Yarchen Gar

Yachen Gar or officially called Yachen Orgyen Samtenling, is a nunnery located in Palyul of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It lies above 4000m high from sea level and the remoteness of this region made the nunnery isolated from outside for long time.

Yachen Gar is associated with the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, built in 1985 by Achuk Rinpoche and it is reported to have 10000 monks and nuns, making it possibly the largest nunnery in the world. Larung Gar is even larger, but is considered a monastic encampment rather than a nunnery. Most of the inhabitants are nuns.

Achuk Rinpoche was passed away in 2011, was an incarnation of the great Terton Longsal Nyingpo (1625-1682) of Katok Monastery, who was an incarnation of Amitabha Buddha according to his local biography. He was the head of the Nyingma Sect Tibetan Buddhism in China. Born in 1927 in Eastern Tibet, Lama Achuk Rinpoche spent 43 years in retreat with his master, Tulku Arik Rinpoche. As a realized Buddhist master, Achuk Rinpoche was regarded as one of the world’s great living exponents of the Great Perfection Teaching.

 

There are thousands of tiny meditation cells made of thin boards or plastic siding dot the southern side of the hill with the statue, wide enough to allow only one person to sit. Some have glass windows overlooking the riverside enclave, and others are dark, with no windows.

The Gar, monastic encampments has mainly two sections divided by a huge river between them and the east side of the river is nunnery section and west side is the monastery section. There is also a towering golden statue of Padmasanbhava at the top of a hill near the river, also known as Guru Rinpoche, an Indian Buddhist master who introduced Tantric Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century.