Labrang Monastery Sun Buddha Festival 2023

February 3, 2023, the thirteenth day of the first lunar month.

The festival culminates on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, when the Labrang Monastery holds the Buddha-Janitoring Festival. On this day, visitors with devout admiration come to Labrang Monastery from as far away as the foot of Tanggula Mountain, the shores of Qinghai Lake, the grasslands of Aba, the shores of the Bailong River, and the depths of the Inner Mongolian Desert, or even the summer from the other side of the ocean, to witness this Buddhist event.

When the ceremonial procession of the temple's Dafa Terrace in the "God of Fortune eight riders" escorted to visit the open space in front of the Junfo Terrace, as a hanging scroll on the ridge of the gable wall, the scroll Buddha slowly unfolded, a team of monks in the gable wall at the top of the tightly clenched, around the monks in the following to receive the show, left and right on both sides of the monks and two rows of monks, four parties in unison and careful! Will be a wide about 40 meters, about 80 meters high thangka show in front of people.

The reason for the sun Buddha

Usually, "sun Buddha" sun are big Buddha thangka. Thangka is a Tibetan color satin mounted after hanging worship religious scroll painting, pigment all use gold, silver, pearl, agate, coral, turquoise, malachite, vermilion and other precious minerals such as gemstones and saffron, rhubarb, indigo, and other plants for the pigment in order to show that it is sacred.

Sun Buddha in the sun is the treasure of each monastery, is the most precious kind of thangka, precious materials, size is particularly amazing, the big ones are more than ten feet long and wide. It is because of the huge size, these large thangka can not match the temple worship, usually basically no opportunity to show, most of the time, are in the monastery Tibetan cabinet hidden.

Tangka itself is the Tibetan people used to hang scroll paintings for worship, only the collection is not for worship, then lost the original intention of the thangka production, and sun Buddha, is for worship of the big Buddha thangka set up specifically for the festival. There is also a part of the reason is literally sun Buddha, Big Buddha thangka year-round collection, take out the sun to prevent moisture.