Thimphu Tsechu

Get ready for pictures in this post. We took over 1,000 photos at the festival and were only able to narrow them down to 40 or so. It was an incredible experience and we were fortunate that our trip to Bhutan coincided with it.

A Tsechu is a Buddhist festival in honour of Guru Rimpoche, the saint who brought Buddhism to Bhutan.

It’s an opportunity for the Buddhist followers to immerse and cleanse themselves of the bad Karma and to remind them of what to make of their lives

The Thimphu Tsechu was established by the 4th Temporal Ruler, Tenzing Rabgye (1638–1696) in 1670, so it is now nearly 350 years old.

Thimphu is the capital and largest city of Bhutan with about 50,000 people. The three-day religious event plays an important role in the lives of Bhutanese people as it is an opportunity for the Buddhist followers to immerse and cleanse themselves of the bad Karma and to remind them of what to make of their lives.

The setting of the festival is inside the Tashichho Dzong, which houses the offices of the King and has been a seat of government since 1271.

These pictures of the masked dancers are from The Dance of Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava which is a biographical dance that represents the 8 forms of Guru Padmasambhava where 6 are peaceful and 2 are wrathful forms.

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Dances are performed over the three day period and it is believed that merit is gained by attending the festivities.

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The dances invoke the deities to wipe out misfortune, increase good luck, and grant personal wishes.

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The seating arrangements are rustic. It’s first come, first served, and all on hard stone benches or grounds. It certainly lends to its authenticity! Ello did a great job of finding us seats close to the front.

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It was difficult to take anything more than short videos, mainly because it would have been rude to hold your camera up for a long period and block the view of people behind you. But we did manage to get a couple for you to get the sense of the drama.

We had to continually remind ourselves that this was happening right in front of us! It just was so moving to be there in that setting high in the mountains of Bhutan.

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The pageantry and color were stunning.

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There also was a clown figure that would come by periodically to collect money for wishes. Of course the children were apoplectic when they saw the clown.

The other dance that was fascinating was of 18 women where all they did was sway and chant. This was their tribute to the deities. The video could have been longer but it would have been more of exactly this.

We loved them!

As if this weren’t enough, after we left the festival Ello took us for a picnic in a nearby forest.

There were a couple of other families but otherwise we had the grounds to ourselves.

What a memorable experience.