7:18 AM
Tibetan Buddhism still survives intact in Upper Mustang - a once forbidden kingdom high in the Nepalese Himalayas. Here is Al Jazeera's Steve Chao's documentary on his travels to Mustang, the former Kingdom of Lo and now part of Nepal.Mustang was once an independent kingdom, but tied by language and culture to Tibet. From the 15th century to the 17th century, its strategic location granted Mustang control over the trade between the Himalayas and India. It now relies on tourism, animal husbandry and trade.I also noted the recent death of Michel Peissel, who was a French explorer and an ethnologist who devoted a good part of his life to recording the culture of Tibet. He managed to gain access to the Mustang region in the early 1960s; which led to his book Mustang: A Lost Tibetan Kingdom....
Showing posts with label Nepal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nepal. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Rubin Museum of Art: Thomas Kelly's Sadhus
Photo Thomas L. Kelly- Courtesy The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art
I readily admit to having fallen out of love with the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in NYC. Perhaps it was on account of its email newsletters, which for the most part are not terribly informative and are designed to bring you in to see movies and such....giving me the impression that it has lost its way and had become over-commercialized. I know, museums have to make a living, but that's how I feel.
So walking by it yesterday morning, I was glad to see its exterior panels advertising Body Language: The Yogis of India & Nepal, an exhibition of color photographs...
Thursday, November 26, 2009
POV: Nepal's Gadhimai Mela: Atrocity?
Photo Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP/Courtesy WSJ-All Rights Reserved
Here's a thought to coincide with Thanksgiving, one of our most hallowed of celebrations.
The Bariyapur festival (also known as the Gadhimai Mela) has been in full swing in Nepal for the past few days. As you can read in the following excerpt, the age-old festival involves slaughtering of thousands of animals as sacrifice to a Hindu goddess of power.
The ceremony began with prayers in a temple by tens of thousands of Hindus before dawn Tuesday. Then it shifted to a nearby corral, where in the cold morning mist, scores of butchers wielding curved swords began slaughtering...
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Bas Uterwijk: Nepali New Year
Bas Uterwijk lives in Amsterdam, is an alum of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City (and plans on attending the next one in Manali in July), and has now sent me a link to a multimedia production of his colorful photographs made during his travels to Nepal. Bas has been telling stories with images for most of his career as a computer graphics artist for a video game company, and has recently made the jump to being a full-time working photographer. We wish him all the luck in the world.Nepalese New Year's celebrations in Thimi by Bas Uterw...
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Kumari: Nepal's Living Goddess
Photograph � Paula Bronstein/Getty ImagesI read on the National Geographic�s website that Nepal has just chosen a new Kumari, the living goddess, a few days ago. The Kumari is essentially Nepal�s virgin goddess, whose body houses the spirit of Taleju (an incarnation of Goddess Durga).There are stringent rules for a girl to be chosen as a Kumari. She must belong to the Shakya clan (a community of goldsmiths), her family must be extremely pious Hindus, she must have 32 characteristics of physical perfection (including a set of 40 teeth), and she has to prove her fearlessness by spending a night in a dark room with decapitated carcasses.The chosen...
