Losar
Losar is a new year festival in Tibetan Buddhism. It is celebrated on the first day of the lunisolar Tibetan calendar, which corresponds to a date in February or March. In 2018 it is observed on February 16. The date on which the festival is celebrated varies with location (Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan) and tradition. Losar predates to the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet and follows winter incense-burning custom of the Tibetan religion. During the period of the ninth Tibetan king, Pude Gungyal, it is said that this tradition merged with a harvest festival to form the annual Losar festival. This festival is celebrated for 15 days, with the main celebrations on the first three days. Families prepare for Losar in advance by thoroughly cleaning their homes; decorating with fragrant flowers and their walls with promising signs painted in flour such as the sun, moon, or a reversed swastika; and preparing branches for burning as incense. Debts are settled, quarrels are resolved, new clothes are acquired, and special foods such as kapse are made. An alcoholic beverage chang is made and served warm. It is customary to fashion a sheep’s head from coloured butter as a decoration. Another traditional decoration that symbolises a good harvest is a bucket with a wooden board that creates two vertical halves within which is filled with zanba and barley seeds, then decorated with barley ears and coloured butter. Tibetian celebrates this day by going to the local spring to perform a ritual of gratitude. They make offerings to the nagas, the water spirits who activated the water element in the area and also make smoke offerings to the local spirits associated with the natural world around them.
Losar
Thank you for reading the post. Keep on visiting Happydays-365.com for more days.
