In Ladakh, cultural traditions and ancestral customs are kept alive and vibrant through various festivals and celebrations, both religious and secular. Here, every occasion - marriage, birth, farming and harvesting, even the flowering of plants is celebrated with great fanfare, marked with feasting, dancing and singing of folk songs that form part of its rich culture. In summer, most villages hold archery festivals and thanksgiving events, while winter is the period in which most of the religious festivals and social and cultural events are held.

	A Monastic Festival in progress

The festivals held in the monasteries are the ones with which Ladakh is famously associated. Almost all the major Buddhist monasteries hold annual festivals, mostly in winter. These take the form of dance-dramas performed by Lamas, attired in colourful robes and wearing fearsome masks. The most famous festival is that of Hemis which is held in early summer and is dedicated to Padmasambhava, founder of Tibetan Vjarayana Buddhism. Every 12th year, a huge Thangka of the saint is ritually exhibited during this festival. Other monasteries, which have summer festivals, are Lamayuru, Phyang, Takthok and Karsha in Zanskar. The monasteries of Spituk, Stok, Thiksey, Chemrey and Matho have their festivals in winter between November and March. Likir and Deskit (Nubra) hold their annual festivals coinciding with Leh Dosmochhe which is held in late February and is one of two New Year festivals, the other being Losar, which falls around the time of the winter solstice.

Mask dancers in the Festival

The core event of the monastic festival is a ritual dance-drama known as ‘Chhams. These are choreographed by the mystic dance master or Chham-spon strictly as per the guidelines described in the dance books (Chhams-yig). The chhams is performed mainly as ritual offerings to the tutelary deities of the monastery and its guardian divinities by selected lamas of the concerned monastery, who are trained as per the codified rituals. They wear elaborate brocade robes and masks representing various divinities. As the ‘Chhams’ approaches its end on the last day of the festival, the climactic scene is enacted in which a grotesque human figure made from dough, is ritually cut into pieces and scattered in the four cardinal directions. This figure symbolizes the embodiment of the three cardinal evils in the human soul viz. ignorance, jealousy and hatred.

The monastic festivals also provide the local people an opportunity for socializing, trading and entertainment. On this occasion, makeshift markets spring up overnight near the monastery to which people throng. For the more devoted villagers, however, the event is essentially a pilgrimage to the monastery and its various temples, for it is during this period only that they can see all the images and figures, which are otherwise kept veiled.