Lo-sar1 means New Year in Tibetan. It is the first day of the first month of the Tibetan lunar calendar. This year’s Tibetan Losar, Metal-Ox Tibetan New Year, falls on 12 February. Losar celebration is one the most festive periods of the year observed with a lot of religious, cultural and merrymaking events for a week or two. Losar celebration is the time when one could witness and taste the best of the Tibetan culture and delicacies. Men, women, and children are in the best of their traditional attires. Colourful prayer flags flutter from the top of the houses, monasteries and the hills around.
The Monlam prayer festival 2021
The Monlam prayer festival is actually almost a two week event. The festival starts on the fourth day of the Tibetan calendar and ends of the fifteenth day that is the day called the Butter Lamp Festival (Choe-nga Choepa) that is the greatest and last day of the Monlam Festival. So one long festival season that lasts for fifteen days starts on the 1st day of the Tibetan year that is the Tibetan New Year Festival called Losar and ends on the 15th day on the night of the full moon called the Butter Lamp Festival. During the Monlam Festival, Buddhists pray and commemorate the miracles Buddha did about 2,500 years ago in India. Prayers and pujas can involve reciting sūtras, chanting mantras, performing mudras, visualizing Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and offering water, flowers, incense, lights, food, music, etc. All these methods generate merit. Merit is necessary for good health, long life, happiness, worldly success, spiritual realization and good rebirth
