Patrick Zeis At nearly 4,000 meters above sea level, small red residences cover the hills surrounding Larung Gar. The community lies in Sêrtar County, within the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of China’s Sichuan Province, in the traditional Tibetan region of Kham. For decades, monks, nuns, and lay practitioners traveled there to study with teachers whose influence extended across the Tibetan Plateau and into Chinese-speaking Buddhist communities.
Larung Gar developed around the Sêrtar Larung Five Sciences Buddhist Academy. It brought philosophical education, meditation, monastic discipline, and residential life together in a setting that became one of the world’s major centers of Tibetan Buddhist learning. It also offered women unusual access to advanced study and opportunities to become scholars and teachers.
Repeated campaigns of demolition, expulsion, and administrative restructuring have profoundly changed that community. Chinese authorities have defended interventions through concerns including overcrowding, safety, and lawful management. Human-rights organizations have documented measures extending well beyond housing: population ceilings, restrictions on displaced practitioners, surveillance, and increased political control over education. Larung Gar’s story reveals how decisions about where people live and who governs an institution can shape the future of religious practice.
What Larung Gar Is and Why It Became So Important
Larung Gar’s red dwellings made it internationally recognizable, but its importance arose from the learning taking place inside teaching halls and modest homes. Students came to study texts, receive oral instruction, debate difficult questions, and pursue contemplative practice within a sustained community.
Rebuilding Buddhist Learning:
Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, an influential Nyingma teacher, founded Larung Gar in 1980. Tibetan Buddhist institutions were then recovering from decades of political upheaval, particularly the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976. Monasteries had been closed or destroyed, religious specialists persecuted, and systems of education interrupted.
Larung Gar began with a small gathering around his retreat. As students arrived, they built residences on the surrounding slopes, and a more extensive educational settlement developed. Although rooted in the Nyingma school, its teachers welcomed students and teachings associated with other Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
The academy’s name refers to the five traditional fields of learning: language and grammar, logic, medicine, arts and crafts, and Buddhist knowledge. Its educational life combined the study of inherited texts with explanations from living teachers and opportunities to put those teachings into practice.
Population estimates have varied because sources counted residents and visitors differently, and many people lacked formal registration. Before the major reductions of 2016–2017, estimates commonly placed the community at 10,000 or more. Exact totals are less certain than the scale of the institution and the breadth of its influence.
Advanced Education for Nuns:
Women formed a large part of Larung Gar’s monastic community. They gained access to demanding programs in philosophy, logic, scripture, and contemplative practice, along with the intellectual companionship needed to sustain years of study.
These opportunities mattered because Tibetan nuns had historically faced far fewer routes to advanced education than monks. Larung Gar helped develop the khenmo qualification, a title recognizing women’s scholarly training and teaching authority. Research published in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics documents the program’s pioneering institutional role.
The achievement extended beyond individual graduates. Qualified women could teach other nuns and help establish educational programs elsewhere. Larung Gar was therefore helping create a wider network of female Buddhist scholarship, making disruptions to its community consequential far beyond the valley.
Learning Across Ethnic Boundaries:
Larung Gar also attracted Han Chinese practitioners, connecting Tibetan teachers with students from other parts of China. Translation, teaching visits, publications, and later digital media carried its influence beyond those who could reside there.
Monastic and lay students lived within distinct arrangements, but their participation made the academy a meeting place between Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist worlds. This is an important part of its history. Larung Gar sustained Tibetan religious learning while allowing people of different backgrounds to build relationships through a shared interest in the teachings.
Religious Revival Within a System of State Control
Larung Gar emerged during the partial restoration of religious life that followed Mao Zedong’s death. Monasteries reopened, communities rebuilt damaged institutions, and teachers resumed public instruction. The revival allowed substantial Buddhist learning to return, although religious organizations remained subject to state registration and supervision.
This framework sits within the broader Tibet–China conflict, but Larung Gar’s immediate history concerns how religious communities operate under Chinese authority. It is outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, in a Tibetan area administered within Sichuan. Its location does not remove it from policies governing Tibetan Buddhist institutions, whose educational and communal influence makes them politically sensitive.
Under Xi Jinping, the government has increasingly emphasized the “Sinicization” of religion. Officials describe this as adapting religious traditions to Chinese society, culture, law, and national unity. Critics argue that its practical demands subordinate religious leadership and expression to Communist Party priorities.
At Larung Gar, the clearest evidence of political intervention lies in specific administrative measures. Enrollment, residency, finances, security, and educational management have all become subjects of closer official control. These are decisions through which a community determines who can study, how teaching is organized, and whether students can remain long enough to complete their training.
The Campaigns to Reduce and Reshape Larung Gar
The restructuring that began in 2016 followed an earlier intervention in 2001. Each campaign affected both the settlement’s physical form and the community’s ability to decide how it would develop.
The 2001 Demolitions and the Founder’s Return:
In 2001, authorities demolished residences and expelled large numbers of students. Contemporary accounts differ on the totals, but they describe a substantial reduction of the community. Jigme Phuntsok was removed from Larung Gar, and reports raised concerns about his confinement and medical treatment away from the academy.
His absence did not become a permanent departure. A contemporaneous report published by the International Campaign for Tibet states that he returned in November 2002 and religious teaching resumed under heavy surveillance. Further confrontations over rebuilding followed.
Jigme Phuntsok died in 2004. Senior teachers continued the academy’s work, students returned, and residences were rebuilt. The recovery reflected the strength of the educational relationships he had helped establish, even as restrictions remained part of the conditions under which the institution operated.
The 2016–2017 Population Reduction:
In June 2016, county authorities issued an order requiring Larung Gar’s population to be reduced to 5,000 by September 2017. Human Rights Watch published a provisional translation of the directive, which also prescribed registration, surveillance, demolition, and changes in management.
Demolitions began in July 2016. In March 2017, Human Rights Watch reported that a senior abbot had described approximately 4,500 departures and a further order to demolish 3,225 homes. These figures refer to reports at particular stages of the campaign, rather than a single definitive final count.
The directive also sought to separate the religious community from the educational institute and place the latter under a management model resembling a government-run school. The campaign therefore involved more than reducing the number of dwellings: it changed the organization through which religious education took place.
Safety Concerns and the Scope of Intervention:
Larung Gar’s growth created real practical difficulties. Densely packed wooden residences, narrow pathways, and limited services posed challenges for fire prevention, sanitation, and emergency access. Improving those conditions was a legitimate public responsibility.
That does not resolve the questions surrounding the measures imposed. A safety argument needs to explain why particular buildings must be removed, what alternatives were considered, and how displaced residents can continue their lives. It also needs to be distinguished from requirements involving political instruction and religious administration.
The government’s published directive combined physical redevelopment with surveillance and ideological guidance. Housing hazards alone do not explain those provisions. The broader issue is whether necessary improvements could have been pursued with meaningful community participation and less disruption to religious study.
Restrictions After Expulsion:
Leaving Larung Gar did not always mean being free to enroll elsewhere. Human Rights Watch described two expelled nuns who were required to return to their birthplace, report to police, and refrain from joining other religious institutions. Its reporting also examined recordings apparently showing displaced nuns from Larung Gar or nearby Yachen Gar participating in political instruction and performances inconsistent with monastic discipline.
These accounts should not be generalized to every expelled practitioner. They nevertheless show why relocation cannot automatically be treated as an administrative transfer. Some people lost the ability to continue the form of religious life they had chosen.
Control Over Education and Administration:
The institutional changes continued after the major demolition campaign. In January 2018, Human Rights Watch reported on an official administrative document assigning extensive responsibilities to Communist Party cadres and lay officials, including finances, security, admissions, and textbook selection.
A student might still attend a lecture while the decision about whether that student could enroll rested elsewhere. A teacher might continue explaining Buddhist philosophy while officials exercised authority over educational administration. These arrangements help explain why an academy’s continued operation does not settle questions about its religious freedom.
Renewed Restrictions and Reports of Further Demolition
Recent reporting from Larung Gar depends heavily on confidential sources. Access restrictions limit the work of independent journalists and researchers, while residents may face serious risks for communicating sensitive information. The following accounts should be read as dated, attributed reports, with a distinction between measures reportedly proposed and events reportedly completed.
Security and Expulsions in 2024–2025:
In December 2024, the Central Tibetan Administration reported an increased security presence, including approximately 400 personnel, and proposals for tighter registration and a fifteen-year limit on residence. The exile administration’s account was based on reports from the region, rather than a publicly available government directive confirming those measures.
In February 2025, Radio Free Asia reported that more than 1,000 monks and nuns had been forced out over the preceding month. Its sources said officials cited inadequate residency documentation and sought to reduce the population from approximately 6,000 to 5,000. They also described restrictions on movement and photography.
These reports suggest renewed enforcement of population controls, but the precise figures and full implementation of proposed residency rules remain difficult to establish independently. They should not be presented as though every detail has been confirmed through separate sources.
The July 2026 Demolition Report:
On July 17, 2026, the International Campaign for Tibet reported another demolition campaign. A confidential source said work had begun around July 13, with six residences demolished by July 15 and at least 1,060 designated for removal.
The distinction between those numbers matters: the larger figure described homes reportedly targeted, not homes confirmed destroyed. The report did not include a government order explaining the campaign, and the full scope had not been independently established at the time of publication.
These limitations do not erase the earlier documented interventions. They define what can responsibly be said about this particular development. Satellite imagery can help establish changes to the built environment when suitable comparisons are available; it cannot by itself reveal what happens to displaced students or which restrictions they face afterward.
The Human and Spiritual Consequences of Displacement
A residence at Larung Gar provided access to a way of life organized around study and practice. Its loss could interrupt years of training, separate a practitioner from a trusted teacher, and leave no comparable educational setting within reach.
Losing a Community of Practice:
Philosophical learning develops through repeated encounters with texts, explanations, questions, and disagreement. Students clarify ideas with classmates and return to teachers when understanding remains incomplete. Chanting, study, meditation, communal responsibilities, and ritual observance provide a daily structure that supports this work.
A displaced practitioner may keep books and maintain a personal practice. What becomes harder to preserve is regular access to instruction and the relationships that make demanding study sustainable. Returning home may mean entering a smaller institution with a different curriculum, or finding no suitable institution at all.
The consequences vary, and not every departure ends a religious vocation. But counting those removed cannot capture whether they completed their education, found another teacher, or continued living as monastics.
The Particular Cost to Women’s Education:
For nuns, displacement can be especially consequential because advanced programs have historically been less widely available. Larung Gar offered an environment in which women could remain in sustained study among peers and develop the qualifications to teach others.
Losing that environment can narrow the future of an individual student. It can also affect the women who would later have studied with her. The wider educational significance of Larung Gar’s khenmo program makes this a concern about future teaching capacity as well as present displacement.
Teaching Under Political Supervision:
Official authority over admissions, textbooks, and management creates channels through which religious education can be constrained. Direct bans are only one possibility. Uncertainty about permitted discussion may also encourage teachers and students to avoid subjects they fear could attract scrutiny.
This is an implication of the regulatory environment, rather than evidence that every teacher at Larung Gar makes the same choices. The pressure matters because religious study involves interpretation and inquiry. Students need enough freedom to ask about their lineage, their teachers, and the history of their institutions without turning each question into a calculation of political risk.
Larung Gar’s Influence Beyond the Valley
Larung Gar’s significance extends through the people it has trained. Graduates have carried learning into other monasteries, nunneries, and lay communities, while prominent teachers have reached Chinese-speaking audiences through translated teachings, lectures, and publications.
Its teachers have also addressed contemporary conduct, including animal welfare, vegetarianism, and the use of animal fur. These initiatives illustrate a community interpreting inherited Buddhist ethics in relation to the choices people make in daily life. Larung Gar has functioned as a place of religious renewal as well as preservation.
The academy’s reach helps explain the importance of restrictions on who can attend. Limits on Chinese students affect relationships between Tibetan teachers and practitioners elsewhere in China; limits on students from other Tibetan regions affect the movement of scholarship across the plateau. Such influence may contribute to official concern, but it does not by itself establish the motives behind every intervention.
Tibetan Buddhism has survived profound disruption through rebuilding, migration, and the work of teachers and students in many countries. That achievement does not make institutions in Tibet replaceable. A teaching available abroad may remain inaccessible to someone whose language, finances, family circumstances, or travel restrictions prevent them from leaving.
The Future of Larung Gar Depends on Its Community
Larung Gar continues to support Buddhist study and practice. Its history should therefore be told with attention to the people who remain, as well as those forced to leave. Years of institutional pressure have not eliminated the commitment that brought students to this remote valley.
The academy’s future will depend on whether that commitment has room to develop: whether nuns can complete advanced training, whether students from different regions can learn together, and whether teachers can guide an educational community with meaningful authority over its work.
The red residences became a symbol because of the lives gathered within them. What ultimately matters is whether the next generation can spend the years there that serious learning requires—and then carry what it has learned into the lives of others.
