Buddhist Monk Sells Photographs to Build Monastery

Source: lite.epaper.timesofindia.com
NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 18, 2010: Buddhist Lama and photographer: not the most common combination. American-born Nicholas Vreeland has been a monk for 25 years at Karnatakas Rato Dratsang monastery. He is showing 20 of his India photographs at India International Center Annex as part of the Photos for Rato exhibition from January 13 to 18, to help raise funds for the monastery.

When Vreeland joined the reconstructed monastery at Mundgod, it had a small temple and was home to 12 monks. Now there are 120. They need $500,000 for new buildings and money raised from selling Vreeland’s photo prints will go into the building fund. For the exhibition he has chosen 20 photos from the hundreds he’s taken after becoming a monk.