Chama
01 · Historical Records
Chama was originally a primitive religious rite performed by Tibetan Buddhism in order to spread the Buddha's teachings, propagate doctrine, strengthen belief and ward off the temptations of evil; it gradually developed into a comprehensive religious art encompassing dance, music, poetry, painting, butter sculpture and puppetry. It entered Inner Mongolia along with the Yellow Sect founded by Tsongkhapa, and has been transmitted in Inner Mongolia for more than four hundred years. Over the more than two centuries from 1778 to 1960, the Chama of Guangzong Temple was never interrupted in the major temples of Alxa, and it produced a generation of Chama masters.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Chama involves movements such as jumping, singing, chanting and striking. It is first composed by apprentice lamas on the basis of the principles of the Buddhist scriptures, and can be performed in public only after it has been examined and approved by the tulku and the eminent monks. The "chama ben" is the opening dance of the Chama. The Chama performers wear gold ornaments and helmets and hold a variety of weapons; with the combat movements of "ninety-nine times eighty-one" they display the martial prowess of the Chama, carrying a strong atmosphere of battle and a heroic spirit. Then come the beast and bird dances and the phoenix dance and other dance sections imitating animals and birds or depicting the conditions of everyday life, and finally a comprehensive dance that carries the rite of sacrifice and the sending off of ghosts; with movements such as kicking, stamping, leaping, jumping and pounding of the feet, it produces a variety of crisp and intricate rhythms. In the great majority of temples within the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region the lamas perform the Chama once a year; its forms of presentation include three types, "Chama of the scripture hall", "Mile Chama" and "Chama of the public square". Square Chama is strongly danced, with fixed procedures, standardized movements and a large number of participants, and so it is more widely transmitted. Chama generally consists of 13 to 15 dance sections; within the Inner Mongolia region the Chama of Guangzong Temple, of Uxin Juu and of Xianghuangqi Banner are the most representative. The Chama of Guangzong Temple was created by the first tulku of Guangzong Temple in Alxa, Luosang Tudeng Jia Cuo; it is transmitted mainly in temples large and small throughout the Alxa region, and its purpose in performance is to ward off disaster and misfortune, to protect the safety of living beings, and to pray for the health and good fortune of the world. The Chama of Guangzong Temple has fourteen dance sections and takes 60 minutes to perform, and the whole dance is carried out along a circle. The dancers follow a strict order of appearance and each has a fixed position and a fixed set of movements, which may not be violated. The Chama band consists of fifteen people, of whom five play the music for welcoming the gods and ten provide the fixed accompaniment. In performance the methods are flexible and the variations are marked. The main instruments used by the band include two Dharma drums, two pairs of cymbals (tsang), two Dharma horns, two ganding pipes and four bixiguer pipes.
The fourteen sections of Guangzong Monastery Cham
The Cham of Guangzong Monastery, compiled by its first living Buddha, has fourteen sections lasting about an hour, danced along a circular line with fixed entrances and positions.
Cham-bon, the opening dance
Cham-bon opens the rite: dancers in gilded helmets wield weapons and execute the eighty-one combat movements of Cham.
Hall, Milarepa and courtyard Cham
Three forms of Mongolian Cham: the hall rite, the Milarepa cycle, and the courtyard Cham, which is the most dance-like and the most widely spread.
The Cham orchestra
The Cham orchestra numbers fifteen players and uses two ritual drums, two pairs of cymbals, two horns, two ganden and four bishigur.
Dorgi and Jia Shangqin
Dorgi taught young monks from the 1990s on; Jia Shangqin, his pupil since 1985, masters the roles and instrumentation and owns eighteen sets of Cham costume.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
It is roughly divided into three dance forms, the praise dance, the joyous dance and the bird-and-beast dance, in which the 36 Chama gods are played by 36 performers.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Chama of Guangzong Temple is strongly marked by primitive religious colour, has exerted a major influence on the development of Mongolian dance and music, and holds research value in religious studies, folklore, art studies and other fields. At present only a few masters who master Chama remain, and this comprehensive folk art of primitive religion is on the verge of being lost and urgently awaits rescue. Daoerji (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): As a boy he was a lama at Guangzong Temple in Alxa Left Banner and learned from his master the traditional way of dancing the Chama, mastered the matching of masks with costumes and the playing of Chama music, transmitted the traditional Chama performance in full in the Alxa region, and excavated and organized data on Chama costumes. From the 1990s onward he organized a dozen or more young lamas of Guangzong Temple to learn the performance techniques of the Chama dance and the playing of its accompanying instruments, so that the original way of dancing the Chama could be inherited and continued at Guangzong Temple. Male, Mongolian ethnicity, born in October 1937, died in February 2014, native of Alxa Left Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of Chama, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fourth national-level batch. Jia Shangqin (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Mongolian ethnicity, born in February 1954, native of Alxa Left Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. From 1985 onward he studied the Alxa Chama under the Guangzong Temple lamas Daoerji and Jin Xiribu; through rigorous study he mastered the performance and instrumental accompaniment of the various Chama gods, and can match costumes and masks to the original appearance of the gods as described in legend. From 2008 onward he integrated the Chama dancing he had mastered, the matching of costumes and the musical accompaniment into a single body of skill, and has carried out systematic transmission activities. Every year he travels to the temples of Alxa to teach and perform the Chama dance. At the same time he took part in collecting and organizing the Alxa Chama dance, and holds eighteen sets of Alxa Chama costumes. The "Alxa Chama" he wrote was included in the "Inner Mongolia Volume" of the Collected Chinese Folk and Ethnic Dances. Representative inheritor of Chama, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth national-level batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Daoerji 04-1573
- Jiashangqin 05-2262
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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