Losar Customs

Losar is the Tibetan word for "new year." It falls on the first day of the first month of the Tibetan lunar calendar, usually in February or March, and it is kept in Tibetan communities and across the Himalaya, in Ladakh, Nepal and Bhutan among other places. The main celebration is the first three days, and the festivities carry on for fifteen. The Tibetan calendar is worked out locally, so Losar often falls on the same day as Chinese New Year but can differ from it by a day or even a month. We give no dates here, so check the calendar for the year. For the origins and history of the festival, read Losar, the Tibetan New Year; this page is about what people do, and how.

The old year is cleared out before the new one comes in. On Gutor, which means "offering of the 29th", families clean and decorate their homes. In the evening they eat guthuk, a special noodle soup. A Tibetan source also describes people carrying torches and calling out words of exorcism, and temples and monasteries holding dance ceremonies. At the seat of the Karmapa in Bodhgaya, in the account we read, the great Gutor was a protector ritual to Four-Armed Mahakala held in the last week of the year to clear away obstacles before the new year, and a large torma, a sculpted ritual offering, was burned on its last day. This is one lineage's practice. Another monastery in exile holds a fire puja, a ritual of offering into fire, so Gutor is not kept the same way everywhere.

Guthuk is a stew-like soup made from nine ingredients. Its name is explained as gu, "nine", and thuk, "stew". Small dough balls in the soup hide things such as chilli, salt, wool or a piece of coal, and each is read as a light-hearted omen about the person who finds it. In the account we read, a chilli means a talkative person, a white item such as salt, wool or rice is a good sign, and a piece of coal means a black heart. These are family jokes, not doctrine, and families tell them differently.

On Losar the household altar is dressed afresh. Sources describe butter lamps, seven bowls of water, a box of roasted barley flour mixed with butter and sugar called droso chemar, deep-fried khapse cookies, sculpted butter figures, and in some homes a representation of a sheep's head, with fruit, flowers, tea and incense. One Tibetan centre describes the altar as an expression of the wish to cultivate a generous heart and to invite blessings on family, friends and community in the new year, and says that generosity matters more than the cost of the offerings.

People greet each other with "Tashi Delek", a wish for good fortune, and offer khata, the white ceremonial scarves, at home altars and in monasteries. Guests are served dishes such as khapse, dresi (sweet rice) and butter tea, and warm barley beer called chang is also served. In some Himalayan communities the first day is marked with a drink called changkol, made from chang.

Hanging prayer flags is among the customs of Losar. The horizontal flag is called lungta, "wind horse". It is strung from trees, rooftops or other high places so that the wind carries the printed mantras and blesses everything it touches. The new flags go up on the third day, according to one Tibetan source.

The prayers differ with school and lineage. In the account of one Tibetan Buddhist centre in California, protector pujas, ritual services of offering and recitation, run for several days before Losar, and on the day itself people recite a refuge prayer, generate bodhicitta, the wish to awaken for the sake of all beings, and practise Chenrezig or Tara before ending with aspiration prayers. Other monasteries and families pray in their own ways.

The festival closes on Chotrul Duchen, "the Day of Miracles", on the fifteenth day of the first month at the full moon. It is also called Chunga Choepa, the Butter Lamp Festival. It recalls the Buddha's miracles: told as a response to a challenge from rival teachers, over fifteen days he showed miracles, to inspire faith. Some accounts place them at Sravasti.

On this day people make offerings of light, flowers, incense and food, recite texts such as the Heart Sutra and the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, give to those in need, and keep the precepts more strictly. Butter lamps are made in the shapes of flowers and other auspicious symbols, traditionally from yak butter and now often from vegetable ghee. Teachers say that the effects of actions on this day are multiplied many millions of times. Sources give different figures, ten million in some and a hundred million in others, and we have not seen the text they cite, so we give no number.

Within each community the customs also change from village to village and from lineage to lineage. No one list is the whole of Losar.

Losar is the Tibetan New Year, kept from the first day of the first month. Gutor is the offering and cleansing of the 29th day of the twelfth month. Guthuk is the nine-ingredient noodle soup eaten on Gutor. A khata is a white ceremonial scarf. A lungta is a horizontal prayer flag, the wind horse. Chotrul Duchen is the Day of Miracles at the full moon, fifteen days after Losar. A butter lamp is a lamp burned with yak butter, or with vegetable ghee in many places now. Tsagaan Sar is the Mongolian New Year.