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Tsechus
...the colourful festivals
Every district hosts a festival called tsechu once
every year. Although a local festival, tsechus are
immensely popular with tourists and travelers who
come from all over the world to melt into the
throngs that gather for the festival. After all,
this is the only time of the year that tourists are
allowed to enter the dzongs. Literally translated as
“the 10th day,” a tsechu is celebrated on or about
the auspicious 10th day of a spring or autumn month
to honor the great saint, Guru Padmasambhava. The
annual festival is the highpoint of socializing for
the community of the district. Dressed in their best
finery and jewelry, families converge in the
thousands at the dzong, carrying baskets of
elaborately prepared food which they consume outside
the dzong in a giant picnic of sorts. Inside the
dzong, at the courtyard, especially trained monks
perform morality plays and masked dances with
religious themes for the viewing pleasure of the lay
people. The tsechu festival thus also serves as a
simple but interactive way of imparting Buddhist
teachings. Some tsechus conclude at the crack of
dawn with the unfurling of a thongdroel (an enormous
appliqué portraying a religious personality) that is
suspended on a wall in the courtyard for a few
minutes. This once-a-year ritual usually draws large
crowds as it is believed
that the mere sight of a thongdroel cleanses off the
negative karma one has accumulated through one’s
sins.
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