Folk Beliefs and Customs

Ⅹ-85Folk CustomsKangding, SichuanBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

In the Qing dynasty, the Mingzheng tusi (native chieftain) held a mountain-god sacrifice and a horse-racing meet on the mountainside each year; the people therefore called the mountain "Paoma Mountain" (Horse-Racing Mountain). Beginning in the 7th century, on the 8th day of the fourth lunar month each year, grand religious activities were held here to commemorate the birthday of Shakyamuni Buddha.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Kangding Zhuan Shan Hui (mountain-circumambulation festival) is a folk traditional festival unique to Kangding County, Sichuan Province. Legend holds that the 8th day of the fourth lunar month is the birthday of Shakyamuni Buddha. On this day, nine dragons spray sacred water to bathe him; hence it is also called the "Buddha-Bathing Festival". Buddhist believers hold that doing a single good deed or chanting the Buddha's name once in this month yields a hundred thousand times the merit. Therefore, on the 8th day of the fourth lunar month, believers in Kangding City carry prayer flags, prayer wheels, ceremonial horns, tree branches, and other offerings to the Buddha; chanting the Buddha's name, they circumambulate the mountain along set routes (called "bajiao" in Tibetan) to commemorate the Buddha's birthday. Paoma Mountain lies in the southeastern corner of Kangding City; it is a spur of Mount Gongga extending northward. Its original name was "Lamozhe", meaning "Goddess Mountain" in Tibetan. Since the 8th day of the fourth lunar month falls in the season when spring warms and flowers bloom in Kangding, after circumambulating the mountain and worshipping the Buddha, people also hold Buddhist activities such as the "Buddha Bathing" and "Buddha Sunning", horse-racing and spring-outing activities, and colorful folk-art performances on Paoma Mountain. Trade activities are held in the city; on the mountain and below it, visitors crowd like woven cloth, coming and going in throngs. Thus gradually took shape the Fourth-Month-Eighth Circumambulation Festival, integrating religion, folk custom, folk culture, and commerce. The Kangding Zhuan Shan Hui gradually evolved from a traditional ethnic religious festival into a common festival of all the ethnic groups of Kangding. People of all ethnic groups from every township in Kangding City may take part in this festival spontaneously. It is an important cultural space bearing the local customs, religious culture, social life, and ethnic folk arts of the Kangding region, as well as a platform for the people of all Kangding's ethnic groups to interact, exchange goods, and conduct trade; it is an important means of transmitting ethnic folk culture. The Kangding Zhuan Shan Hui is a grand gathering at which the people of Kangding pray for blessings. While celebrating the festival, they also display the local customs and folkways to the fullest, making the circumambulation festival a window and platform for the world to understand Kangding, bringing vitality to the city's economic and tourism development, and promoting harmonious social development.

The circuit on the eighth of the fourth month

Pilgrims carry prayer flags, wheels and branches, chant, and walk a fixed clockwise circuit around the hill on the Buddha's birthday.

The dragon waters and the bathing of the Buddha

Ninth dragons are said to sprinkle holy water on the newborn Buddha, which is why the day is called the bathing festival.

Displaying images and racing on Paoma hill

After the circuit come image displays on the hillside and horse races on the flats, both on the same spring day.

The old origin in the native chieftain's races

Under the native chieftain the mountain already held races with a summit sacrifice, and the name Paoma hill comes from that custom.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The routes of the circumambulation festival radiate outward from Paoma Mountain as their axis: on the circumambulation path along the mountainside, pilgrims circle clockwise, with prayer flags and mani stone piles lining the way; on the flat ground at the mountain's foot, tents, stalls, and the racecourse are laid out in order. The masses of the city's townships do not march by ethnic group; streams of people from all directions meet on the same stretch of road — their accents and their wished-for prayers all differ, yet they all walk in the same direction. Paoma Mountain's original name, Lamozhe, means "Goddess Mountain" in Tibetan; the summit is revered as the sacred place where the goddess bathed, and the prayer flags, mani piles, and prayer wheels along the route are therefore added again and again, over time becoming part of the road itself. The Buddha Bathing and Buddha Sunning rites are held on the mountainside platform; horse racing and spring outings spread around the flat ground; and commerce occupies the main road into the city. After the festival, exchange among the ethnic groups does not disperse with the processions: the pastoral and farming areas continue to swap livestock, medicinal herbs, and highland barley along this same circumambulation route.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

What matters most in the circumambulation festival is the route rather than the procedure: the believers circle in the direction of the bajiao; which stretch one stands on and which mani pile one encounters are all governed by old rules, and going in the wrong direction is regarded as disrespectful. This festival expanded from the Buddhist birthday to gather the solemnity of Shakyamuni's birth, the lightness of Tibetan spring outings, and the bustle of buying and selling into a single day — a shared measure of time for all Kangding's ethnic groups. In recent years, tent lodgings, prayer-flag offerings, and handicraft stalls around Paoma Mountain have increased year by year; the right to preside over the festival still rests with the monasteries and folk chambers of commerce. As the proportion of visitors grows, how to pass on the order of circumambulation and the rule of silence has become a matter left to the young to uphold.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

Wu Jishan 05-3019
Xu Shunwei 05-3020
Huang Guanghui 05-3021
Chen Jikun 05-3022
Sinapinchu 05-3023
Liu Shimei 05-3024
Zhang Qingming 05-3025
Zheng Quanguang 05-3026
Ye Da 05-3027
Li Yaohui
Luo Shengzong

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Folk Beliefs and Customs (Kangding, Sichuan) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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