Jiangzidama Festival
01 · Historical Records
According to legend, Raodan Gongsangpa Basangbu was the interior affairs minister of the Sakya dynasty and also the Dharma King of Gyantse, enjoying considerable prestige among the people.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Gyantse Damar Festival, whose name means "horse racing and archery" in Tibetan, is a traditional Tibetan festival combining athletic competition, artistic performance, and the sale of goods. After Basangbu passed away, his disciples held annual memorial offerings in his honor. Later, because of warfare, the memorial rites were forced to stop. In the Fire Rat year of the Tibetan calendar (1408), Raodan Gongsangpa became the Dharma King of Gyantse and, following his father Gongsangpa's testament, restored the memorial rites. That year, from the 10th to the 27th day of the fourth Tibetan month, Raodan Gongsangpa held memorial offerings and scripture recitations for his grandfather; entertainment activities began only on the 28th. The activities were organized by the Dharma King's subordinates, soldiers, and servants, and mainly included unrolling Buddhist thangka scrolls, deity-dance performances, wrestling, horse racing, and stone throwing. From then on, the period from the 10th to the 28th day of the fourth Tibetan month was fixed as an annual memorial festival. By the time Tashi Raodanpa (1447) governed Gyantse, the festival's entertainment activities had grown richer, adding events such as horse-racing and archery contests, and the Gyantse Damar Festival was formally established.
The ritual half of the festival
The ritual runs from the tenth to the twenty-seventh of the fourth Tibetan month, with images displayed and masked dances performed by the ruler's retainers.
A restored memorial rite
The memorial was broken off by war and resumed in the fire-rat year 1408 under the ruler's testament, ending its prayer days on the twenty-seventh.
Horse racing and archery
Under Zashi Raodanpa in 1447 the fair added horse racing and archery, completing the festival whose Tibetan name means racing and shooting.
Wrestling and stone throwing
Wrestling and stone throwing anchor the fair day, the latter decided by the weight of the stone, the angle of the cast and the footing of the thrower.
Displaying the scroll paintings
Displaying religious scroll paintings accompanies the masked dances as a form of ritual speech that explains origins to the gathered crowd.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
It is popular in the area of Gyantse County in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and is held from the 10th to the 28th day of the fourth Tibetan month.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Damar Festival combines memorial rites and athletic contests within a single stretch of calendar days, a structure rarely seen among Tibetan festivals. The memorial period runs from the 10th to the 27th day of the fourth Tibetan month, nearly half a month in total, devoted entirely to unrolling Buddhist thangka scrolls, deity-dance performances, scripture recitations, and memorial services for the deceased; only from the 28th does the festival turn to entertainment events such as horse racing and archery, wrestling, and stone throwing. The boundary between the two segments is clear and the two are not mixed, reflecting the way the long slack season on the plateau is allocated. The organizers of the festival were not the monasteries but the Dharma King together with his subordinates, soldiers, and servants; a rite passed down within a family grew into a regional public festival, with secular military force and religious authority joining as the two co-hosts of the same celebration. The memorial rites were interrupted once and later restored by descendants, leaving a traceable break in the transmission lineage and also creating room for programs added later. Today the Damar Festival in the Gyantse area is still held from the 10th to the 28th day of the fourth Tibetan month. The layout of the racecourse and spectator seating, the rules governing force in stone throwing, and the grouping method for wrestling are mostly passed down orally by local elders, with no written regulations; the style of saddles used on the racecourse and the techniques of training horses are likewise handed down from generation to generation along with the horse teams. The festival combines athletic competition, artistic performance, and the sale of goods in one: spectators watch the riders compete while also exchanging goods and discussing business at the fairground, so the economic and recreational functions of the festival run in parallel on the same open ground. In recent years, horse-racing festivals in various parts of Tibet have often been held in imitation of this format, and among them the Gyantse Damar Festival is usually regarded as the most complete in procedure, its significance no longer limited to the locality.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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