Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 184

156
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ August, 1931
interested me particularly, as it was unlike anything I had seen before. Three or four women would gather and form a circle. Each woman had in her hand a leather strap strung with little bells, such as are hung on the necks of ponies in Tibet when a noble rides forth. The women would then begin to sing and stamp their feet rhythmically, at the same time jangling the bells which they held in their hands. Gradually numbers of mon-strangers-would gather around, join in the song and stamp their feet in the same rhythmic fashion. Verse after verse would be sung and the stamping would go on for many minutes, until the singers were out of breath, or one of the women weary and jostled from behind would fall down. Then the party would break up, only, however, in most cases to form again a few yards further to the right, once breath and voice had been recovered. It was obvious that these parties were gradually making the way around the Inner Circle, .. performing the prescribed cir. cumambulation of the Cathedral square. It was quaint to see them performing this holy rite in such an exceedingly jovial fashion."
In Burma "all propitiative ceremonies among the wild tribes end in drinking and dancing, and commonly in drunken orgies." (E.R.E., III, 7.)
In The Word of Lalla, 172, it is remarked that ecstatic religious dancing is a very old practice in India and is there explained philosophically as a copy of the Dance of the Shiva
-the Dancing Lord of the Himalayas-"typifying the course of the cosmos under His rule. It implies (philosophically] that the devotee has wholly surrendered the world and become united with Shiva [i.e., the Deity, represented in modern Tibet by the Buddha)."
In the Calcutta Review, 1925, p. 71, there is an article by A. Somerville on "Queer Tibetan Customs," in the course of which he describes the Devil Dance thus: "In early Tibet there were two national dances which held precedence to all others, these were the
Devil Danoe' and the 'Lama Dance. Of these, the Devil Dance' was certainly the more popular, and was originally a religious ceremony of the old Bon faith which flourished in Tibet prior to the introduction of Buddhism and was intended to propitiate the devils and various earth-demons, the worship of which formed the basic principles of the Bon ritual. Later it degenerated into a grotesque ceremonial dance, held principally at night, in which the performers disguised themselves in hideous masks representing various animals and demons, and careered wildly around a figure of Buddha or a hugo bonfire, uttering wild cries and imitating as closely as possible the motions of the various animals they represented. The significance of these masks was explained by their facial expression and was intended by the Lamas to instruct the ignorant on-lookers in the basic principles of the Buddhist faith. Thus the man who lived & cruel life, would later, according to the laws of Karma and re. birth, as interpreted by the Lamas, return to this earth in the form of the beast or demon he most nearly represented. Gradually, however, with the ennobling influence of Buddhisin and the introduction of a superior class of Lamas into the various monasteries all over Tibet, the popularity of the Devil Dance died out, but many of its rites, costumes, etc., were incorporated and the Lama Dance we see to-day is actually & co-mingling of the two."
He then goes on to remark: "The statue of the largest Buddha is brought out and placed a short distance from the Monastery, facing the entrance. In the centre is a shrine of good. luck, composed principally of coloured thread, paper and flags. The worshippers advance towards this shrine, spray it with handfuls of rice or lay various votive offerings, such 88 fruit, milk, etc., before it.
"The dance now commences. Heralded with a flourish of trumpets, a clanging of cymbals and beating of drums, the Lamas, made hideous with their grotesque headgear, troop slowly out of the Temple and commence to circle slowly round the shrine of 'good-luck.' Gradu. ally, with the music, the speed of the dancers increase. They work themselves up into a religious fury, whirling swiftly round and round, till exhausted, when with one accord they rush into the Monastery and the dance is finished,"