Articles
![PITRI PAKSHA: FORTNIGHT OF THE ANCESTORS]()
PITRI PAKSHA: FORTNIGHT OF THE ANCESTORS
According to Hindu mythology, Yama, the god of death, takes the soul of a person on the point of departing this world to pitri loka, where they remain for three generations. Once a year, Pitri Paksha (‘fortnight of the ancestors’), aka Sorha Shraddha (‘sixteen [days of] devotion’), provides an opportunity for families to pay homage to their ancestors, either in their homes, in a temple, or at a revered pilgrimage site.
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JOGI & BLOWING THE PHERI
The lives of the Jogi, an extreme minority ethnic group in Nepal, are intertwined with an instrument made from a blackbuck horn, known as a pheri. The Jogi believe that the spirits of their ancestors reside in the pheri and that they have a duty to 'blow the pheri' in Spring and Autumn to drive away evil and ensure good fortune in the homesteads that they visit. Read more to learn more!
Thumnail image courtesy of Mayamitu Neupane, Global Press Journal, Nepal.
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NGARI TRIPTYCH PART 3: GUGE - THE LOST KINGDOM
Part 3 of a blog, chronicling an unforgettable journey I made to three iconic locations in the Far West of Tibet in the Autumn of 2016: The Lost Kingdom of Guge. Lasting for seven centuries, at its height the Guge-Purang Kingdom spread along the whole length of the swathe to the south of the Himalayas, from Kashmir in the west to Assam in the east, and saw the ‘Second Diffusion’ or ‘Second Advancement’ of Buddhism in Tibet. Read the article to learn more about this mysterious place.
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NGARI TRIPTYCH PART 2 - KAILASH: AXIS OF THE WORLD
This is Part 2 of an unforgettable journey to three iconic locations in the Far West of Tibet I made in Autumn 2016: the Mount Kailash kora, the highest point of which is the Drolma-la. At 5630m, this is officially classified as ‘extreme altitude’: to put that in perspective, nowhere in the world is permanent human habitation to be found above 5400m due to oxygen levels being approximately half of those at sea level. And it was over the Drolma-la that, if my own strength and the spirits permitted, I was going.
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NGARI TRIPTYCH PART 1 - MANASAROVAR: LAKE CREATED IN THE MIND OF BRAHMA
Almost a decade ago, in the Autumn of 2016, I made an unforgettable journey to Lake Manasarovar, Mount Kailash, and the Guge Kingdom, Tibet, and subsequently wrote a blog, chronicling the core of that journey, entitled Ngari Triptych. Here is the introduction and first part, Manasarovar: Lake Created in the Mind of Brahma.
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