Respect and Gratitude 💐🙏🙏🙏💐 Passing of Great Bhikkhunī Benefactor: Cambodian Sangharāja Somdech Preah Tep Vong (d. Feb 26th 2024)
Dhammadharini Sangha
Our Dhammadharini Bhikkhunī Sangha would like to express our condolences with deep gratitude and respect to the Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia, Somdech Preah Agga Mahā Sangharājadhipati, on the occasion of his passing.
Dear Venerables and Dhamma friends, we received the news today that Somdech Preah Sangharāja Tep Vong, a great benefactor to our Bhikkhunī Sangha and to the global Buddhist Sangha, passed away after a six-week-long illness, on February 26th, 2024 at 5:40pm at the Ounaloum Pagoda in Cambodia, at the age of 93 years old.
Somdech Tep Vong was among the first Buddhist monks to re-ordain after a period of grave civil unrest in Cambodia, and his service to the Sangha and society has been enormously important in the reconstitution of the Khmer Theravāda Sangha in Cambodia which followed.
What might be less known, of which we are greatly mindful with deep gratitude, is Somdech Preah Sangharāja's important and pivotal role in the revival of the Theravāda Bhikkhunī Sangha, giving his formal support and in-person participation to the 1998 Bhikkhunī Ordination in Bodhgaya, through which the Theravāda Bhikkhunī Sangha of India was revived in its homeland, and through which the nascent revival of the Theravāda Bhikkhunī Sangha in Sri Lanka was greatly strengthened and furthered. It was soon after, also in 1998, that Theravāda Dual Ordinations in the Pāli-text tradition were revived in Sri Lanka.
When Ven Mettajivi Bhikkhuni and Ven Dhammānusārī Bhikkhunī, the first Khmer bhikkhunīs to ordain in Sri Lanka, came to visit and pay their respects to late most venerable Somdech Preah Sangharājadhipati Tep Vong in Cambodia, despite his advanced age and ailing health he graciously and most warmly and supportively welcomed and blessed them.
The support and benevolence of late Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong, together with the support and great benevolence of late Cambodian International Patriarch Somdech Preah Mahā Ghosananda (d. 2007, also at age 93), has been enormously important to us.
We would like to pay our final respects to greatly benevolent benefactor Somdech Preah Sangharāja Tep Vong with our deepest gratitude and blessings.
May Somedech Preah Agga Mahā Sangharājadhipati Tep Vong enjoy the greatest peace and happiness of Nibbāna!
And may our remembrance of impermanence greatly contribute to our growth in insight, wisdom and compassion in the noble Way of the Buddha.
Nibbāna paccayo hotu!
With highest respects and regards,
Ven. Tathālokā Therī
Dhammadharini founding abbess and preceptor
on behalf of our Dhammadharini Bhikkhunī Sangha
26 Feb 2024 / 2 days after Magha Puja Purnima 2567 BE
P.S. It has been announced that a national day of mourning will be held in Cambodia on February 27th 2024, and Somdech Preah Sangharaja Tep Vong's body will be interred at Wat Ounaloum royal monastery in Phnom Penh for three months, allowing people time for veneration, leading up to and in preparation for traditional Cambodian Buddhist funerary rites. We invite you to join us in remembrance and blessing Somdech during this time. Offering and dedicating our practice--Patipatti Puja--is said to be the highest offering to our benefactors and Kalyanamitta.
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Please see below for links to news articles:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/tep-vong-leader-cambodias-buddhist-community-dies-93-107549884
