47) The Tashilunpo Festival in Zhigatse

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There was a famous Tibetan festival going at the time we were in Lhasa, and we of course could not miss this opportunity. Since it was called Tashilunpo Thangka Festival and Zhigatse, the town where the Tashilunpo Monastery is situated, is not extremely far from Lhasa, we decided to check out of our hotel and spend some time there. This festival is explained as follows: the huge appliqué thangkas of the Buddhas of the Three Eras are displayed on two consecutive days. Already when we passed through Zhigatse on our way from Kathmandu to Lhasa, we had sworn to come back, and the festival formed a perfect incentive. So we took a public bus, which left even earlier than scheduled, maybe because all the tickets had been sold (no question here of allowing people to stand in the bus like in India). The trip was quite ok, apart from the fact that it was still quite cold in the morning and a passenger in the row before us insisted on leaving the window wide open, which forced us to put on our sweaters and jackets. We tried to make him understand that we were freezing because the draught fully hit us, not him, which he did not really understand. So it all ended up in him opening the window and us closing it from behind, the he finally got it. We had not bought many provisions, only a package of dry crumbing biscuits and feared that we would have to do without decent food until Zhigatse (scheduled arrival 3:30 p.m.) But no, around 1 p.m. we stopped at a place practically in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but dull landscape, several cattle - and a small building where they sold drinks, pre-cooked meals and instant noodle dishes. The pre-cooked stuff was rather lousy but the noodle packs, once filled with boiling water and the diverse spices added, tasted even good. On our way, we crossed two passes, where the Tibetans threw handfuls of paper prayer flags out of the window cheerfully shouting the ancient words: ‘Kyi-kyi so-so!’ (May the Gods be victorious) that sounded like sneezing to us. We arrived in Zhigatse at 3 p.m. and walked to the centre. As we passed the Tashilunpo Monastery, we decided to leave our small luggage at the entrance and visit it immediately, we were not sure whether it would be open tomorrow.

Tashilunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lamas, was founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama on the slopes of Dolmani hill, west of the fortress of Zhigatse Dzong. The Panchen Lama is the second highest-ranking lama (spiritual leader) after the Dalai Lama, also believed to be an incarnation of Amitabha Buddha (the Buddha of Limitless Light, a Buddha who possesses infinite meritorious qualities), while the Dalai Lama is revered as the human embodiment of the of the patron deity of Tibet who symbolizes compassion. The original building, the assembly hall, was built above a sacred sky-burial site, the stone slab of which is still to be seen on the floor within. The Tibetan custom of sky-burial is the most popular means of disposing of the dead. During three days following the moment of death, the body of the deceased should be left untouched and everything is done to accumulate merit on behalf of the deceased, and to ensure his or her future well-being. The disposal of the body is generally regarded as a separate, lesser matter. Sky-burial, in which the corpse is dismembered, the inner organs removed, the flesh cut into shreds, and the bones crushed and mixed with barley flour, before being fed to the vultures, is said to offer great merit. The vultures who frequent the most popular sky-burial sites and are summoned by an offering of incense, are revered as birds of purity, subsisting only on corpses and casting their droppings onto high mountain peaks. Up to 1989, when the mausoleum for the late Panchen Lama was built, the complex was constantly renovated, refurbished and enlarged, so that it nowadays has the appearance of a monastic city. The monastery is counted among the six largest Gelupko (indigenous school of Tibetan Buddhism) monasteries in Tibet, formerly at its peak housing 4,700 monks.

We did not have extremely much time at our disposal, but somehow felt that tomorrow the access would either be denied or we would not be allowed to roam around freely. In order not to violate people’s religious feelings, we started our visit in a clockwise sequence. The first building we hit upon on the western edge, housed the world’s largest gilded copper image, 26m on height. When you stand in front of it, there is hardly a position from which you can see it completely! The massive Maitreya (one of the eight major bodhisattvas and the future Buddha, symbolizing the buddha’s loving kindness and sight) contains 6,700 taels (unit of weight used in eastern Asia, roughly equivalent to 38 grams) of gold and 150 metric tons of copper, and within it an enormous juniper tree functions as a life-supporting axis. The body of the image is encrusted with ornaments and precious stones, and the surrounding murals of the chapel depict 1,000 Maitreyas, drawn in gold line on a black background. After seeing this display of incredible wealth, we visited some other temples and buildings, but their impact was understandably dwarfed by the awesome majesty of the Maitreya image. We went on through narrow lanes and crossed courtyards, and could not get rid of the impression that very few people lived in that spacious complex. Since this is the Panchen Lamas’ monastery, many mausoleums of former dignitaries are to be found within its compounds, all of them lavishly decorated in gold or silver and studded with precious gems. Tradition has it that each new Panchen Lama, in order to show reverence to his noble predecessor, has a wonderful mausoleum erected for him. The 10th Panchen Lama was an important political figure in Tibet following the Dalai Lama's escape to India in 1959. However, in 1968 he was imprisoned; in 1977, he was released but held under house arrest in Beijing until 1982. In 1983, he married a Chinese woman and had a daughter, which was considered highly controversial behavior for a lama. In 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama died suddenly in Zhigatse at the age of 51. The current Dalai Lama named Gedhun Choekyi Nyima the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama on May 14, 1995 but this was not officially recognised by the People's Republic of China. The government of the People's Republic of China named another child. As such, the whereabouts of the initial Panchen Lama are unknown, with differing claims from both sides. This situation causes much distress in Tibet and it is even more strongly felt in the Tashilunpo Monastery. We did not like the atmosphere very much, several of the monks behaved rather rudely and it seemed all they wanted from visitors was money (in addition to the hefty entrance fees of course). Theoretically it was forbidden to take pictures in the chapels, as usual, but it would have been possible against an additional charge of 70 Yuan (EUR 7!), so Stephan refused, although he would have loved to have an image of some interior decoration which reminded us of colourful ties, and show it to a friend who is in the tie business. When we were already on our way out, infuriated by the greedy monks and rather disappointed from the artistic point of view, we happened to come into a dimly lit hall, where a group of monks was gathered in some religious practice. Beside this hall we discovered a smoke-filled kitchen, where a huge stove was constantly refurbished in order to prepare huge amounts of butter tea. This way, our visit had a rather colourful finale and we do not keep too bad memories of it.

We then went to a hotel, where we had shortly stopped on our previous five-day trip from Kathmandu to Lhasa. It had looked like paradise to us then, after the filthy places we had slept in before, but after staying in then beautiful Lhasa hotel it looked rather ordinary. Anyway, the room was all right and we would not spend a long time there. After checking in, we walked through the streets of Zhigatse, looking for an internet place and a restaurant. Huge groups of people were gathered in the streets, mostly sitting on the sidewalk, men, women and children, they all had come for the festival. Seeing them crouched on blankets, drinking litres of butter tea and eating home-made food, we could not help thinking that the Tibetan people still were nomads in their hearts and would hardly be tamed into cities. They offered a colourful and merry sight and greeted us in a friendly way, though with ill-concealed curiosity, when we passed them. We could not find an internet café and so only ate some momos in a small restaurant before going to bed rather early. The whole day had been more exhausting than imagined.

Next day, on the fifteenth day of the fifth lunar month (festivals in Tibet are calculated according to the lunar calendar), we tried to find our way through the huge crowds gathered around the Tashilunpo Monastery. We saw very many people but no visible activity and started wondering whether we had come here in vain. As we had feared yesterday, the entrance gate to the monastery was closed and so we decided to use the circuit that Peter and Stephan had already partially made on our previous visit. The pilgrim circuit, the three-kilometre kora, follows a clockwise path around the outside walls of the monastery. We turned right on the main road by the entrance gate to the monastery and started our way around the walls. This now sounds easier than it actually was, due to the crowds of pilgrims whose only aim was to do the narrow and steep circuit. After a couple of metres, we came to a small stupa, where we stopped to watch the devotees walk round in a clockwise sense. There were mainly women walking, all of them dressed in their best gowns, much to our pleasure. All of them wore colourful blouses, red, pink, yellow, blue and turquoise were their favourite colours, broad silver buckles who held a sash of different cloth around their waist and rich jewellery. Beside the circuit around the stupa, other pilgrims were squatting on the floor or standing at the rails, chatting with each other, sipping butter tea or eating food they had taken along. We lingered on for a couple of minutes and took our time to watch them and take pictures. Everybody was very busy turning the numerous prayer wheels, burning herbs or twigs as an offering, mumbling prayers while frenetically turning the handheld prayer wheel or prostrating themselves in the mud (it had again rained and the soil was quite wet). We were very happy to be part of the crowd and to have such a nice experience in Tibet. At one point, many devotees left the circuit in order to pass through a building, but we do not know what was going on there as we did not follow them. We guess that they may have touched the famous thangka. One of the highlights of the walk was the view of the glorious golden roofs from above the Goku Trampa, the massive white-painted building at the top northeast corner is where the forty-metre, giant appliquéd thangka was displayed during the festival. From where we were we could not see the thangka, only the backside of the building, but we admired the flags in rainbow colours stretched from the sides of the Goku Trampa. We had several rests on the rocks before we tripped downhill, the descent was so steep that the circuit was laid out in serpentines, but we were rather impatient and used a very steep shortcut and Peter said it was practical that we were Austrians and had some experience in mountain climbing. When we arrived at the foot of the hill, we noticed that everybody was staring up at the giant thangka. Something important was obviously going to happen! Stephan had only taken his position on a small sand hill for better pictures, when the thangka was covered by an equally huge cloth in rainbow colours, and only shortly afterwards both thangka and cloth were lowered. The Tashilunpo Thangka Festival was over and the thangka would be shown again only in one year’s time! All the pilgrims quickly went different ways, so did we.

The festival was over sooner than we had expected and we were left with half a day in Zhigatse. We did not exactly know what to do, since the city was very unattractive and did not offer much distraction. After lunch we wandered around aimlessly and suddenly came to a bus station where a bus to Lhasa was about to leave. Unfortunately our luggage was still in the hotel, what were we to do? So Stephan and I drove to the hotel quickly, grabbed our luggage and left the receptionist flabbergasted and rather unhappy, she wished we pay for a second night. But before she could do much, we were out of the door and had hopped into the waiting taxi. When we came back to the bus station, where we had left Peter behind to organize some transport, everything was ready. A brand new jeep was already waiting for us and Stephan only had to agree to the price. We had a very nice driver who was driving very conscientiously on the dust roads. He stopped when we wished to have a short toilet or picture break and finally Stephan managed to take pictures of yaks without them running away from him. The trip was very comfortable and we did the bad roads still in daylight. When he came to the tarred road, the driver did not feel so much at ease; as soon as it got dark, he played a picture CD for us which we saw in the huge rearview mirror, and then Klaudia did not feel at ease because the driver could not use the rearview mirror any longer. But we reached Lhasa safely before 11 p.m. and the driver was even so kind to call the Mandala Hotel for us and inform then of our imminent arrival. Everything worked out fine and we even found something to eat in a good restaurant close to the hotel. We are happy that we could see the famous Tashilunpo Thangka Festival, but apart from that, neither the monastery nor Zhigatse are of special interest.

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Photos

Tashilunpo Thangka Festival
The thangka to which the festival refers is to be seen in the background on the right side, behind the crowds

Tashilunpo Monastery
The complex of the important monastery has the size of a monastic city

Pilgrims within the Tashilunpo Monastery
Group of pilgrims walking around the Monastery

Lady in red
She offers a nice example of Tibetan clothing, the silver belt buckle included

Proud Tibetan mother
She is obviously happy to take part in this important festival with her small baby

Residence of the Panchen Lamas
Here the Panchen Lamas used to live, with the notable exception of the current one

Religious ceremony
We do not know which ceremony it was, but the atmosphere in the hall impressed us

Brooding monk
Which topic of religious importance may he be pondering about?

Mural
Unfortunately we do not know how is represented here, but he reminded us of Santa Claus...

Mural of buddhas
In this monastery, several walls filled all over with buddha images are to be found

Tibetan women in nice clothes
Another example of wonderful silver buckles and colourful aprons

Heterogeneous group
They looked much happier when Peter and Klaudia were also on the picture

Young monk greeting his elder
Maybe the elder monk is the younger one's master and takes care of his spiritual training

Peter and the monks
Why is he looking so suspiciously?

Huge appliqué thangka
The famous thangka of the Buddhas of the Three Eras, displayed only once a year

Monks reading religious texts
Such monks are to be found all over the pilgrim circuit

Musical Tibetan lady
She was playing a special drum with two swinging stones on strings as well as chiming a hand bell

On the kora
That day, the three-kilometre pilgrim circuit (kora) was very crowded

Lady turning a prayer wheel
The whole circuit is lined with a myriad of shining prayer wheels

Part of the pilgrims' crowd
Peter and Klaudia were visibly happy to take part in this festival

Little boy beside the circuit
Here you can see how practical pants with a slit can be...