Sikkim's monasteries have been in the news over the last few weeks for far from meditative reasons. An alarming rise in COVID-19 infection in the well-known Rumtek monastery left 123 out of 292 monks sick, while at the Nyingma Institute in Lingtam, 125 monks contracted the virus. In each case, a different technique of isolation was adopted. Dr Pempa T Bhutia, director general and secretary, Health, Government of Sikkim, says that at Rumtek, the monks isolated within the monastery with physicians and nurses visiting them when necessary, while in the case of Nyingma, they tried the reverse. “The 125 people who tested positive were kept in the monastery, and 81 monks who were negative were shifted to the COVID  care centre at the Yangthang Junior High School.”

At the Gonjang monastery in Gangtok, a popular tourist hotspot, which has remained closed to the public since before the start of the lockdown last year, 65 out of 88 monks tested positive. While one monk succumbed to the infection, the rest were shifted to the Saramsa Garden COVID care centre 10 kilometres away. “We were the first monastery to conduct mass RT-PCR testing for monks,” says Tenpai Nima, member of the faculty and advisor. There were no cases at the monastery last year, but they picked up this May, says Nima. An ayurvedic medicine centre within the monastery may have been its unwitting source. Its compounder who would come in to work every day was their first case, he recalls, and soon after, four monks started showing symptoms, which is when they requested the government for the tests. The monastery houses 40-odd senior monks who have their own rooms with attached bathrooms, while the younger ones stay in dormitories which have common facilities.