Editors Note: At 5 on the morning of the 11th day of the fourth lunar month in 2005, this writer attended the mountain god worshipping rituals held by three villages in the Labrang Monastery area.

Labrang is located on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is a multi-ethnic residence in which people of the Tibetan ethnic group form the majority. Over thousands of years, people there have worshipped the temple mountain god atop the mountain on a regular basis. It is a religious ritual on the largest scale and longest influence among various such natural worship rites in Labrang. The major contents of the custom are arrow planting, burn aromatic plants and flying Lungda.


Brief Introduction of Lhaze

When you visit Labrang, Lhaze can often be seen on mountains and passes beside the village. This is often set up in three places: the summit, waist and the foot of the mountain; it is divided into three kinds: Chede, Lhaze and Huaka.

According to tradition, the ones belonging to the king were set up on the summit, the ones of rich families at the mountain waist, and the ones belonging to common families at the mountain foot. They are used to plant a holy arrow for the worship of the mountain god.

The literal meaning in Tibetan of Lhaze is mountaintop, but some scholars translate it into arrow cluster, arrow pile, arrow planting stage, holy palace, mountain god, etc.

But this writer holds that Lhaze can be translated as mountain god worshipping place.

In ancient times, stones or other objects were piled up on the mountaintop to indicate the place of the gods where people could worship them. It epitomizes an ancient belief that each thing has a soul and typifies the system of worshipping of the mountain gods on the plateau; it is a ritual that Tibetan Buddhism has inherited or borrowed from the ancient Bon religion.

There are some other views about the origin of Lhaze. Gendun Qunpei, a famous scholar of people of the Tibetan ethnic group, holds the view that it originated from the times of the tsampo (king). After Songtsan Gampo built the Red Palace on the Red Hill [in Lhasa], arrow planting was set up on top of the palace as a decoration. Later, in the residences of the king, common people viewed planting arrows as a symbol of power and from there it became a religious custom.

Other scholars think that Lhaze religious custom originated from the wars between the original tribes. Troops going to war had to travel to faraway places. In order not to lose their way, they used arrows as road signs. Later, it evolved into a sign representing the warriors killed on the battlefield, or the souls of heroes. These heroes souls were thought to offer protection to the troops and capable of suppressing their enemies. Gradually, it evolved into a ritual of worshipping gods, which is the Lhaze of today.

Legend has it that, in Tawa Village near the Labrang Monastery, almost no family gave birth to a son, but their daughters were all pretty, clever and able. One day, Living Buddha Nangcang of Labrang Monastery gave two children an arrow and let them insert it on a mountainside. These two children inserted the arrow on top of Nganishale Mountain, where Tawa Village and Manker Village worship the mountain god today. Since then, each family in Tawa Village has given birth to sons continuously.


Today, if a family does not have son or if a woman cannot become pregnant, people will come to plant arrows to worship the mountain god and pray for children. According to folk legends, the Nganishale Mountain god (in legends he is an incarnation of a monk and is also the main god guarding entrance to the Labrang district) not only protects monks and common people who have lived in Labrang for a long time, but also keeps a benevolent eye on believers traveling from other places. Often, worshipping the Nganishale Mountain god has ¡°special effects¡± in giving birth.

After the establishment of Lhaze, members of the local village or local tribe will worship on a regular basis every year. At first, holy arrows used in battle were considered a proper offering. Although this custom is an ancient and original natural worshipping phenomenon, it has a close relationship with all aspects of social life in Labrang. Arrows are not only indispensable when worshipping the mountain god, but also when staging a wedding, building new houses and giving birth. What is the origin of the arrows? In Labrang there are several nice fairy tales about this.

¡ªIt is said that, long ago, there was a valley in heaven. Chagang Yangzha and Shibe Dongsangma consorted there and produced three eggs. There was a gold arrow with green wings in the cleft of the gold egg, a green arrow with golden wings at the cleft of the green egg, and a spindle in the cleft of the white egg. From that time, arrows for the bride and bridegroom appeared and remain part of wedding ceremonies in Labrang.

¡ªLong ago, the king of Nange, Dongdai Qusum, had five elements in kind. Master Trigyi Qoiba collected them and put them into his own body to form a mountain. From these five elements in kind, a bright and quadrate egg like a yak and a black egg like that of an ox were born. Trigyi Qoiba broke the bright egg with his aureole. When the egg came into collision with the aureole, fire was generated and scattered into air to form the Tuosai God (Scatter God) and to earth to form the Arrow God.

In the Labrang district, people of the Tibetan ethnic group have had the custom of arrow planting for a long time and there is a detailed description in the famous Tibetan epic King Gesar. In ancient times, war broke out frequently among the Tibetan tribes. Friends and relatives would hold a grand arrow planting ritual to pray for the safety of their soldiers and victory. Gesar was invincible and in many dangerous situations he emerged safely from danger depending on his bow and arrows.

Today in Labrang, Pyrrhic is still existent to represent ancient battle. The bold and unconstrained action, deafening cries and pikes and bows and arrows being wielded by brave warriors remain vivid memories of the wars among the ancient tribes long ago.

Lhaze Rituals

In Labrang, the place of Lhaze is decided by eminent monks or a Nyingma Sect witch who take major charge. It consists of two parts under and on the ground. Under the ground, there is a box loaded with various treasures. Surrounding the treasure box are treasure bottles covered with cypress branches and white wool, and during worshipping rituals sour milk and milk dregs will be scattered on them; live wood must be cypress in the shape of a square and wrapped in yellow cloth; the people who cut down the wood must be clean in the entire body and have had no contact with a dead body within a year; when they cut down the wood they should mark the eastern side of the tree (when the tree is growing), and eminent monks will then write down different prayer words on the north, south, west and east of the tree according to the mark and perform a series of religious activities.


Major executors of this activity must keep clean and wear yellow cloth gauze masks specially made by monasteries to prevent the pure religious articles from being polluted by peoples breath.

Live wood stands at top of the treasure box and is supported by four small poles on four sides. At first Living Buddhas or eminent monks tie a white hada, along with yellow satin and white wool on it, and then other people do the same while the monks read sutras and pray.

Treasure bottles loaded with gold, silver, gems and grain (such as barley, rice, beans, etc.), cypress branches, white wool, etc., are laced around this site, while on top wooden arrows made by hands are inserted attached with many religious articles such as arrow wings, white wool, cypress branches, hada, sutra streamers, etc. (in religious meaning, cypress has the function of suppressing evil. White wool is the rope leading to heaven and the contacting rope between humans and heaven). The religious indication is to pray for safety of the villages or tribes, increase of family members, wealth, elimination of disaster and good harvests.

Throughout this activity, three people walk around the Lhaze with a long arrow, short knife and bow in their hands respectively, indicating these are the weapons being offered to the mountain god. Before setting up the major arrow of Lhaze (that is a wooden arrow made by a village or a tribe collectively), women are forbidden to appear in this holy place.

Bless Gods

Worship of the mountain god has a very long history. The time for arrow planting is decided on the 11th day of fourth lunar month and the 13th day of the sixth lunar month. Before holding the ritual, every family will prepare a wooden pole some six meters long. The end of the pole is cut to the shape of an arrowhead, and the head of the pole is fixed with three colorful boards symbolizing arrow wings painted with designs of four animals such as elephant, dragon, lion and tiger. What was to be burnt include cypress branches and mulberry tree seeds. On the next morning, only men are normally allowed to attend the activity of planting arrows. In pure pasturing areas, women are forbidden to attend or make or plant the arrows. The holy arrows are sent to the ¡°Lhaze¡± site in the afternoon one day before. When the sun sets on the mountaintop, the major worshippers (generally monks of the Gelug Sect or lamas of the Nyingma Sect take the post) ignite the cypress. Dense clouds of smoke rise up from a wooden stage of 1 meter high and 1 square meter. Then, the common people strive to be the first to add cypress branches and mulberry tree seeds (fry barley black and mix it into zanba with tea leaves, fruit, white sugar and red sugar) that they bring to the stage. Many cypress branches send out a crackling sound in the flaming fire, and people cry the gods win and bring many pieces of paper and scatter them into the air. At once, these pieces of white paper float up and down in the air like thousands of running horses and they carry the sincere wishes of the people to gods. During that time, people cry to the gods repeatedly, which represents their respect to mountain god and prayer for luck in the human world. Then, people tie a hada onto the arrow and hold it up with both hands to circle the wooden stage in a clockwise direction, and then walk around the arrow pile for three more circles before inserting the arrow into the pile. The arrow pile is roughly in the shape of a square and is enclosed by a stable wooden fence. Holy arrows are inserted into it. Over a period of years, so many holy arrows are inserted and the contrast between colors is strong, so its appearance is very holy and splendid.

With the spreading of first rays of the morning sun, the ritual concludes. People leave gradually and only layers of "Lungda" and colorful arrows dancing in wind inserted in the arrow piles remain. Society is developing, but this religious ritual and activities of Labrang do not degenerate thereby. On the contrary, it has evolved to a grand and ceremonious festival activity. Every year, an offering ritual will be held for the mountain god and the colorful arrows will be replaced, so there emerges an arrow planting festival, a folk and religious worshipping custom.

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