Gedong Festival: A window to Tibetan culture

During the Tibetan Gedong Festival, Buddhists gather at monasteries, celebrate bumper harvests and pray for auspiciousness in the coming year. It is window to know the Tibetan culture.

A few days ago, the Tibetan Gedong Festival was held in Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery in Shangri-La, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of southwest China’s Yunnan Province.

Hundreds of Tibetan Buddhists together tourists gathered at the monastery for the festival and watched the religious dances in which masked and costumed monks portrayed a host of ghosts and deities from the Tibetan mythology, while others playing traditional instrument including crashing cymbals, drums and deep, vibrating ceremonial horns.

The Gedong Festival is an annual grand occasion where Tibetans celebrate bumper harvests and pray for auspiciousness in the new year. In different Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, the is held at different times. And in Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery, it is held from November 26 to 29 on Tibetan calendar.  

Editor: Wang Shixue