Kathmandu, July 17 (Inditop.com) As Nepal’s new government Friday began the process of releasing child soldiers held in Maoist camps as a step towards bolstering the peace process, a Buddhist priest said he would add to the efforts by exorcising the ‘ghosts of war’.
Born Phurba Tasi Gurung in one of the biggest and most inaccessible districts of Nepal, the mountainous Dolpa in the north, the 36-year-old lama is now revered as the fifth reincarnation of a Tibetan high priest and is known as Guru Ranag Tulku Rinchen Rinpoche.
The boy priest left home at the age of six after he was recognised as the reincarnation of the lama and spent several years studying Tibetan Buddhism and its intricacies in Kathmandu and India’s Dehradun city.
The founder of a school for orphans in Kathmandu, Gurung has been residing in Taiwan for the last 10 years, where he runs a Buddhist centre, the Thupten Tsering Centre.
For two days from Saturday, the priest will hold an elaborate exorcism ritual, the ‘Vajrasattva puja’, to lay the ghosts of the armed insurrection to peace.
“Thousands of people died (during the Maoists’ People’s War) in Nepal,” the priest told IANS. “Their souls have not been released yet.”
“They have been haunting Nepal with their sorrow, anger and pain. As long as the ghosts remain, there won’t be peace in Nepal,” he added.
The traditional ritual, he said, would be held to release the haunted souls – ghosts.
The expenditure for the exorcism ritual as well as his airfare from Taiwan is being borne by his followers.
The priest said he would also hold faith-healing sessions for the sick and as a climax, perform the ‘Padmasambhav puja’ which is believed to bring riches to the person for whom it is undertaken.
The priest says he was conferred the title ‘zokchen’, meaning the great perfection, in Dehradun and has a letter of appreciation from Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom he met in India’s Dharamshala town in 2002.
