Mani Rimdu Festival Dances

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October 28, 2007: Tengboche

Mani Rimdu Festival Dances

At 7:30am we went to pick out our seats for the masked dances. We noticed there was frost on the ground. I was not surprised to see that as it was 41 degrees in our room during the night. Lots of people are camped out in tents. They must have really been cold!

Then we had breakfast of fried eggs and toast which I made into a sandwich.

Thog-den Dance
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The dances started at 9am and lasted until 5. It was a beautiful clear day with all mountains in view. Our seats were in the sun so we were warm, which was a nice change. This is the first time since we started the trek that we were warm. The Rimpoche sits in the balcony with the high monks around him. They play cymbals. Two monks blowing long horns are behind us. It is very crowded.  We thoroughly enjoyed watching the dances.

The “Cham” dances at Tengboche came from the Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet. There is no other identical Mani Rimdu Festival. The dances aim to prevent all obstacles to strong faith in the Buddha Dharma and the exercise of compassion. Each of the dances relates to a puja which was performed during the earlier days of the festival.

Rol-Cham Dance - Grand entrance
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Click here for  2 web sites that will give you somewhat of an idea of what the music and dancing was like.

http://www.travelwalla.com/trailermanirimdu.html

Rol-Cham Dance - Grand entrance
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http://www.findinternettv.com/Video,item,4181544210.aspx

Rol-Cham is the grand entrance of the monks wearing yellow hats and playing ritual instruments.

Serkyem is the first dance with dancers in costumes and black hats. This dance is to extend and enhance one’s life, health, intelligence and appearance. The black hats represent Vajrayana yogi priests.

Rol-Cham Dance - Grand entrance
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Ging-cham is danced by four attendants of Dorje Trollo, a wrathful appearance of Guru Rimpoche who established Buddhism in Tibet. Two are females with drums and the two males carry cymbals. They make offerings to Dorje Trollo.

Dorje Trollo appears as a single masked dancer. He is preceded by monks playing ritual instruments.

Nga-cham is a complicated dance with two skeletons and two black hat dancers. The skeletons carry a dough figure representing evil on a rope between. It is symbolically destroyed by the black hat dancers.

Head Lama on balcony with several monks
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Mi Tsering the long life man, is a comic interlude.

The Mahakala dance has eight characters, all representing different deities. Tseringma (the main long life sister associated with Mount Everest) Mahakala (the protector) and Mahadeva are the main ones.

Zurra-rakye a local protective deity, carries a goat horn and long stick. Two attendants are with him. He is the guardian of Khenpaulung, a hidden valley that has not yet been opened.

Khadro are five female deities of wisdom or dakinis – also referred to as skydancers.

Monks blowing horns
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Thog-den makes an appearance in the second comic dance. This is the only dance with speaking as he jokes with his assistant and the crowd as he teaches religion.

Lhagma is to distribute any leftover rilbu or long life pills. Two masked dancers, one makle and one female, perform this task

Ti-jum is where four masked dancers carry knives.

Zor-cham is a ritual exorcism where dancers with black hats carry small torma (butter cake offerings) which signify evil. The dancers throw out these evil torma.

Serkyem Dance
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Then-cham also is to dispel evil influences. Half the dancers wear black hats and the other half wear masks.

Log-cham is the finale, with some dancers from each cham dance.

Serkyem Dance
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Dinner was spaghetti, carrots, cauliflower and apple pie which Phuri made. Overnight at Gomba Lodge.

http://www.tengboche.org/mani_rimdu.htm

http://www.infohub.com/ARTICLES/monks.html