-Rinchen Angmo
While the pandemic has prevented the celebration of Dosmochey as usual, prayers were conducted at Gompa Soma. If I am not mistaken, within the Gompa Soma building even Chham (monastic dance) took place today. However, I didn’t want to spoil the sanctity of the inner prayer hall of the Chhokhang by taking a video. There were different kinds of visitors today. Youngsters stepping in for one kora, an elderly lady whose devotion was unhindered by her hunchback, beggars from Rajasthan in colourful dupattas and those rushing to provide tea to the monks. Sitting there, you could almost forget who the ‘I’ is anyway, which is kind of what Buddhism encourages.
Dosmochey is celebrated on the 28th and 29th days of the 12th month, marking the end of the Tibetan Lunar year. The religious festival was started by the rulers of Ladakh based on the Mon-Lam (Great Prayer) ceremony of Lhasa, Tibet. The festival symbolizes the victory of good over evil as the gods and goddesses are invoked to bless sentient beings for the upcoming year. As I sat on the steps before the Chokhang, I guess I could make myself understand that that good had to be envisioned by my own mind and not by circumstances.
The festival is held at different monasteries across Ladakh. The Leh Dosmochey is popular among all. The monks make torma (which traps evil entities, and is later thrown), perform chham (masked dance), and create a thread cross called dosmo chenmo. The dosmo chenmo is created to trap evil spirits. I think I had a glimpse of this year’s dosmo chenmo at the prayer hall in the building cross the courtyard.
Usually the festival is held at the courtyard below Leh Palace. The festival ends with the thread cross being burned at Katmochey; hence burning the evil spirits that got trapped. This year like all years has a lot of evil to be burned. The question remains, will the evils that are the consequences of karma be burned.. the setting suns says that they will, they certainly will. However, the torchfire has to be held by oneself and the fire must be set to that never fading self-centeredness.
source- Rigzin Chodon le and Tashi Morup le- Sahapedia, Nawang Tsering Shakspo le- A Cultural History of Ladakh, Stanzin Dasal le- Reach Ladakh.
