4 Days of Monlam Festival (Tibetan New Year). Day 2: Displaying Of The Thangka Ceremony at Rongwu Monastery.

Displaying of the Thangka. Rongwu Monastery, China. (February 8, 2009)

Note: See the introduction to this series about the Amdo Monlam Festival in the post of March 20th, 2009.

Day 2.

Displaying of the Thangka Ceremony at Rongwu Monstery.

Slideshow: Displaying of the Thangka at Rongwu Monstery.
Click inside the box if you can’t see the photographs properly, you will be redirected to a Picasa page.

Rongwu Monastery is the largest in Tongren, it has several small temples and chapels and hundreds of monks living in it. The buildings vary in style and detail, from the purest traditional Tibetan to a Chinese-Tibetan mix that the Chinese government imposed as part of the "China-fication" of Tibetan areas. The monastery has small and big gates, and walls like an ancient city, and every temple is enclosed within its own walls and gates. There are streets, houses, shops, each one with their very characteristic Tibetan doors, with wood frames sculpted with dragons or birds and flowers. Everywhere we looked there were statues, thangkas on walls, mandalas paintings, banners, prayer cloths, large canvases covering some facades, drums hanging ... It seems all this was made with mud, stone, concrete, wood… dust.

The first night of my stay in Rongwu we wanted to give the temple a look and, with great surprise, we found that we could enter, visiting its temples, chapels, walking through its streets and squares. I saw girls who, as if they were playing, sang religious songs while walking, or sometimes while running, around one of the temples. I saw people arriving in small groups and disapperaing into the darkness of the walls and streets of the Monastery, they came in processions from their villages in the nearby hills, they repeated mantras, some also sang. In the silence of that religious town, among the shadows of the monks who were walking that night I heard the sound of Tibetan horns, those sounds of the trumpets used by Tibetan Buddhists that are rooted in our memory as a powerful sound of the eternal image of Tibet; those horn sounds represent the Tibetan mystery to us, curious Westerners, and in trying to reveal that mystery we can risk everything.

Live Audio of Tibetan horns during the night of March 7, 2009, Rongwu.

Two days after that first visit to the Monastery I experienced the Displaying of the Thangka Ceremony.



Narration of the event:
(Translation from Spanish by Tadeo Berjón)

Monks carrying the enormous Thangka. Rongwu Monastery. Tongren, China. (February, 2009)

The ceremony is known for the displaying of a gigantic Thangka, by every Tibetan monastery, once as year. The thangka is "removed" from the darkness of the chapel temple (where it is always kept rolled) and then, in a procession, carried to the nearest mountain and exposed to the Sunlight.

Me, as a person interested in performing arts and the spectacular, "needed" to experience the public exhibition of the great Thangka, that ceremony with a whole village participating. I wanted to see and explore the spectacular ritual of the unveiling of a huge religious symbol, and I also wanted to try to recognise the structure of the event and the performance of its actors. But I could not just be a scholar, in an event of this nature you cannot be just a spectator, even in the remoteness of the differences in cultures and beliefs, we inevitably fade into the same event and become part of the ritual.

On March 9, 2009 we were informed that the ceremony would begin at noon and we were at the scene at approximately 11 am so we wouldn't miss any detail. With the experience of the previous day at Niantog monastery, we were prepared for a long wait. But we didn't understand clearly that Niantog was a small monastery with a relatively small number of monks and therefore with less dramatic events in comparison to what we were going to live in Rongwu; the wait had been long because the number of monks was not sufficient for the act, there was less organization, and it was even less "official", as there were no VIP's to please. The importance and grandness of Rongwu in the Tongren area meant it would be one of the most important events of the year, and so it was.

Dozens upon dozens of monks came and went, appearing beautifully dressed and carrying many banners, musical instruments and gifts; within the main temple hundreds of them gathered to make their preparations. Virtually exactly at noon they split into groups and began to leave the main temple, performing a kind of presentation (or introduction?) for about an hour, forming several circles around the square, with around 300 monks. The groups differed in rank (recognizable to us through the strange color of their hats and apparel), musical instruments (horns, drums, cymbals and conches) and carrying banners (flags, images, and sunshades with mandalas and peacock feathers). Each in turn made their way to their assigned space within the circle around the main square, playing their instruments or simply walking, without much ceremonial attitude; the images and sounds were so powerful by themselves that, from my point of view, there was no need to see these groups of monks in a trance or with any kind of attitude. Once that procession, which apparently had a very definite structure in such rituals for Monlam, everyone began to leave in apparent anarchy.

In the square now empty of monks the people rushed in the direction of the main doors of the temple and a big commotion began, there was great excitement in the air. More groups of monks left the temple and stood so as to make and maintain a walkway from the entrance of the temple hall, though the path didn't last much because of the crowds around; then more monks came out of the temple, pulling a rope wrapped in a kind of white gauze, typically used in the religious Tibetan tradition. Dozens of monks pulled the endless rope that, in the midst of the religious excitement, revealed what was being carried: the Thangka.

The Thangka was rolled up and was carried by many dozens of monks; order vanished and everything appeared to be driven by the chaos of an event ranging from the religious to the pagan. The common people ran to touch the large roll, some fell or were pushed violently by the movement of the row of monks, songs or rhythmic phrases (if they were not singing) could be heard and we, the outsiders, did not realise when we lost all sense of spectator civility and propriety and ran along with them, we were pushed too, we were living a probably different excitement but our senses were as altered as those of the people who were living a very special religious moment.

Our guide, I should mention, a real expert in these events, kept trying to get us to the next stage of the procession, so we wouldn't miss any of the essential parts of it.

Outside the main temple there was people everywhere and the monastery itself was a city in carnival, living a striking but live religious ceremony. The rows of monks pulling the rope and those carrying the Thangka did their utmost to move through the crowd amid the chaos, their own sweat, their shouting, their red tunics and dust.

To follow the flow of the procession that carried the Thangka would have got us stuck in some narrow passage, so our guide cleverly led us around the monastery to try to anticipate the procession and the crowd that followed them, which is why I could take some shots that simply would have been impossible to achieve otherwise.

The procession took another hour to reach the space designated for the revealing of the big thangka, the mountainside that served as backdrop to the imposing Rongwu monastery. There, on the slope, several monks who had preceded the procession waited for those who carried the Thangka. Now we had an image of perhaps thousands of monks all the way from the main monastery's entrance to the top of the mountain.

The path of the procession was turning into a wonderful live performance, deeply emotional and brilliant. Among their songs and effort, their joy when linked to the euphoria, I could see a gathering of the passionate people of the region, looking for contact with the sacred object while paying their respects at the same time. I saw old people kneel, mothers with children crying in the arms falling down while trying to get their children's forehead to touch the rolled up Thangka, monks hitting their brethren to open up the way and dozens of men offering their hands to help pull.

We had to find a space at the foot of the mountain where we could live the moment of the unveiling, but also to achieve a good angle for shooting video, but electricity cables and a huge amount of people made the task very difficult. In the end, and having found a place at the foot of the mountain, between the movement and jostling of the crowd I found the spot from which I made my shots.

The experience of seeing this huge religious symbol being unveiled in the midst of the euphoria (screams, prayers, music, prostrations, joy) of a people is a thing I fear is impossible to share in its entirety. Once the unveiling began, the people began to "open" religiously, to "ask", to "offer" to "burn", to move everywhere (and so I had to do with my camera). I went back to listen to those songs of the Tibetan women, the high pitches so characteristic of them and that the women of this people are prepared to sing as religious song but, apparently, with ts origins in popular culture.

In that chaos-spectacle the ritual followed its course, several monks in a semi-circle purified items, received money, recited mantras, played trumpets. - "Time is short" - the guide told us, in a blink of an eye everything would end. The Thangka are revealed each year for some 30 minutes only.

Our guide dragged us to another part of the mountain, from where we could see the culmination of the ceremony. Several groups of monks were already on their way back in totally relaxed way, walking, playing, carrying their ritual objects as if worthless packages, all the while groups at the side of the mountain were preparing to re-roll the big canvas with the image of Buddha. Rows of men left back for the temple, rows of men left the area of the event, but many expected the final stage. The chants of the monks continued and among them the rolling up of the Tangka happened relatively quickly. The show had ended in no time. An empty space now adorned the mountain.

Nobody was interested anymore in that gigantic rolled-up Thangka, everything was over, as if that great roll did not have value anymore. No one was waiting for ts return, or at least none of those who had witnessed the unveiling on the mountain.

On our way back, some were waiting, at the doorway of the temple, for the ashes of what had been a few moments ago, I suppose.

Video 1 of the unveiling ceremony of the great Thangka at Rongwu Monastery (March 2009)

Displaying of the Thangka Ceremony at Rongwu Monastery (Monlam Festival 2009) Part 1 By Gustavo Thomas
View in HD Download 720p HD Version Visit Gustavo Thomas's ExposureRoom Videos Page

Video 2 of the unveiling ceremony of the great Thangka at Rongwu monastery (March 2009)

Displaying of the Thangka Ceremony at Rongwu Monastery (Monlam Festival 2009) Part 2 By Gustavo Thomas
View in HD Download 720p HD Version Visit Gustavo Thomas's ExposureRoom Videos Page

Although I had had other experiences with "processions" (two years earlier at Osaka with the Tenjin Matsuri festival and the other one here at Niantog monastery with the Buddha Statue procession), the grandeur of the event had no comparison and I could only compare it with what I experiences when I saw La Fura Dels Baus. I have followed (by chance) La Fura around the world and have managed to see them several times in Mexico, once in Beirut and another time in Beijing, both in open air performances and in enclosed space (1). It is clear that I refer to the open-air performances when I make the comparison with the Tibetan ceremony which I had just witnessed. In the end, what I was seeing was a mass spectacle. The waiting, the continuous preparation before the spectators, the excitement caused by such preparations (movements of players, attachments, machines, etc) always in motion, their spectacular choreography, the open spaces, the movement of the public that never stops being a participant, the freedom as a spectator to talk, to scream, to be as exposed as the actors, this all was so similar to what I had experienced at the ceremonial unveiling of the Thangka in Rongwu. I always wonder at how the experience with La Fura has become a legend in my stage memory.

*

As I mentioned before (and as I like to emphasize) my interest in collecting this information and publish it on the web is purely documentary and is only to share my experience; even though I hope to improve or achieve a desired technical quality in my recordings, I accept that I have sacrificed all to make available the unique moments. I would like to be an educated photographer or to have a team with dozens of cameras filming everything, but too worry too much about that would make me lose the value of the very personal shots my videos of events and scenes offer. I avoid telling a story beyond the linear recounting of events, most of the time I use the actual sound during the shooting and keep the editing to a srict minimum to eliminate what becomes indistinguishable due to movement or error.

I think the best way to look at these documents is in a calm way and with a desire to explore, part by part, combining with the narrative of my experience. I do not want to replace your experience of going to the place and living a representational act of this kind. I want you to experience a little of what I saw that day, those hours. The rest, the stories, the creative videos, those are part of another part of my creative life.

(1) I have an entry on the visit of La Fura dels Baus in Beijing: http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2007/05/la-fura-dels-baus-in-dashanzi-798.html. It is a pity that I didn't take footage of any of their other presentations. Beirut was a huge surprise, especially knowing that the performance would arrive in a boat that had crossed the Mediterranean and that, once anchored at the port of Beirut, would offer a huge "ritual" with no religious reason. This is a video I found in Vimeo.com with the same spectacle but in Portugal:

4 Days of Monlam Festival (Tibetan New Year). Day 1: Procession of the Buddha Maitreya at Niantog Monastery.

Map of Qinghai Province, China

Introduction

The ancient Tibetan region of Amdo in western China is known today as Qinghai Province, a region populated mostly by Tibetan-speaking ethnic groups that have been part of China for hundreds of years. Amdo is part of a vast region of Tibetan culture, which extends from Nepal, India, Tibet, the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Mongolia (the country), all these regions share a common language (which varies by ethnicity and of course under the influence of national languages and Mandarin), Tibetan Buddhism and with it a variety of religious paraphernalia that makes up the everyday life of its population, including the festivities and, of course, their performing arts.

Each lunar new year is celebrated throughout the region with a festival that the western world calls the Tibetan New Year, and Tibetans call Monlam Chenmo (which means "Preaching festival”). Monlam Chenmo comes after a few days Chinese lunar new year is and has its own calendar of events, all of a religious nature. There is no event during Monlam Chenmo not led by the monks of the monastery of each region and, so "represented" by the monks themselves, people from their villages are involved in a seemingly passive way or, as we would say in the performing arts, they act as spectators.

This year 2009, due to the problems facing China across the Tibetan region of its domain (almost one third of its territory), the central government decided not to allow foreigners to enter any Tibetan area except the small region of Tongren, precisely in Qinghai, the former Amdo. As the monasteries of Lhasa, Labrang, and others would be closed to tourism, there was no choice but to visit this region, and it was a wonderful choice; Tongren was kind, peaceful and rich in scenery and religious traditions.

In the Tongren region there are about 10 monasteries, one in every small town; the monasteries are gigantic in comparison with the smallness and poverty of the villages, and each held, on different days, the same religious events during Monlam Chenmo; so you can see, if you have time, the same event represented in a different way by each monastery.

On this visit I had the opportunity to observe the celebration for 3 days at the main and biggest monastery of Tongren, Rongwu Monastery, and one day at Niantog Monastery. At Rongwu there were three events: the unveiling of a gigantic Thangka with the image of Buddha, a procession of the statue of Buddha Maitreya, and a representation of Cham Dance or Demon Masks Dance, and, at Niantog, a small Monastery 10 minutes from Rongwu, another procession of the statue of Buddha. All those were wonderful events for my eyes as a foreigner, but they were also deeply moving and interesting acts for those who travel and seek representational art worldwide.

It is experiencing live this kind of festivities and religious rituals when we discover the undeniable origins of human theatrical activity, and we can also understand much of its extent and development into many fields of human activity. I usually define my experience with a very recurrent phrase, "a return to sources”.

I've been (and I remain) completely ignorant of the structure and origins of most of the events I witnessed in Tongren and the information I give about them surely has blunders and shortcomings; however, I believe that the document itself (photographs and videos), in addition to my personal descriptions of the events, can be a useful material for both the merely curious as the researcher who has not had the opportunity to witness these events live.

Day 1.

Procession of Buddha Maitreya at Niantog Monastery.

Photographs of the procession of the statue of Buddha at Niantog Monastery

If for some reason the pictures of the presentation can’t be seen well, click inside the box and it will take you to a Picasa page where all the photos are in.

Narration of the event:

On February 7, 2009, we were told that at Niantog monastery there would be a procession at midday, we arrived there at about 11:30 in the morning and we had to wait for about 2 hours for it.

The preparations occupied the entire time of our waiting. Monks came and went with religious objects, musical instruments, and placing all at different parts of the monastery; the temple was closed to non-monks and villagers were also preparing their offerings, some elderly women slowly started taking a seat at the back of the monastery’s small square, some children appeared wearing beautiful and colorful costumes (worn especially for the occasion), and dozens of photographers and journalists were upsetting me by taking photos here and there, arranging people as objects and demanding poses for their shots ... They simply broke the charm of those preparations I was witnessing.

Almost at 2 in the afternoon we began to hear the sound of the so-famous Tibetan horns, and a small procession of beautifully attired monks came to the temple among the raucous music of their trumpets, entered the chapel, and hung a curtain to prevent us from seeing inside. They started to pray, it sounded like mantras (I’m sure that was), repeated over several minutes, one after another, relentlessly. The beauty of the thangkas painted on the walls of the temple’s entrance and the sound of the prayers of the monks created a unique atmosphere around.

On the other side of the monastery a monk followed by a group of villagers was walking and praying, performing certain rites that were simply hard to grasp and understand; I could see how he entered with the group of followers into a small temple near the main one (every monastery has between five and ten smaller temples), some minutes before I had listened to a monk playing a drum in that place, and now this other monk had climbed unto a small bank and stayed at the same place, ringing a metal bell several times, and all the others followed him to his side repeating a mantra.

Even when I speak of prayers, mantras and rituals, I must clarify that, without exception, none of the participants seemed to be concentrating or in a "special" psychological mood, they even seemed to be as if at something both very common and without much sense, but my perception was unfounded, my ignorance about these people's body language, which I watched for the first time in my life, is evident.

Suddenly we heard the sound of a gong that came from the top of the temple, and deduced that the celebration was about to begin (if it had not already started hours ago, of course). Dozens of monks, one by one, and with a very slow pace, were leaving the main chapel. Horns and drums were the only sounds, repetitive music, solemn, it seemed to mark the rhythm of the steps yet it never came up to become a dance or a procession, it was a kind of presentation that lasted around half an hour.

The square was filled with a fairly wide circle of monks, with their musical instruments and banners of various types. Those elderly women I talked about before now were singing at several points of the monk’s presentation, they sang a very common kind of singing in Tibet, in a sharp and “spiritual” tone, we heard that chant throughout this festival.

After this long presentation and ritual, the monks began to spread, it seemed they were simply going out; as if it were a sign, people started to pile near the entrance to the Buddha’s chapel, a chapel with a beautiful and colorful altar entirely made with yak butter. The carriage for the procession was ready to receive the Buddha and the excitement was quite high. When the small statue took its place everything went crazy, men ran for the rope that would help pull the carriage, old women threw white scarves to cover the statue, many of them, men and women, were frantically trying to put their forehead somewhere near the Buddha, and songs were chanted to follow the procession. Someone threw candy and the crowd ran to pick them, the procession continued and the crowd followed the carriage in turn.

The carriage with the Buddha would stopped at every church and chapel of the monastery and then it would return again to rest in his chapel until the following year. As we had been there for almost five hours already we could only stand to see the first stop on a beautiful newly renovated chapel. Hence we decided to leave the place, completely satisfied with everything that we had finally seen and experienced.

Video: Procession of the statue of Buddha at Niantog Monastery

The video is edited in HD (high definition), here you'll see it in standard resolution, but if you want to see it in better definition go to the Youtube page and click on "watch in HD.