As the primary rays of solar pierced by way of the clouds masking 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 exterior 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 referred to as the Kung Fu nuns, a part of an 800-year-old Buddhist sect referred to 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 apply Kung Fu, the traditional Chinese language martial artwork. It’s a part of their religious mission to attain gender equality and bodily health; their Buddhist beliefs additionally name on them to guide an environmentally pleasant life.

Mornings contained in the nunnery are full of the thuds of heavy footsteps and the clanking of swords because the nuns practice underneath Ms. Lhamo’s tutelage. Amid a comfortable rustle of their unfastened uniforms, they cartwheel, punch and kick each other.

“Kung Fu helps us to interrupt gender limitations and develop interior 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 care for others throughout crises.”

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

Barred from participating within the intense philosophic debates inspired amongst monks, girls had been 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 turn out to be the guts of a raging battle waged by hundreds 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 underneath 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 wished nuns who would carry the sect’s non secular message exterior monastery partitions.

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

As we speak, Drukpa nuns not solely apply Kung Fu but in addition lead prayers and stroll for months on pilgrimages to choose 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 elements 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 learn how to play the devices used throughout prayers.

Since then, about 800 nuns have been skilled in martial arts fundamentals, with round 90 going by way of intense classes to turn out to be trainers.

The twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa has additionally been coaching the nuns to turn out to be chant masters, a place as soon as reserved just for males. He has additionally given them the very best stage of educating, referred to as Mahamudra, a Sanskrit phrase for “nice seal,” a sophisticated system of meditation.

The nuns have turn out to be well-known each in Hindu-majority Nepal, which is about 9 p.c Buddhist, and past the nation’s borders.

However the modifications 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 appear to be troopers able to be deployed on the entrance line and able to confronting any bias.

The sect’s huge campus is residence to 350 nuns, who reside with geese, turkeys, swans, goats, 20 canine, 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 laypeople.

“When individuals come to the monastery and see us working, they begin pondering being a nun is just not 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 girls in Nepal’s capital.

“Once I have a look at them, I need to turn out to be a nun,” mentioned Ajali Shahi, a graduate pupil at Tribhuvan College in Kathmandu. “They appear so cool, and also you need to depart all the things behind.”

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

“However everybody can’t do that,” mentioned Jigme Yangchen Ghamo, a nun. “It seems engaging from exterior, however inside it’s a laborious 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 commenced meditating of their dormitories. Earlier than daybreak broke, they walked towards the primary temple, the place a nun chant grasp, Tsondus Chuskit, led prayers. Sitting cross-legged on benches, the nuns scrolled by way of the prayer textual content on their iPads, launched to reduce use of paper.

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

After the prayers, the nuns gathered exterior.

Jigmet Namdak Dolker was about 12 when she seen 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 wished to turn out to be a nun and begged her uncle to let her be part of Drukpa nunnery, however he refused.

Sooner or later, 4 years later, she left the home and joined hundreds of individuals celebrating the birthday of Jigme Pema Wangchen, the sect’s head. She ultimately made her strategy 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 sturdy from inside that I can do something.”

Bhadra Sharma contributing reporting.