Spituk

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. You can help by converting these articles into an encyclopaedia-style entry, deleting portions of the kind normally not used in encyclopaedia entries. Please also fill in missing details; put categories, headings and sub-headings; and combine this with other articles on exactly the same subject. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly on their online archival encyclopædia only after its formal launch. See examples and a tutorial.

Spituk

By Reach Ladakh, Wednesday, January 9, 2013

[Reach Ladakh]

spituk

Leh: The annual two day ‘Spituk Gustor’ began today amidst thousands of spectators and believers. Said to be held since centuries, the festival falls on the 27th and 28th of Tibetan lunar calendar's eleventh month.

“With an aim to remove the obstacles in the present life and the life after death (which we always fear), the monks of the monastery perform mask dance, called chams. Attired with peculiar ornaments and dresses, these chams or the mask dances signify the demarcation of bad omen to infuse in the land –peace, tranquillity and happiness,” said Gen. Thupstan Tsogo, who is the Nyerpa or the manager of Spituk Monastery.

The annual festival or the gustor also marks the victory of virtue over evil. The mask dance performed by the monks represents the guardians, protectors and the gods and goddesses.

"Chams are performed to suppress the inside evils which sow the seeds leading to desire, hatred, ignorance and jealousy. Authenticity this is not a fair, but a religious event where every god and goddess is being offered prayers in different forms for the betterment of mankind” said Mr Norbo Martsey, a renowned scholar/historian of Ladakh.

The Spituk Monastery whose head lama is Kushok Bakula Rinpochey, is known for its collection of Buddhist artefacts. It houses a collection of ancient masks, antique arms, icons and numerous Thanka paintings, all done in vegetable-based colours.

The monastery that dates back to the 11th century is located atop a hill, overlooking the River Indus, around 18 kilometres from Leh, the District Headquarters of Ladakh.

Prayers start seven days before and dances are performed in the main two days. Bag-lung which falls on the 25th of Tibetan lunar eleventh month, was held day before yesterday. On this day the dresses and masks are distributed amongst the monks who perform at the gustor” said Gen Thupstan, who is the Chokki -Lobon or the coordinator/ head of lamas.

Dik or the dress rehearsal was performed yesterday. The festival will end tomorrow with the symbolic termination of evil, depicted by the burning of an effigy.