the nation’s borders.

However the adjustments for the sect haven’t come with out intense backlash, and conservative Buddhists have threatened to burn Drukpa temples.

Throughout their journeys down the steep slopes from the nunnery to the native market, the nuns have been verbally abused by monks from different sects. However that doesn’t deter them, they are saying. Once they journey, heads shaved, on journeys of their open vans, they will seem like troopers able to be deployed on the frontline and able to confronting any bias.

The sect’s huge campus is house to 350 nuns, who dwell with geese, turkeys, swans, goats, 20 canines, a horse, and a cow, all rescued both from the knife of butchers or from the streets. The ladies work as painters, artists, plumbers, gardeners, electricians and masons, and likewise handle a library and medical clinic for lay individuals.

“When individuals come to the monastery and see us working, they begin pondering being a nun just isn’t being ‘ineffective,’” mentioned Zekit Lhamo, 28, referring to an insult typically hurled on the nuns. “We’re not solely taking good care of our faith however the society, too.”

Their work has impressed different ladies in Nepal’s capital.

“Once I have a look at them, I wish to develop into a nun,” mentioned Ajali Shahi, a graduate scholar at Tribhuvan College in Kathmandu. “They give the impression of being so cool, and also you wish to go away every little thing behind.”

Every single day, the nunnery receives a minimum of a dozen inquiries about becoming a member of the order from locations so far as Mexico, Eire, Germany and the USA.

“However everybody can’t do that,” mentioned Jigme Yangchen Ghamo, a nun. “It appears engaging from outdoors, however inside it’s a arduous life.”

“Our lives,” she added, “are certain by so many guidelines that even having a pocket in your robes comes with restrictions.”

On a latest day, the nuns awakened at 3 a.m. and started meditating of their dormitories. Earlier than daybreak broke, they walked towards the principle temple, the place a nun chant grasp, Tsondus Chuskit, led prayers. Sitting cross-legged on benches, the nuns scrolled by means of the prayer textual content on their iPads, launched to attenuate use of paper.

Then in unison they started to chant, and the bright-colored temple stuffed with the sound of drums, horns and ring bells.

After the prayers, the nuns gathered outdoors.

Jigmet Namdak Dolker was about 12 when she observed a stream of Drukpa nuns strolling previous her uncle’s home in Ladakh in India. An adopted little one, she ran out and began strolling with them.

She needed to develop into a nun and begged her uncle to let her be a part of Drukpa nunnery, however he refused.

Sooner or later, 4 years later, she left the home and joined 1000’s of individuals celebrating the birthday of Jigme Pema Wangchen, the sect’s head. She ultimately made her approach to the nunnery and by no means returned.

And the way does she really feel after seven years, six of which she has spent working towards Kung Fu?

“Proud. Freedom to do no matter I like,” she mentioned, “And so robust from inside that I can do something.”

Bhadra Sharma contributing reporting.