| Losar | |
|---|---|
.jpg) A Tibetan monk performance during Losar at Domthok Monastery in the Kham region | |
| Also called | Tibetan New Year Losar |
| Observed by | Tibetans, Bhutanese, Ladakhis, Nepalese, Monpa, worldwide Tibetan Buddhists |
| Type | Tibetan culture, Tibetan Buddhist, New year |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Related to | Galdan Namchot, Losoong, Gyalpo Lhosar, Tamu Lhosar, Sonam Lhosar, Mangfu other lunisolar new year festivals in Asia |
| Part of a series on |
| Tibetan Buddhism |
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Losar (Tibetan: ལོ་སར་, Wylie: lo-sar; "new year"[1]) also known as Tibetan New Year, is a festival in Tibetan Buddhism.[2] The holiday is celebrated on various dates depending on location (Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, India) tradition.[3][4] The holiday is a new year's festival, celebrated on the first day of the lunisolar Tibetan calendar, which corresponds to a date in February or March in the Gregorian calendar.[1] In 2024, the new year commenced on 10 February and celebrations ran until the 12th of the same month. It also commenced the Year of the Male Wood Dragon.
The variation of the festival in Nepal is called Lhosar and is observed about eight weeks earlier than the Tibetan Losar.[5]
- ^ a b William D. Crump, "Losar" in Encyclopedia of New Year's Holidays Worldwide (McFarland & Co.: 2008), pp. 237-38.
- ^ "Buddhism: Losar". BBC. September 8, 2004.
- ^ Peter Glen Harle, Thinking with Things: Objects and Identity among Tibetans in the Twin Cities (Ph.D dissertation: Indiana University, 2003), p. 132: "In Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India and other areas where Tibetan Buddhism is practiced, the dates for Losar are often calculated locally, and often vary from region.".
- ^ William D. Crump, Encyclopedia of New Year's Holidays Worldwide (McFarland & Co.: 2008), pp. 237: ""Different traditions have observed Losar on different dates."
- ^ Tibetan Borderlands: PIATS 2003: Proceedings of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Oxford, 2003, p. 121: "Yet though their Lhochhar is observed about eight weeks earlier than the Tibetan Losar, the festival is clearly borrowed, and their practice of Buddhism comes increasingly in a Tibetan idiom."