Losar!
Losar, which is the Tibetan New Year, had finally arrived! There was a lot of work that had to be done for this anticipated celebration. Since the annual festivals had come to an end, the village was able to settle down. The monasteries were also quiet, which in turn, had allowed me to write about the preparations that took place for Losar, and also about what had happened on the Tibetan New Year day.
The word, Losar, is composed of two characters: Lo and Sar. “Lo” means “year” and “Sar” means “new.” The celebration of Losar can be traced back to the Tibetan pre-Buddhist period. At that time, Tibetans were followers of the Bon religion, and held a spiritual ceremony every winter. Eventually, as the years progressed, this religious ceremony developed into an annual Buddhist festival.
During the last two days of the old year, which is called Gutor, everyone in the village started to prepare themselves for the New Year. The first day of Gutor was spent cleaning the house. Kitchens had to be extra clean and free from any collected dust or debris since that was where the food was prepared. Special dishes had to be cooked. One of these dishes was a delicious dumpling soup. This soup was made from meat, wheat, rice, sweet potatoes, cheese, peas, green peppers, vermicelli and radishes. The fillings for these dumplings included scraps of wood, paper, or pebbles. Another famous dish was called, Momos, which were juicy beef dumplings. There is a Buddhist reason for eating yak — “The karmic load of killing one rabbit and one yak are the same: one life. But you can feed a lot more people with a yak.” The chimney was also swept until all of the dirt was cleared away.
On the second day of Gutor, religious ceremonies were held. People visited the local monastery to worship, and they also gave gifts to the monks. Before the celebration of the New Year could take place, the evils of the past had to be driven out. This was done in a day-long dance ritual performed by masked monks in the eastern courtyard of Potala.
Traditionally, on the day of Losar, the housewife would wake up very early. After cooking a pot of barley wine for the family, she would wait for sunrise. When she saw the first ray of sunshine, she would take a bucket and journey down to a nearby river or well, so that she could collect the year’s first bucket of water. This water was considered as the most sacred, clearest water of the coming year. The family that collected the first bucket of water from the river or well, were believed to be blessed with good luck for the entire upcoming year.
On this very important day, monks used a dagger, so that they could confront their own ignorance and passions. The monks also tried to transform the ills of the past year into foods for the Gods. During some of the religious ceremonies, red dough was also used. This red dough symbolized the bad spirits of the old year. Villagers also offered prayers to the mountain Gods. This form of practice has survived over a thousand years since the pre-Buddhist culture of Tibet. We also engaged in rites to purify and renew spirits, and believed that both negative and positive actions performed during Losar reverberated through the year to come. It was a time of karmic opportunity as well as danger, when many rituals were performed to ensure prosperity and well-being in the months ahead.
The festivals of Losar drew people from far and wide. These pilgrims often traveled far distances on foot or horseback in order to visit the sacred precincts, during which great lamas performed powerful ceremonies. Some pilgrims took months to reach their destinations, but they chose to do so believing that such acts of devotion brought great merit to those who performed them. According to a widely held Tibetan belief, religious activities performed on important holy days created greater merit than those done at other times. Major festivals also provided opportunities for economic and social exchanges. The influx of people brought in money and goods from outside, as well as opportunities to meet people from other places. Products from outside the area, as well as news brought by visitors, flooded into the cities during these times, and the visitors often purchased mementos and brought them home.
I heard that many pilgrims had some inspiring and adventurous experiences when they arrived to our village. Some people took a series of tractor-riding trips, one of them to a nearby monastery to watch a cham dancing. Cham was designed in part to give observers a glimpse of the dreamlike experiences that occurred after death. Some of the dancers were funny, such as the ones with dark green skin, dressed as a woman, who improvised a sort of sexy hip-shaking dance. Others were severely beautiful, and many were scary, such as the black claw-footed monsters with huge horsetails on their heads and bags for carrying corpses on their backs. Cham pointed out the real, straight path. At the table, others commented that they had travelled to the west of Lhasa. At the Tsurphu monastery, they watched black-hatted monks spin on the soles of their yakhide boots in a ceremony. As the cymbals clashed and horns droned, the monks danced to dispel the accumulated negativity of the past twelve months and to open the way for the year to come.
During the New Year celebrations, it was common for monks to perform ritual dances, called Cham, in which they dressed in elaborate costumes and enacted in dances with Buddhist themes. During these performances, monks wore brightly-coloured costumes and masks, which represented Buddhist themes and depicted religious figures as well as demons and mythical creatures. Before the dances began, the participants prepared themselves by visualizing a mandala. This provided the paradigm for the entire dance. The monastery’s courtyard became the base of the mandala.
Monlam was held during the first two weeks of the first month of the Tibetan lunar calendar and was connected with the celebration of the Tibetan New Year. Although Monlam was primarily a religious festival, it also embraced many non-religious activities, some of which were probably remnants of pre-Buddhist celebrations. During the festival, people paraded through the streets wearing antique armour and traditional ceremonial clothing, hearkening back to the days of Tibetan military might. The Monlam festival played a role in driving out evil forces and creating positive karma. Monlam was the most important of the major festivals, which were referred to as the “great times.”
Furthermore, Losar was a day where family members and friends exchanged gifts and had a reunion dinner together. This dinner usually consisted of a kind of cake called kapse, and an alcoholic drink called chang. During these times, the Tibetans’ love of partying was evident, and while the religious aspects of the celebrations were important, there was also a great deal of laughter, merrymaking, and socializing. People gathered together from a wide area to celebrate their religion and culture, to meet new people and old friends, and to drive out negative influences and ensure a brighter future. This was the time when most young children asked questions to their parents and elders about the life of the Buddha, and how one could attain nirvana. These children also touched upon topics that were focused on arhats and bodhisattvas.
Overall, the celebrations of Losar took a lot of effort, but were also very inspirational to see once again. There was a lot of teamwork that came into play, and everyone cooperated enthusiastically. Traditional songs and Buddhist chants were playing everywhere. The multi-coloured prayer flags were folding and unfolding beautifully with the strong winds, and the flames of the candles seemed to be dancing. The village was filled with smiling faces, and some people who disliked each other before were now communicating on positive terms. Some of the villagers wore traditional and religious clothing and took part in various dances.
I knew that the cleaning process for Losar was going to take at least one to two days. Scraps, burnt wood, food waste and other items and objects had to be thrown out in a certain way. Furthermore, monuments and relics had to be placed back into their respective sites and houses had to be cleaned. Friends and family members who were not from our village had to journey back home. Therefore, we were expected to pack them clothes and food so that they could have a safe journey back. Prayers of thanks had to take place within our village so that the villagers could formally thank the heavens for a successful New Year celebration.
The bright energy in the village persuaded me to believe that positive karma was going to “dominate” our village. I constantly prayed so that everyone would live a healthy and truthful life, and so that his or her current and future endeavours would come true.
