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Tibet
Tibetan
New Year
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The
lamas are wearing different colourful
masks
and beautiful costumes. |
Visiting
Sikkim:
Gunnar
Christensen
The
Rumtek monastery at 2000 meters high up in the Sikkim mountains in
India is one of the most attractive places you can celebrate the
Tibetan new year today. But watch up! The Tibetan celebrations are
very different from ours in many ways. If you want to celebrate
Tibetan New Year then you have to wait until the 27th of February.
But the celebration starts tree days earlier.
Where
is Sikkim? It's a small part of north India on the Tibetan boarder
between Nepal and Buthan. Sikkim was once a kingdom of its own with
the capital Gangtok. Now it's a part of India.
The
colourful Rumtek monastery is the residence of the high Tibetan lama
called Karmapa and his crew of monks. New year celebration is the
summit of the year at this monastery: The lama dances starts:
Symbolic the lamas are cleaning the area before the New Year to come.
Al masks used in the dances have different symbols: They are helping
the great Mahakala in the ceremony.
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The
high Tibetan lama 16 th.Karmapa |
To
the sound of the traditional Tibetan instruments dominated by big
thunder drums, different kinds of trumpets and the long radonges, the
lamas are wearing different colourful masks and beautiful costumes.
The monks playing the instruments are sitting in front of the
monastery with beautiful costumes in red and yellow. Their
instruments have beautiful decorations in silver and gold. The music
is very strange to western ears.
People
crowd around the area before the monastery where the dances takes
place most of the day all three days. More people are coming every
day making the last day of celebration very crowded. Many local
political leaders and even the royalty from Buthan are present as
guests this year, witch indicates the influence and political power
of the high lama Karmapa.
The
first day of the celebration, the monks and lamas dance without
masks. Different groups of monks up to hundred monks in each are
dancing for hours. Every day the dance starts at 10 in the morning.
The dancers take a break for dinner at 5 p.m.
The
second day the masks are on: You se animal heads, bird heads and
devil masks beautifully made and coloured. Symbolic these are the
workers cleaning all bad actions of all kinds out of the place for
the New Year to come.
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You
se animal heads, bird heads and devil
masks
beautifully made and coloured. |
The
third day the big butter figure 6 meters high of the dramatic
Mahakala is placed in the centre of the dances. The dances circle
around this figure. This figure is burned when the danced end in the
afternoon. Tibetan laypeople believe that part of the burning figure
gives them blessings, and they are eager to get their part as the
flames eat up the figure. That's a problem to the monks who are
trying to keep the laymen away from the flames to avoid accidents.
New
years day is celebrated inside this beautiful monastery temple
called the Gumpa decorated with thankas and beautiful wall paintings
and a lot of traditional Tibetan food. This big ceremony goes on led
by His Holiness Karmapa and his 350 Rinproches, lames and monks
placed according to their rank in the Tibatan temple. The laypeople
and pilgrims are crowding up to the high lama Karmapa to get his
blessing after the ceremony and they bring him their white khadaes
for geetings.
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The children
monks enjoys visitors. |
After
four days of celebration the monks rest for seven days.
If
there is a tradition to wish something for the New Year among
Tibetans in India and all over the world I'm sure they all wish to go
back to a free and independent Tibet.
Tibet
has been occupied by Chinese troops since 1950.
H.
H. Dalai Lama the political and religions leader of the Tibetan
people won the Nobel Peace Price in 1989. Behind Dalai Lama stands a
great, non-violent and peaceful culture with a high spiritual and
moral level.
A
culture we need to take care of in the world today. Not only for the
sake of the Tibetans, but for our own sake: Too many high peace
loving cultures through the history of mankind has been lost. We
can't afford to loose the Tibetan culture.
DVD-Films
about the Tibetan Culture:
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"Kundun,
The
History of Dalai Lama"
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Brad
Pitt:
"Seven
years in Tibet" |
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Keanu Reeves, Bridget Fona,
Chris Isaak:
"Little
Buddha"
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