Festival Attracts Pilgrims From Across Tibet

Monks and pilgrims crowded into Lhasa on Friday for the most important festival on the Tibetan religious calendar, even though many had feared it would be canceled after bloody anti-Chinese rioting last fall.

The 11-day festival, known as Monlam Chenmo, began on schedule Thursday, with about 500 Buddhist monks from monasteries around Tibet gathering at the Jokhang Temple, the holiest site of Tibetan Buddhism. By Friday, the number had reached nearly 1,000.

A man in a sheepskin-lined robe and a silk-and-fur herdsman’s hat, one of the hundreds of pilgrims at the temple Friday, said he had “just come to pray.” He said his name was Chera, that he was 61 years old and had traveled five days by bus from eastern Tibet and donated nearly $30 in order to get into the temple.

“I have no excessive demands,” he said. “I just want to be lucky when I am reborn into my next life. And I want to die a good death.”

Despite the unrest of Oct. 1, which is believed to have cost the lives of up to 14 persons, there has been no apparent trouble so far in connection with the festival, which dates from the year 1409. But the festival is taking place against a background of continued tension.

The official New China News Agency reported in mid-February that “last year’s riots in Lhasa were still causing concern as to whether Monlam Chenmo can be carried out smoothly this year.”

Only a few dozen foreign tourists, all in organized groups, have been allowed into Lhasa for the festival. Most foreign reporters have been barred from the region since the October rioting, but permission has been granted to four Western reporters based in Beijing to report on the celebrations.

Tour guides have told tourists that it is dangerous to visit the vicinity of the temple because violent demonstrations might break out. It is not clear, though, to what degree there is any real fear of disturbances, and to what degree the guides simply want to avoid having Westerners speak freely with the monks.

Few Monks Attend

The number of monks taking part in the first two days of the festival has been below what might be expected. Some monks have told Western visitors that in normal circumstances there would have been 2,300 monks taking part in Friday’s ceremony.

Monks have given different explanations for the low number. Some say a partial boycott is taking place to prevent the ceremonies from giving the impression that there is religious freedom in Tibet. Others say officials have limited the number who can attend. Still others indicate that there are monks who do not want to come to Lhasa because of the strengthened police and army presence.

Despite the tension, Friday’s ceremony was a brilliant display of the color and pageantry of Tibetan Buddhism. Maroon-robed monks filled the central courtyard of the Jokhang Temple, chanting Buddhist scriptures and drinking Tibetan yak-butter tea.

Near the end of the day’s ceremony, hundreds of pilgrims who had made donations to the temple filed between the monks to receive blessings. They placed white scarfs, symbols of respect, on a throne that can be used by the two top leaders of Tibetan Buddhism. These are the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s former theocratic ruler, who has lived in exile in India since an abortive 1959 rebellion against Chinese rule, and the Panchen Lama, the second-ranking religious leader, who lives in Beijing but sometimes visits Tibet.

Over the centuries, Tibet has sometimes been part of China and sometimes independent. China dates its territorial claim from the 13th-Century Mongol conquest of China and Tibet. The Qing Dynasty conquered Tibet in 1720, after a long period of independence. Tibet was independent again from the 1911 overthrow of the Qing Dynasty until Communist troops entered Lhasa in 1951. Since then, China has controlled the region, and made it plain that it views advocacy of Tibetan independence as treason.

‘Leftist Error’ Admitted

The rioting last fall was touched off by pro-independence demonstrations that China has blamed for the most part on the Dalai Lama. Authorities recently acknowledged, however, that “leftist error” in policies in Tibet aroused resentment that contributed to the outbreak of violence.

The decision to go ahead with Monlam Chenmo fits in with other indications that the authorities have decided to try to move forward with a policy of limited religious freedom in Tibet, rather than return to greater suppression of religious activity. This is only the third year that Monlam Chenmo has been revived, following the harsh suppression of religious activity in Tibet and throughout China during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.

The ages of the monks at Friday’s ceremony seemed to tell the story of the ebb and flow of restraints on Tibetan Buddhism. Most were men in their 20s and 30s who became monks after 1979, when repression of Tibetan Buddhism began to be lifted. Many teen-age monks, and some as young as 5 or 6, were also present, a further indication that the faith may have a strong future.

Few Middle-Aged Monks

In an apparent reflection of the influence of the Cultural Revolution, relatively few middle-aged monks were seen. But there were a significant number of older men, who studied the Buddhist scriptures three decades or more ago, and have now returned to monastic life.

In an apparent gesture of inter-ethnic cooperation, several ethnic Chinese women, either nurses or doctors, from the Lhasa People’s Hospital appeared for the ceremony, distributing traditional Chinese or Tibetan medicine as a tonic to prevent or cure common illnesses.

“It’s in order to be of service to them,” one woman explained.

In addition to the pilgrims inside the temple, hundreds worshiped by prostrating themselves in front of the temple or walking for hours in circles around the outside.

Most seemed simply to be having a good time.

“In my hometown, we have no such Great Prayer Festival,” a pilgrim named Tuden said. “This is the place to come, because this is the center of things. All the prayers are the same. We don’t want help with anything special. We simply came to worship.”