Jonang

The Jonang (Tibetan: ཇོ་ནང་, Wylie: Jo-nang, ZYPY: Qonang; Chinese: 觉囊) is one of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Its origins in Tibet can be traced to early 12th century master Yumo Mikyo Dorje, but became much wider known with the help of Dolpopa Sherab Gyeltsen, a monk originally trained in the Sakya school. The Jonang school was widely thought to have become extinct in the late 17th century at the hands of the Fifth Dalai Lama who forcibly annexed the Jonang monasteries to his Gelug school, declaring them heretical. Recently, however, it was discovered that some remote Jonang monasteries escaped this fate and have continued practicing uninterrupted to this day. According to Gruschke, an estimated 5,000 monks and nuns of the Jonang tradition practice today in areas at the edge of historic Gelug influence.