Saga Dawa

It is an extraordinary experience to be in Labrang Tashikyil on the holiest day of the Buddhist calendar, the 15th day of the 4th month on the Lunar year (26th of May).

Sagadawa celebrates the Buddha’s birthday, and the whole month is dedicated to accumulating virtue, as Buddhists believe that any merit accumulated during that time is multiplied manifold, a spiritual investment towards the next life, for a better rebirth. 

In Labrang, pilgrims and beggars alike congregate throughout the holy month, but especially on the fifteenth.  The 3km circumambulatory road will be filled with devotees young and old, holding their prayer wheels, reciting mantras, or doing prostrations, while the beggars and the destitute will be seated along the path, awaiting their alms.

The monastery’s temples will be filled with monks making offerings at the demand of patrons, who will have waited years for an offering ritual during such an auspicious month. A pilgrimage to Labrang on Sagadawa is something to be accomplished at least once in a lifetime, and the will be teeming with pilgrims from all over the Tibetan Plateau.