STATE TIMES NEWS
LEH: Annual Monastic Festival known as ‘Thiksay Gustor’ of the Thiksay Monastery concluded here at Thiksay on Friday.
A large number of people including Executive Councilors, Councilors, SSP, army officer, political party heads, domestic and foreign tourist thronged the Thiksay Monastery to witness festival. The main attraction of the festival was the colorful mask dances performed by monks with the rhythmic beat of religious musical instrument wearing spectacular costumes and brightly painted masks demonstrating prevailing of victory of truth over evils.
Head Lama of Thiksey Monastery Thiksay Khenpo Nawang Chamba Stanzin Rinpochey said that the annual monastery festival is an occasion where monks in their best costumes performs ritual dances and it’s a great opportunity to offer prayer and devotees should attend the festival with great faith and devotion to earn meritorious life. He also mentioned that during festival faces of protective deities which remained covered whole year are opened for public only during this festival. It is believed that annual festival of different monastery protects the people from natural disaster, accident and other natural calamities to have a harmonious and prosperous life, he added.
While giving a brief introduction about the festival, Venerable Chamba Chospel the Chamspon of the Monastery told media that monks have been performing special prayer over the past one week on the eve of their annual festival, praying for peace, prosperity and happiness to all beings. He further added on the first day of the festival monks performs mask dance without wearing the mask which is called as ‘Dik’ just like a rehearsal while on second day performances is known as ‘Serkim’ where monks in their best costumes performs mask dances and finally on the last day is ‘Storma’ a ritual of dispersal of ‘Storma’ or the sacrificial cake made of barley flour and butter representing the destruction of all forms of evils.
