Mani Rimdu – Buddhist Festival at Tengboche Monastery

Dingboche 4360m - Tengboche 3870m

    Situated on the high mountains, the trail down from Dingboche has lots of beautiful scenery that makes us forget the tiring steps as we have to descend down with a number of bends and uneven stones on the way. To go down from Dingboche, it takes about 2 and a half hours where you can enjoy the bright, sunny and pleasant flat town after you got a chilly moment in Dingboche. Ama Dablam, the dazzling peak is taller than both Dingboche and Tengboche. Ama Dablam means ‘mother’s necklace’ which looks like a mother stretching her arts in order to protect her child. There are lodges where we can enjoy the originally prepared food, though there is smoky inside. There are dining halls where about 20 people can sit and discuss.

    Another feature of the place is a monastery. The monastery was built in 1916 as a Lama had the vision to build it there. The monastery faced several tragedies in different periods. In 1930 it was destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt. Then, the monastery was burnt down in 1989. Now, the monastery is very famous because it is the site where the world-famous Mani Rimdu festival is held by the Sherpa people. Inside the outer walls is the courtyard where the festival is held with seating up and around a central pole. Above a few steps of the monastery through a large gateway, there is the gompa, which is beautifully decorated in the Buddhist style. The monks sit on the large warm looking woven cloaks on them and a large gong sits in the middle.  It is said that this monastery is a working living monastery, linked with its sister monastery at Rongbuk on the north Tibetan side of Everest. There are over 50 monks housed in the Tengboche monastery currently. If we go there around 3 pm, we can learn meditation from the monks at the monastery. The monks show an ideal manner to the visitors so that we do not feel we are on the earth but in paradise. The way of meditation is very strange and amazing because music plays a great role. In one sense, it is a test for the visitors how patient they are to be silent and cool.

Mani Rimdu – Buddhist Festival at Tengboche Monastery

There are many sacred places in the mountain valleys in Nepal. It is said that ‘beyuls’ are the sacred places in the high mountain valleys that are blessed by Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava. There are many mountains in Nepal that hide ‘beyuls’. One of the sacred places is the Khumbu Valley in the Everest Region. Sherpas from the Khumbu Valley are devout Buddhists. The Buddhists believe in deep spiritualism. The history of the religion Bon Po is very long even before Buddhism in these mountain communities.  It is believed that Guru Rinpoche or Padmasambhava introduced Buddhism in the Himalayas. 

The inhabitants living in the high Himalayas in Tengboche observe Mani Rimdi festival, a Sherpa village named after a Buddhist monastery situated in the village. Chenrezig Tengboche Monastery was established three centuries ago by Guru Rinpoche seeking blessings and protection from the Buddha in the advent of Buddhism in the mountains. The monastery is an important spiritual site for Sherpas living in the Khumbu Himal. Colorful masked dances are known as ‘Cham’ and religious tableaus by monks mark the festival. Sacred tantric rituals by Lamas are also performed at the monastery during the festival.

As the festival of Mani Rimdu begins with the installation of a ‘mandala’ using colored sand by the monks, the monks meditate and worship in front of this mandala for ten days. To celebrate the festivals, Sherpa villagers from Tengboche and neighboring villages gather at the monastery’s courtyard performing dances and rituals in colorful ways. The monks in elaborate costumes enact scenes depicting Padmasambhava while fighting with the demons. The monks give Buddhist lessons on goodness and morality. They perform altogether sixteen dances with some comic interludes.