ABSTRACT
Throughout the region in which Tibetan Buddhism once flourished we come across the ancient tradition of monastic festivals in which sacred dances and edifying pantomimes are performed. The first traveller to report in writing on these 'devil dances' appears to have been H.H. Godwin-Austen in 1865. 1 For the next hundred and thirty years these masked mystery plays have fascinated many Western and other travellers to these regions. The Chinese did their best to stamp out this form of ritual and religious performing art in Tibet during their infamous Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. Although there are scattered bits of information on performances of this type coming out of China, it is unclear to what extent similar rituals have survived as a genuine tradition in any of the monasteries in China proper, its Northeastern Provinces and in Mongolia. It may, therefore, be only in the southern borderlands of Tibetan Buddhism - in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutanthat we can still observe these monastic dances being performed as part of an authentic, living religious tradition. Numerous early descriptions and even occasional colour photographs, such as, for example, those taken before the Second World War in a Mongolian monastery in Gansu Province by the Japanese Buddhologist Hashimoto Koho2 reveal all kinds of differences as well as striking similarities with what can still be seen today in Bhutan. One is inclined to conclude, therefore, that the monastic dances performed in these regions were all part of the same Tantric ritual tradition, but that they must once have displayed all kinds of interesting regional and perhaps even local variations.
