Asia - Mani Rimdu Festival, Thyangboche Monastery, Nepal

The next day was Tshe-wang [Life Conservation] a public opening ceremony where local farmers brought offerings as thanks for their harvest, and the monks gave blessing for the next year.  We could also attend the rehearsals for the upcoming dances. The monks dressed in the most elaborate capes and hats we’d seen, intricately embroidered with gold.  A silver lined skull – cup is brought out to distribute tshe-chang [life spirit], and then passed around for everyone to take a drink.  Meanwhile, the locals are filling baskets with torma for offerings [and used to feed the audience at the performance].  Each basket is brought forward, with chanting, blessed, then carried out.  Finally, preceded by two horns so large they need noviate monks to carry the front of them, the lama returns to the monastery. 

Just after sunrise, much like the long horn solos of Siegfried, the long Alpen horns rang out again across the mountain valleys calling us to the courtyard.  Then 2 monks with the smaller, clarinet type horns climbed to the uppermost cupola and played the final series of calls. 

Shortly afterward, the performance began with the  Tsam-li-bulu [“Dance of Showing”].  The musical accompaniment consisted of a variety of horns and  cymbals, and often included cymbals and small drums played by the dancers. We sat in the balcony, among an everchanging crowd, mostly of local Nepalese who had come to the monastery for the festival.  As the day proceeded, bamboo trays of fried snacks, cookies [contributed by westerners] and peanuts would be passed around, and the monks brought bowls of yogurt with rice.   

The crowd overlapped the dance area of the courtyard, and that contributed to the performance.  Many of the early dances included high whirling kicks, often over the heads of the spectators.  Interspersed among the dances were comic acts, and a fakir who balanced on the tip of a sword. 

I had brought a book by one of the First American climbers of Everest, Lute Jerstad, who came back to Nepal as part of his doctorate research.  The people around me noticed the pictures and soon the book was being passed around, everyone naming each of the dancers pictured, 

The scripted performance ended about sundown and the crowd dispersed for dinner.  Then later in the evening many people gathered again in the courtyard for the people’s performance.  The locals taught us the simple circle dance.  The repetitive steps, monotonous chanting and hot cups of fresh chang  created a mystical effect and the perfect ending to a magnificent day.