Festival of Blessings

The following article had been carried in the U.S. publication Whole Life Times and had been reproduced from its website. The article is also mentioned in the database of  the Australian National Library.

When I boarded the last bus from Tezpur to Rangapara, in the heart of India's north-eastern  state of Assam, the orb of the rising moon already dominated the winter evening. I knew a  Purnima (full moon) was approaching, more so because I was on my way to attend an  obscure Buddhist festival. And these are inevitably held on full-moon nights.  When the bus finally moved, the tiredness and irritation of the day's travel gave way to the  intent of studying the moonlit countryside. This lasted until the vehicle turned off the  highway to the side roads, which in daylight resembled nothing so much as a bombed airfield,  were even worse in darkness. The moon I had so enthusiastically planned to observe kept  bobbing up and down outside my window, disappearing at times, as the bus lurched from  one crater to another.  On my previous visit, I had arrived unannounced at Assam's Little Tibet, severely disrupting  the academic atmosphere of the State's only Tantric Buddhist seminary. This time, however,  the Tashi Cholling Ningmapa monastery radiated a welcoming aura of festivity. Outside the  gate stood many cars bearing registration plates of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan.  Inside, crowds of maroon clan Lamas and Annis (nuns) mingled with the laity. Music made  indistinguishable by the loud buzz of human speech blared from an unidentifiable source.   I managed to find a couple of familiar faces, and before long I was sitting in one of the  monastery's back rooms sipping butter tea and listening to warm words of appreciation for  responding to their invitation. A temporary surge of self-importance hindered me from  confessing that I am always on the lookout for one. Later, Rigzin Dorjee, the ever-smiling  son of the abbot, Venerable Terton Kunzang Dichen Linpa Rinpoche, explained to me the  significance of the next day's event, Wang, the annual ceremony for receiving blessings.  The monks had arranged for my hotel room near the railway station. All throughout that night  I could hear people arriving for the coming festivities.  The following morning, in what resembled a trans-Himalayan convention, throngs of people of  diverse communities and nationalities marched towards the monastery. Some, like the  Monpa and Sherkdukpen tribals of Arunachal Pradesh, as well as their Bhutanese neighbors,  could be identified by dress,  others by badges saying something like "Sherpa Association of Assam."  The ceremony had already begun by the time we reached the venue. The grounds were  thronged with hundreds of pilgrims, and scores more joined by the minute. The Rinpoche  and his son, aided by a few disciples, were consecrating a new section of the monastery  housing several sizable Mani prayer wheels. The Wang, I learned, would be bestowed in  the afternoon, preceded by dances (chams) highlighting aspects of Tibetan Mahayana  Buddhism.  First was the dance of Dorjee Drolod, a wrathful form of PadmaSambhava, the maverick  Indian Tantric who established the Dharma of Buddha in Tibet and is the tutelary deity of  the Ningmapa sect. Performed by the Drapas (student monks) of the institution, it featured  a Dorjee Drolod in a fierce wooden mask prancing amongst heavenly damsels in wigs,  each sounding a pentagonal Dambaru (tiny drum). Finally, he sat down and the heavenly  damsels pranced around him.   The dance of the spiraling Black Hat Tantrics or Nakpas was next, but the most interesting  performances of the day were the dances of the Garuda and the Yamdutas. In both instances,  the performers wore finely crafted wooden masks denoting their respective roles.  The Garuda dance displayed the amalgamation of Hindu thought within the Mahayana  Buddhist theology, where the eagle-faced Garudas are the destroyers of evil Nagas or  dragons who hid the Jewel of Bodhi. Chasing the dragons with spread arms, the Garudas  leapt in formations, culminating the act by clutching symbolic snakes in their beaks.  The skull-and-bone Yamdutas, meanwhile, put on a wild exhibition. The messengers of death  illustrated the relentless juxtaposition of serenity and suffering, the impermanence of life and  the ultimate end for each one of us. Often considered grotesque, the emphasis on the  hideous is well in tune with the Vajrayana and the Tibetan Mahayana doctrine.  Dressed in absurd ragamuffin attires with equally comical masks, jokers kept the audience  happy between acts. Whether playing a daft mendicant or a weird old hag, they never failed  to obtain steady peals of laughter, especially from the younger spectators.   Bearing a special significance upon the forthcoming rite, the Ging and the Zinbab Cham were  the two final dances before the commencement of the Wang. For the Ging Cham, dancers in  demon outfits rushed in frenzy amongst pilgrims beating their drums to chase away lurking evi l spirits. The Zinbab Cham invoked the deities upon the people gathered for the Wang.  Both were accompanied by furious drumming and a whole spectrum of strange "toots" and  "blares" from a wide array of Tibetan musical instruments, from huge mountain horns to small  trumpets and cymbals. The steady chant of monks dominated the background.   The time for bestowing the Wang finally arrived, and the pilgrims zealously rushed to take  places in the line filing past the Rinpoche and his entourage. Clutching the customary khada  or silk scarf, each aspirant received blessings from the Rinpoche by being tapped with a dadar,  a holy wand. Da means "arrow" and dar means "five colors," each denoting one of the five  senses. Then, each pilgrim was touched upon the forehead by a tsebum, a small pot-like  vessel imbued with scriptures and mandalas based on Tantric ecstatic exercises.   A ritual drink comprised of highly camphorated whiskey was served in a bowl made from a  human skull. The distribution of a barley sweet called tseril rounded off the observance.   After the day's boisterous festivities, I eschewed the noisy hotel near the train station, and  instead slept in the prayer hall beneath the stern gazes of the Guru Rinpoche  PadmaSambhava, Lokeshwara and Chensrezig. Outside, the full moon covered  everything with a pale silvery glow.