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Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
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Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏

Literally a "member" (sha 者) of the "lower ranks" (an 行). To be distinguished from gyōja 行者, a word written with the same two Chinese characters, which denotes a religious "ascetic" or "practitioner." A number of minor positions in a monastery bureaucracy are designated as "assistants." In medieval China and Japan, those positions were held by postulants (anja 行者), i.e. lay candidates for monastic ordination, but in present day Japanese Zen they are held by monks in training (unsui 雲水). "postulant."