Losar
As the New Year is approaching, I find myself anticipating the New Year’s celebrations, and I am looking forward to participating in our yearly Tibetan new year’s rituals. Tibetan New Year’s also known as Losar is the most important and significant festival in our Tibetan calendar. Tibetan New year is usually celebrated around or on the same time as Chinese New Year. This year we are celebrating it on February 19th, but the date that New Year’s falls on can range anywhere from the end of January to the beginning of March. Losar traditionally lasts for fifteen days, however the first three days are the most important. In the first three days, people of all ages light lamps and offer prayers at the monasteries and shrines. Within the first three days of Losar, it is also customary to feast, gamble with family and friends, and to drink large amounts of Chang, which is a freshly brewed liquor that is made from fermented barley. As part of our rituals, we make offerings to our local deities, one of the ways we do this on New Years is to burn incense. From the roof tops across the village, you can see the purifying smoke of common fragrant herbs such as juniper, and artemisia being burned.
In our New Year traditions, we mix many secular and sacred practises. Losar involves a lot of partying and dancing, as well as prayers, ritual ceremonies, and the hanging of prayer flags. Before the New Year’s celebration begins, it is customary that all the evil from the past must be handled and done away with. On the last day of the calendar year, this is the time when all obstacles that have crossed our paths can be overcome, and all adversary can be repelled. In order to do this, to rid ourselves of the evils and adversary that has crossed our paths over the last year, a day long dance ritual is performed by monks wearing special masks. Using their daggers, the monks pierce and kill their anger, ignorance, pride, desires, and envy. By doing this, the community becomes cleansed, purified, and ready to start the New Year with a clean slate. It is important to my Tibetan culture that we start the New Year cleansed, this is why we buy or make new clothing, clean and decorate our houses, and raise new prayer flags.
The first day of Tibetan New Years is commonly the most festive day. We begin with a ceremonies called gyeton, which means the happy celebrations. The reception for this ceremony begins in the Potala palace by the Dali Lama. It is customary that our most important events take place in the first half of the lunar month in the morning before the sun rises, and this first event gyeton fulfills this custom.
The first day of New Year’s begins by the Dali Lama being awakened very early in the morning by a drum role that is specific to him. Following his private prayer, offerings of wheat flour, tea, rice, and white scarves are made by those whom he will bless. A short reception is then held for the high officials, where prayers and blessing rituals are performed, after which the Dali Lama makes his way up to the roof of the Potala palace where he will sit on his throne to receive more offerings of food and white scarves, from those who wish to be blessed. After a short break, the Dali Lama makes his way down to the second floor of the Potala palace where the main ceremony lama loser takes place. This day is full of tons of food and gifts that are distributed among the people, dancing, debates, and blessings. It is quite an extravagant ceremony, which concludes with some tea, and a long prayer made for good fortune. The Dali Lama’s bodyguard, will announce that the ceremony is over, and then they will escort the Dali Lama back to his room.
The remaining time of the first day is used for family celebrations. Each house hold has their own alter. Flour and barley are ritually offered, everyone has a sip of chang, followed by tea and all sorts of different foods related to the season. There are different kinds of meat presented, but only one bite is necessary before the baskets of food are passed on to the next house.
A really interesting and incredible tradition we have at New Year’s is our butter-sculpture festival. It takes place on the fifteenth day, and is known as “the offering of the fifteenth”. The butter-sculpture festival takes place in Kumbum which is located in eastern Tibet. Kumbum is located and the cross roads of many trade roots, and because of this, from early on, it has been an important commercial center.
Each year, a different theme is chosen for the butter sculpting, one example of a theme would be Tibetan folk tales. The sculptures are very elaborate with intricate details, and are not to be seen by anyone until their display day on the fifteen. The sculptors used different natural dyes mixed with ashes to include different colors into their sculptures. Some of the most important sculptures have been known to have some gold and silver powder included on them, as well as other precious substances. Some sculptures are free standing, but others require support structures to assist in holding them up.
Making these butter sculptures is no easy task. Sculptors need to keep hot and cold buckets of water near their sculptures. In order to prevent the butter from melting, it needs to be kept cold, and the hands of the sculptor need to be kept clean so they do not smudge their creations. In order to accomplish this, they would need to wash their hands with hot water, and then cover their hands in flour and rob them together, to remove any dirt; their hands are then rinsed in hot water, and then dipped in cold water to remove the heat from their hands. Once all preparations for the butter festival are completed, the sculptures are displayed and revealed in special compartments lit by butter lamps, made specifically for this purpose.
As guests arrive, monks from the “perfection of wisdom” offer tea. The laypeople often respond with some form of offering of food or money for the monks. The butter sculptures are only displayed at night, and all destroyed before the morning. As the guests travel around viewing the beautiful work displayed, they are reminded of the Buddhist concept of impermanence. For all of those who recognize the implications of impermanence, this is a good reminder for them to devote themselves to religious activities that will provide them with everlasting benefits.
Many Tibetan celebrations are religious by nature, and supply the perfect circumstance to meet and mingle with religious leaders. These celebrations provide an opportunity to participation in rituals, most commonly aimed at cleansing and purifying oneself from past evils, as well as driving away negative karma from the land and people. Tibetan celebrations are also an opportunity for practitioners to rid themselves of misconduct through confession and rededication to their religion. Religious practises are often thought of as solemn and sombre, but Tibetan celebrations are neither of these things, they are joyful and lively. Tibetans experience great happiness when having a good time, we like to party. Our festivals provide us with the perfect setting to meet, talk, drink, and celebrate. At our Tibetan festivals, there will be much laughing, dancing, happiness, and socializing.
