The Shotun or Yoghurt Festival is one of the most important in the Tibetan calendar. It is held in the first week of the seventh lunar month. The referance to Yoghurt is the offering the local population give to the monks as they are not allowed to leave the monastry during this period.
We chose Drepung monastry as the site for our Pilgrimage as this offered the best Thankha to go and see as well as the main point for the Lhasa people.
We joined thousands of others moving from Lhasa up the hills to the monastry passing through plenty of peoples requesting alms, many of these were fake monks, even though the locals seem to know this they didn’t seem to mind, we also passed from cloud to cloud of thick smoky insence, made from buring piles of juniper or sage pretty much for most of the day.
Once we reached the monastery we did visit some of the temples and assembly halls but we were drawn away by the sounds of chanting and the long tibetan horns being played from the hillside.
Above the monastery in the photos you will see the massive buddhist Thankha which everyone came to pray before and to throw their recently bought white scarves over from the top as an offering.
Me..? I came to see the music…horns, chanting and one other instrument which I was offered in the Barkhor a woodwind instrument played through a small reed a bit like a clarinet.
This event was reported all over the Chinese news and there were a few cameras about on the day I’m sure my hat must have been in shot somewhere.
ian
firstly i didnt have my right glasses on and thought you went to a shotgun festival, imagine my suprise at the lack of redneck hill billies. Having recovered from that slight error i could only sympathise with the poor bleeder who is carrying all of those giant horns on one shoulder, deaf and sore, what a job.
