HAPPY LOSAR FOLKS!!

The day has finally set in.... Ladakhi LOSAR!!

HAPPY LOSAR (New Year) to all my readers.

Whoever you are. Now that’s out of the way. What will the new year bring I wonder, apart from the four seasons, birthdays, work, the sun rising and falling, and the polar ice caps melting faster than an one can imagine, watching Meg Ryan again in her new Avtar, eh!
Losar festival is celebrated to commemorate the advent of yet another new Lunar year. It is the Ladakhi or Tibetan New Year. Losar is the most important of all the socio-religious events of Ladakh. The actual Losar celebrations creeps in with Namchot, a socio-religious event celebrated to observe the birthday and the Buddha-hood of Tsongkha-pa, the Tibetan saint-scholar and founder of the Geluk-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism in the 14th century. The New Year festivities at all homes begins with the 'Metho' ceremony during Losar eve, when a processions of people carrying flaming torches pass through the Monasteries, villages, bazaars and lanes, chanting prayers to chase away evil spirits and hungry ghosts believed to have accumulate during the year as a result of bad Karma (deeds). An interesting display of fire and light is created by the whirling of the flaming torches which are then thrown away in a gesture to bid farewell to the old year and to welcome the new year ahead. The New Year day itself starts with making offerings at the shrines of personal gods and clan ancestors and with greetings to family elders, relatives and friends. This festival is full of music, dancing and merry-making.
This LOSAR festival has an interesting history. In the 17th century, King Jamyang Namgyal decided to lead an expedition against the Balti forces during winter. He was advised that any expedition before the New Year celebrations by two months would be inauspicious, establishing a tradition that people still follow - celebrating Losar on the first day of the eleventh month of every Lunar year. To quote Ladags Melong a local magazine: "according to historians and the Pod-Gya Tsigdzod Chhenpo, it was the Tibetans who changed their Losar date and not the Ladakhi's and other Himalayan cultures used to have the same Losar date. When Genghis Khan conquered Tibet in 1227, he made the Tibetans celebrate it as the New Year. This is why Tibetan months are also called Hor-lza (Mongol-month). The Mongols also started the system of numbering the Tibetan months. Until then there was no tradition of numbering the Tibetan months tangpo, ngyispa, sumpa (first, second, third). Instead months were called by their names.
Therefore it is interesting to note that the Ladakhi Losar is the original Losar date and if we dropped the system of numbering the months (due to which our Losar seems to fall in the eleventh month) then there would be no confusion. In fact certain other Himalayan regions such as Sikkim, the Sherpas in Nepal and the Khombo region of Tibet also celebrate Losar at the same time as Ladakh."

For all Buddhists, Losar is a sacred time and a time for feasting and celebration. It is a time to be with the family, and a time to ensure that bad omens are not carried into the new year.

New year... A new month... A new week... and yes... a new day ! mmm guys I must say that the days are simply going great with me out here. I am enjoying no matter I am being away from my home this time.. missed my family sooooo much but what to do coz Life is changing.....

I have wished my self already.. :) so.. Wish you all a blessed LOSAR!!