Ladakh City Guide
Be a part of Hemis festival as you explore Ladakh a fascinating destination of Jammu and Kashmir. Being the biggest and most famous of the monastic festivals, Hemis festival is thronged by hordes of tourists.
Is celebrated at Hemis, the biggest Buddhist Monastery in Ladakh to mark the birth anniversary of Guru Padmasambhava . Splendid masked dances are performed to the accompaniment of cymbals, drums and long horns. A colourful fair, displaying some beautiful handicrafts, is the special highlight of the festival.
Hemis is the biggest and most famous of the monastic festivals, frequented by tourists and local alike. It falls in late June or the first half of July, and is dedicated to Padmasambhava. Every 12 years, the gompa's greatest treasure, a huge thangka - a religious icon painted or embroidered on cloth - is ritually exhibited
The Hemis Splendor :
According to the Tibetan calendar, the great annual festivals held in the villages of Ladakh takes place in winter, with the exception of thseshu held at Hemis in summer. This is one of the most important events of the valley, its chief feature being the presentation of a mask dance-drama for two days at a stretch. From the time of Rgyalsras Rinpoche around the year 1730, the Hemis Festival has been observed year after year without break and has now become well known the world over. The festival commemorates the birthday of Guru Padmasambhava, the celebrated founder of the Lama tradition and the presiding authority of Tibetan Buddhism. According to the records in Sikkim, Padmasambhava came northward and convinced the Lamas of Tibet that he was sent to Tibet as an incarnation of Buddha. The festival both eulogises the great deeds of Padmasambhava and reiterates the victory over evil for the protection of Buddha dharma. Guru Padmasambhava is the founder of the Tibetan tradition and the source of the Terma tradition of the nyingma.
He is popularly known as Rinpoche, the precious teacher. Nyingmas honour him next to Buddha and refer to him as the second Buddha. It is believed that guru Padmasambhava descends as a representative incarnate of all the Buddhas, to bestow grace and improve the conditions of living. He does so on the 10th day of each month and all of the 10th dates which come in a year or the most important of the 10th of the Monkey year in a cycle where the thangka of the guru is exhibited. Each year, the Hemis Festival is observed. The purpose of this sacred performance and the dances is to bestow good health, subjugate disease and conquer evil spirits. Guru Padmasambhava is regarded as one of the most extraordinary teachers in the history of Buddhist sages, a possessor of enlightened power. He was a great esoteric practitioner, said to have been born in a lotus, led an ascetic life and taught numerous followers about the esoteric approach to enlightenment and had the distinction of assuming different forms at different places.
