How to celebrate the Buddha's birthday

• How to celebrate the Buddha's birthday

This article is dedicated to the celebration of Buddha's birthday in Gyandze. Gyandze is 90 kilometers from shigatse (toward Lasa). The height above sea level - about 4000 meters. Through Gyandze goes "Friendship Road", which connects Lhasa and Kathmandu.

It is a small district town with a calm way of life. This city can still be called Tibetan.

In Gyandze, as elsewhere in Tibet, the Chinese also live. Their homes can be quite easy to distinguish from those in which Tibetans live. On the roof of Tibetan houses are always worth the tree of life (although in this region it is more like a shrub or a broom). On Chinese homes is nothing there.

There are only two attractions. The first - the city "dzong" (castle). In 1904, the city's defenders heroically repulsed the attacks of superior British troops within 2 weeks, and the fortress remained impenetrable. With a little thought, we decided that too will not "conquer" it is too steep slopes on which it is located.

Instead, we went to another interesting place - the monastery Pelkor Chode.

Find the way to the monastery it was easy - there have flocked to the locals to celebrate Saga Dawa - the day of the birth of Buddha Shakyamuni.

The Tibetans do not miss an opportunity to casually twist prayer wheel "Khor", which closed the mantra. Rotate the drum clockwise need to mantra moving in the right direction.

On the way to the monastery there are several shops where you can buy water, chips and so on. D. Or just sit on a bench near the entrance.

Trade is not only in the shops. Someone sells its products directly from the road.

Finally we got to the monastery and, together with the ubiquitous Tibetan grandmothers went over the fence. I must say that the Tibetan grandmother is very steep and should not stand in their way, especially in such important days.

The monastery was founded in 1418 and now belongs to the Gelugpa school. Although its territory and the building of the Sakya school. To date, the monastery is home to around a hundred monks, and in the best of times there were up to three thousand.

In spite of the early morning visitors were already quite a lot.

Although the main ceremonies of the festival was only a few hours in advance Visitors tried to take a comfortable place.

Sacred Saga Dawa festival lasts for a whole lunar month, but its climax falls on the full moon. We had to come to this city just after lunch, but decided to change the route to get to the celebration.

In this day were to be held lama dances and fire offering to Buddha. The monks have prepared a special pedestal mound colored sand mandala for him.

In order not to lose time, we decided to first examine the main temple, called Goman. All photos were taken illegally inside the room, as the price per photo is very decent, and the money we were only on food.

Inside quite dark, but overall are situated interesting statues and thangkas, and the walls are decorated with wonderful frescoes.

Gelug school is sometimes called "zheltoshapochnoy" because its founder, Lama Tszonkapa, the desire to get back to basics decided that his followers would not wear red and saffron robes and caps. Such apparel colors wore the Buddha Shakyamuni. Hats of the same color can be seen on the statues of the teachers of this school.

Mandala Vajrakilaya. The main attribute of the Buddhas is a three-edged dagger kilaya (or "Phurba" in Tibetan). This knife he cuts off the main negative qualities of man - anger, attachment and ignorance.

On the altars around the temple standing lamps, one of the favorite Tibetans offerings. They buy yak butter advance in a store or directly at the entrance to the monastery, and then enclose it in lights.

Around the main temple of the university building where young monks study.

A real gem and Gyantse monastery Pelkor Chode is stupa Kumbum Stupa or a hundred thousand Buddhas. Her height - 32 meters. This stupa in a typical Nepali style, embodies the main primary elements of creation: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Space. On the sixth floor of the stupa in the cells 78 in total, there are a hundred thousand images of Buddha - statues, thangkas, murals. The location is just fantastic. At the entrance to the stupa carefully check all bags and are not allowed to carry cameras.

Meanwhile, celebrations were about to begin.

The audience took a comfortable place on the ground.

Offerings for the fire puja ready.

Lead began the ceremony.

On the ground came the monks in colorful robes and crowns and the singing of the lead and the sound of drums and trumpets began to perform an intricate dance, dance.

In a break between dances on a platform left a monk dressed as an evil spirit.

We did not understand what he was going to do, and he took from his bag and began to sprinkle flour people, we got the full program. All clothes, camera down, backpacks were white.

However, it ran out a few boys monks depicting his servants, harmful spirits.

Home perfume task - to spoil a man. They sprinkled the audience barley flour, steal hats or other items ...

... and even steal children, then to ride on top of them.

For Tibetans it was a terrible sight. They cried and hid behind the adults.

But the adults were watching with interest and laughter.

It is believed that people who suffered from the spirits during the holiday, lucky - throughout the year, they will no longer be felt by their harmful impact.

Based on the amount of flour, the Tibetan will be the happiest person in the coming year!

"Hurt" spirits mostly elderly. This is understandable - young easier to cope with adversity alone, but need help old men. We, too, were all white, and happy, and then washed in a long time accommodation of flour!

Perfume made the last lap ...

... and began to distribute to those who hurt, special silk scarves "Hadak". In Tibet, it is a sign of the highest respect and reverence.

The fire puja came to an end. At some point, the Tibetans began to make prostrations to the fire. At first they were few, then a crowd, and on duty Chinese police had to bring them back into place. However, no violence was not the police behaved quite correctly.

When the fire burned down, the monks danced the last dance, surrounded by evil spirits, and carried them away. It symbolized the victory over the spirits, who now will not be able to obstruct Buddhist practice.