Carola Roloff
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Carola Roloff (born 1959 in
Holzminden Holzminden (; ) is a town in southern Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Holzminden (district), Holzminden. It is located on the river Weser, which at this point forms the border with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...
, Germany) is a Tibetologist, scholar of Buddhism, and
Buddhist nun Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century BCE. It is the world's fourth ...
. Since 2025, she is a Senior Research Fellow in Pluralistic Dialogical Religious Education at the University of Hamburg. Under her monastic name Bhiksuni Jampa Tsedroen, she continues to campaign for gender equity and equal rights for Buddhist nuns.


Early and religious life

Born in
Holzminden Holzminden (; ) is a town in southern Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Holzminden (district), Holzminden. It is located on the river Weser, which at this point forms the border with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...
, Germany to a Protestant family, Roloff was active in her local Christian youth group. Doubting the source of suffering, Roloff recalls that she "couldn't get any satisfactory answers from Christian ministers." As a result, she turned to Buddhist philosophy and began her Buddhist studies and life in 1980, aged 21. She travelled to Dharamshala, India in order to study
Vajrayana ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...
Buddhism and the
Tibetan language Tibetan language may refer to: * Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dialect * Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard * Any of the other Tibetic languages See also * Ol ...
, before becoming a novice at the age of 22—one of the first Tibetan Buddhist nuns in Germany. Her ordination as a novice was performed by Geshe Thubten Ngawang on 22 September 1981 at the Tibetan Centre Hamburg. Geshe Thubten was also her spiritual teacher until his death in 2003. On 6 December 1985, Roloff received her full ordination into the
Dharmaguptaka The Dharmaguptaka (Sanskrit: धर्मगुप्तक; ; ) are one of the eighteen or twenty early Buddhist schools from the ancient region of Gandhara, now Pakistan. They are said to have originated from another sect, the Mahīśāsakas f ...
lineage at the Miao-tung monastery in
Kaohsiung Kaohsiung, officially Kaohsiung City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsiung City has a population of approximately 2.73 million p ...
, Taiwan. She kept her novice name Jampa Tsedroen. In Tibetan, ''Jampa'' means "maitrī" "loving kindness" (Pali: mettā) and "Tsedroen" means "lamp of life". While being ordained in the Dharmagupta tradition, Roloff is practising in the Tibetan
Mulasarvastivada The Mūlasarvāstivāda (; ) was one of the early Buddhist schools of India. The origins of the Mūlasarvāstivāda school and their relationship to the Sarvāstivāda remain largely unknown, although various theories exist. The continuity of t ...
tradition. Following her ordination, Roloff became active in translation, in the management of the Tibetan Centre in Hamburg, and in campaigning for equal opportunities for nuns. As well as English and her native German, she is fluent in Tibetan,
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
, and
Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
. With the help of her teacher Geshe Thubten, Roloff translated the vows for bhiksunis into English, thereby greatly aiding Western Tibetan nuns in the ritual. Further aiding the research and study of students around the world, Roloff helped digitise scripture and other Buddhist texts. Roloff studied Tibetology and Indology with a focus on Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg, completing her Magister degree in 2003 and earning her PhD with distinction in 2009. Her dissertation was awarded the Karl H. Ditze Prize. From 1981 to 2006, Roloff was responsible for coordinating refugee assistance at the Tibetan Centre Hamburg. She continues to support and teach Buddhist students as part of her ongoing commitment to Buddhist education. Throughout her academic and spiritual journey, Roloff emphasizes the integration of scholarly work and socially engaged Buddhism, aligning her practice with her commitment to the bodhisattva ideal. In an interview with Vasana Chinvarakorn of the ''
Bangkok Post The ''Bangkok Post'' is an English-language daily newspaper published in Bangkok, Thailand. It is published in broadsheet and digital formats. The first issue was sold on 1 August 1946. It had four pages and cost one baht, a considerable amount ...
'', she stated, "I feel I haven't practised enough. I've accumulated merits and increased a little bit of wisdom, but still my time for meditation and retreat is not enough." Serving the community, however, is faithful to her bodhisattva vow and is Roloff's priority over her own personal development.


Female ordination in Buddhism

Ordaining female nuns, or ''bhiksunis'', in the Tibetan tradition has been met with resistance from many Tibetan monks. Roloff is determined to change this reluctance to allow women into the tradition. As well as campaigning for a change of opinion, she is instrumental in helping to determine how females can best be accommodated, both in the tradition itself and in '' sanghas'' (mutually supportive communities). Fortunately for Roloff, this imposing challenge has been supported by the
14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July 1935; full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, shortened as Tenzin Gyatso; ) is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He served a ...
. At an international conference for Buddhist women in 1987, Roloff recalls him saying to her, "...'You women have to fight for it hikkhuni ordination You cannot expect the monks to serve it to you.'..." As well as lecturing and writing on the subject, Roloff conducts research with other monks and nuns to help strengthen their position. The
Vinaya The Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit: विनय) refers to numerous monastic rules and ethical precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). These sets of ethical rules and guidelines devel ...
scriptures, for example, show that the Buddha accepted the role of women as nuns in search of enlightenment, and Roloff therefore often quotes this text. Her current research focuses also include Buddhist ethics, Buddhist perspectives in religious education, interreligious dialogue, gender equity in Buddhism, and the recognition of Buddhist minorities in Europe.


Management and advisory board activities

Roloff has held several significant academic and advisory positions, including directing a DFG-funded research project on the ordination of Buddhist nuns, serving as a senior researcher in a BMBF-funded European project on religion and dialogue, and as Visiting Professor of Buddhism and Dialogue in Modern Societies at the Academy of World Religions, University of Hamburg (2018–2025). Roloff is currently a board member of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies (ENBCS) and serves on the advisory board of the German section of the European Society of Women in Theological Research (ESWTR). She is also affiliated with the Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg as a Research Fellow and is a lifelong member of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS).


Literary works

Carola Roloff has authored and edited numerous scholarly publications on Buddhist studies, with a particular focus on Vinaya, gender and ordination, interreligious dialogue, and Buddhist education. Her works include monographs such as ''Red mda’ ba. Buddhist Yoga Scholar of the Fourteenth Century'' (2009) and ''The Buddhist Nun’s Ordination in the Tibetan Canon'' (2020), as well as several edited volumes including ''Dignity and Discipline'' (2010) and ''Buddhistischer Religionsunterricht'' (2023). A full list of her publications is available on her personal website. ''Relevance of Vinaya in Modern Circumstances'' was published in 1991 and ''A Brief Survey of the Vinaya: Its Origin, Transmission, and Arrangement from the Tibetan Point of View with Comparisons to the Theravāda and Dharmagupta Traditions'' in 1992.


Recognition

In conjunction with the United Nation's International Women's Day, the International Congress for Buddhist Women presented Roloff with the Outstanding Women in Buddhism award, on 7 March 2007, at the United Nations centre in Bangkok.


See also

* Therīgāthā * Ayya Khema * Sister Uppalavanna * Sister Vajirā * Women in Buddhism


Notes


External links

*
Jampa Tsedroen (website)Principal Investigator DFG Project on Buddhist NunsFaculty member Center for Buddhist Studies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roloff, Carola 1959 births Living people Former Protestants German Buddhist nuns 20th-century German nuns German former Christians Converts to Buddhism from Protestantism Tibetan Buddhist nuns Tibetan Buddhists from Germany People from Holzminden 20th-century Buddhist nuns 21st-century Buddhist nuns 21st-century German nuns