Prajwal Ratna Vajracharya

Tantric Buddhist priest from the Kathmandu valley and a ritual master of charya nritya and charya giti, the sacred dance and yogic song of Newar Vajrayana. Body, speech and mind are the means there: this is deity yoga, in which the practitioner physically embodies the energy of an enlightened being. Newar Buddhism is a tradition of its own, with its own priestly lineage passing from father to son and its own ritual repertoire, kin to Tibetan Buddhism as Vajrayana but not the same thing. He appears here under Tibetan Buddhism because that is the nearest place this directory has.

He began training at the age of eight, taught mainly by his father, the scholar and ritual master Ratna Kaji Vajracharya. In a break with centuries of strict family secrecy he began teaching charya nritya openly, so that a thousand-year-old practice at risk of disappearing would be handed on rather than kept. In 2009 he founded Nritya Mandala Mahavihara in Portland, Oregon, with Helen Appell: the first traditional Newar Buddhist temple outside Nepal. He also founded Dance Mandal, the Foundation for Sacred Buddhist Arts of Nepal.