Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Buddhist institutions and contexts Buddhist institutions and lineages Chalnakhel, Dakshinkali, Nepal · 2024

Nepal: self-styled tulku convicted of raping a woman held at his monastery for over nine years

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

self-styled tulku and spiritual guru operating a monastery

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

The complainant was kept at the monastery under the defendant's claimed authority as a reincarnate lama for over nine years — an extreme and sustained instance of religious authority producing captivity.

  • Guru or spiritual-teacher authority
  • Threatened spiritual consequence
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2024-01-01 · conviction and sentence

    Patan High Court, Nepal. A self-styled Buddhist spiritual guru known as Tulku Lama (Rinpoche Chhulthim Dorje Yontan Yongaj) was convicted of rape by the Patan High Court and sentenced to seven years. The court heard the victim had been held at a monastery he operated for more than nine years and raped repeatedly.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • claimed status as a reincarnate lama
  • sustained confinement at the monastery he ran

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict report 'Spiritual guru Tulku Lama convicted of rape', The Himalayan Times.

Nepal's English-language paper of record reporting the Patan High Court conviction and the years of confinement at the monastery.

Related record

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