BEIJING, June 21 — Thousands of Tibetan monks and nuns have been forced to leave a thriving religious study center in the remote mountains of Sichuan Province, along the eastern edge of ethnic Tibetan territory, according to international rights monitors and local officials.
The religious academy of Larung Gar, near Serthar in western Sichuan, became famous as a center of Tibetan learning and attracted 8,000 monks and nuns, who lived in crude log cabins and often stayed for months or longer before returning to monasteries in other regions.
Students were attracted by a charismatic teacher, Khenpo Jigme Phutsok, a "living Buddha" who founded the settlement in 1980 with a few students, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, based in Washington.
The mountain academy, which does not include a monastery, is 500 miles by dirt road from the nearest city. It grew spontaneously as word spread of the traditional teachings and ethics of the leader, who is 68 and also known as Khenpo Jikphun.
Although China has allowed the controlled revival of monasteries that were destroyed in the early decades of Communist rule, the Serthar center had no official history or authorization.
Former students said Khenpo Jigme Phutsok had managed to avoid provoking the authorities because he concentrated on religious texts and did not endorse open political activities in support of the exiled Dalai Lama, who is reviled by Beijing leaders as an advocate of Tibetan independence.
But Chinese authorities are skittish about any organization or movement outside party control. In recent years, they have repeatedly tried, without success up to now, to scale back the Serthar settlement and limit study there to nearby residents.
This time, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, officials from Beijing as well as the provincial capital, Chengdu, have gone to the site to expel most of the students. The officials have burned down abandoned cabins to limit visitors and declared that the total number of residents should be held to 1,400, according to accounts received by the international campaign.
An official of the Sichuan Religious Affairs Bureau confirmed to Reuters today that students were being required to leave the academy, saying it was "because of concerns about social stability and at the order of central authorities."
Before the expulsions, the academy was one of the largest communities of Tibetan study anywhere. Unusually, it attracted more nuns than monks. Up to 1,000 students were ethnic Chinese attracted by Tibetan Buddhism and were allowed to study in Mandarin Chinese rather than the Tibetan language.