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AN A MDO TIBETAN PASTORAL FAMILY'S ONE MILLION WATER OFFERING

<h3>AN A MDO TIBETAN PASTORAL FAMILY’S ONE MILLION WATER OFFERING</h3> Film By: བཀྲ་ཤིས་རྒྱ་མཚོ། Bkra shis rgya mtsho (Zhaxijiancuo 扎西尖措) Film Length: 13 minutes 51 seconds Equipment: iPhone 12 Pro Max Flutist: Lab sgron rgyal August 4, 2024   A Tibetan herding family’s water offering ritual at Yen dar in Rka rgan Valley, Thang mgo (Tanggu) Town, 'Ba' rdzong (Tongde) County, Mtsho lho (Hainan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Mtsho sngon (Qinghai) Province, PR China is documented. The specific location is at a latitude of 34°59'10", longitude of 100°46'42", and an elevation of 3,766 meters above sea level. <h3>OVERVIEW</h3> On the morning of August 3, 2024, I drove with my nephew Bsod nams bkra shis (b. 2014), niece A+yon chos sgron (b. 2018), and sister-in-law Nyi ma lha mo (b. 1996) to visit the family of my maternal uncle, Ngag dbang smin grol (b. 1965). We traveled to our family pasture, Yen dar, in Rka rgan Valley, which my maternal uncle's family was using for summer grazing. The journey from the county town to the pasture was approximately forty kilometers and took about half an hour due to the rough road through our community pasture. Recently, my family relocated to 'Ba' rdzong County Town, and my maternal uncle’s family now uses our land, paying us 40,000 RMB annually. My visit was to assist with a water offering and document it on video. <h3>WATER OFFERING</h3> Water offerings are an important and growing social trend in our community. Traditionally, families have offered water daily to Buddhist images and statues in their shrine rooms. With increased access to information, many now emulate this practice, motivated by a Buddhist belief that offering water increases virtue. The eleventh-century Buddhist master, Atisha (982-1054), advised Tibetans that offering clear water helped accumulate merit. This practice is now widespread in Tibetan monasteries and by individual families. I interviewed my aunt, Skal bzang sgrol ma (b. 1970), who explained that the ritual began locally in about 1994 with offerings for the healthy birth of her family’s eldest son, Yum skyabs rgya (b. 2016), and to increase family merit. Initially, we aimed to offer one million water offerings, and for that aim we <a>offer around 100,000 each summer</a>. We have since made offerings for the second son, Tshe dpal mkhar (b. 2018), the second daughter-in-law Choe bzang sgrol ma (b. 1996), and their sons, Sras mchog rgya (b. 2022) and Phur ba skyabs (b. 2024). Unfortunately, we couldn’t complete the 100,000 water offerings in 2022 because my third nephew was born that year and was ill for several years. Only recently have we been able to relax and see him in better health. We need to complete more than 100,000 offerings to reach our goal by the summer of 2025. Although we hoped to finish in the summer of 2024, the task is not easy. so we expect to accomplish it next summer. <h3>Ritual Process</h3> The offering involves scattering a bzang drug (six precious substances: amomum tsao-ko, bamboo manna, clove, saffron, nutmeg, and Elettaria cardamom) powder in water in a large plastic container. On the first day, this water is offered in front of an image of Buddha Amitabha near the water offering location. The following day, the local incarnation of Buddha’s image replaces Buddha’s picture During the ritual, a statue of Dzam b+ha la ‘God of Wealth’ is placed in a bowl on a metal folding bed at the end of a line of seven bowls. The God of Wealth and the line of seven bowls remain stationary until time to take a break. Extra bowls are used repeatedly during the offering. The single string of beads with 108 beads is also placed on the bed. After completing one round, a bead is moved to the side to keep count of the numbers. Four people are involved in the process. Two pour water into the offering bowls, one transfers water from the bowls into another container, and a fourth person adds a small amount of water to ensure the bowls are thoroughly rinsed out. On August 3, 2024, 5,000 bowls of water were offered in the morning, and 2,000 more after lunch. On August 4, 2024, 3,000 offerings were made, totaling 10,000 over these two days. My aunt’s younger sister’s two daughters joined us until noon because that family is my uncle’s neighbor. We shared a meal under sun shades on the grassland outside the tent. TIBETAN TERMS a+yon chos sgron ཨྱོན་ཆོས་སྒྲོན། bkra shis rgya mtsho བཀྲ་ཤིས་རྒྱ་མཚོ། bsod nams bkra shis བསོད་ནམས་བཀྲ་ཤིས། bzang drug བཟང་དྲུག Choe bzang sgrol ma ཆོས་བཟང་སྒྲོལ་མ། dzam b+ha la ཛམ་བྷ་ལ། lab sgron rgyal ལབ་སྒྲོན་རྒྱལ། <a name="OLE_LINK3"></a><a name="OLE_LINK4"></a>ngag dbang smin grol ངག་དབང་སྨིན་གྲོལ། nyi ma lha mo ཉི་མ་ལྷ་མོ། phur ba skyabs སྲས་མཆོག་རྒྱ། rka rgan རྐ་རྒན། skal bzang sgrol ma སྐལ་བཟང་སྒྲོལ་མ། sras mchog rgya ཕུར་བ་སྐྱབས། tshe dpal mkhar ཚེ་དཔལ་མཁར། yen dar ཡེན་དར། yum skyabs rgya ཡུམ་སྐྱབས་རྒྱ།   CHINESE TERMS   Hainan海南 Qinghai青海 Tanggu 塘谷 Tongde 同德 Zhaxijiancuo扎西尖措   Friday September 6, 2024 <div> <div> <div><a name="_msocom_1"></a></div> </div> </div>

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36/100

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These five areas show where the dataset supports — or may limit — practical reuse.

Stewardship: 8
Harmonization: 4
Access: 16
Reuse readiness: 8
Engagement: 0

Topics

Ba' rdzong (Tongde) County ,'Tibetan water ritual ,'Amdo Tibetan ritual Amdo water ritual Qinghai pastoral Tibetans