Thikse Gu-stor
Highlights

The
Gu-stor tradition begins with a ceremony in which liquid offering is
presented to invite the gods of the four quarters to witness the sacred
dances and protect all living beings from the evil spirits. The resident
lamas of the Thikse monastery, wearing masks of various divinities, which
include the guardians of law or 'Dharmapalas', and patron divinities of the
Geluk-pa monastic order, in closing of the 2-day festival ritually dismember
with the help of ritual weapons a 'sacrificial figure' molded from dough is
in a ceremony called Dao-Tulva ' that symbolizes the banishment of the
enemies of the religion (as well as the assassination of the Tibetan
apostate King Lang-dar-ma by a Buddhist monk during the mid 9th century),
also referred to as the 'killing of the enemy.' Its pieces are then
dispersed in the 4 cardinal directions. The last act of the monastic dance
is the burning of an effigy symbolizing the stronger forces of evil
(Stor-ma). Thikse, only 19 km from Leh, is perhaps the most visited
monastery after Hemis, on account of its excellent maintenance and
impressive Potala-like location, along the rising slopes of a hill,
overlooking many picturesque villages strung along the Indus river. Founded
about 550 years ago on the site of an earlier Kadam-pa establishment, today
it is a major Geluk-pa monastery with about 100 Lamas on its rolls and
several branch monasteries affiliated to it. The mystic dances here are
considered to be among the most impressive in Ladakh.