Candle Tree
Butter Lamp, K.Gompa, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, India - 02.09.09
Camera Model Name: Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Lens: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Tv (Shutter Speed): 1/30
Av (Aperture Value): 3.5
Metering: Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 21.0 mm
Flash: Off
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DAY 17
Altitude: 3, 505 m / 11, 499 ft.
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Usually the red chapel or gonkhang (temple of the protective deities) on the level up of this monastery remains close but we are lucky to find the doors open. Leaving our shoes outside, we enter to find the thick darkness shattered in the warm yellow light sourced from the butter lamp near the alter. The air is permeated with the fragrent smell of burning shukpa or juniper and incense.
Butter lamps are kept alight in every monastery all the times as they are considered to be the eliminator of darkness at a deeper level other than the obvious.
Offering light in Tibetan Buddhism signifies patience, stability, clarity and beauty, which dispel all ignorance. It is belived that butter lamps results in realization of Clear Light or wisdom, clarification of dualistic thoughts and dispersal of confusion.
Butter lamps are also offered as a dedication to the dead in order to guide them through the darkness, remove the obscurations on the path, help to awaken their true wisdom nature and attain the wisdom light.
So, pilgrims often enter monasteries with a tub of butter and use it to top off the butter lamps.
In olden days only butter or clarified butter was used to light the lamps, in present times some monasteries have adopted using vegetable oils. Not in this gompa though, we can see the rich, creamy and deep yellow butter that keeps the wick alight of the lamps.
Female yaks known as drimo gives only three liters of milk a day but exceptionally thick butter can be yielded from it. This valley has always been very famous for such butter production and would trade it for other essential commodities in earlier times. No doubt the biggest friary in this region (the one we are visitng now) has no shortage of donars for contributing butter to keep the lamps burning day and night.
The light is bounched off from the surface of another unlit lamp and a beautiful copper jug with inlay work for serving chang or barley beer (also used as an offering to the deities).
Butter Lamp, K.Gompa, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, India - 02.09.09
Camera Model Name: Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Lens: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Tv (Shutter Speed): 1/30
Av (Aperture Value): 3.5
Metering: Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 21.0 mm
Flash: Off
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAY 17
Altitude: 3, 505 m / 11, 499 ft.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Usually the red chapel or gonkhang (temple of the protective deities) on the level up of this monastery remains close but we are lucky to find the doors open. Leaving our shoes outside, we enter to find the thick darkness shattered in the warm yellow light sourced from the butter lamp near the alter. The air is permeated with the fragrent smell of burning shukpa or juniper and incense.
Butter lamps are kept alight in every monastery all the times as they are considered to be the eliminator of darkness at a deeper level other than the obvious.
Offering light in Tibetan Buddhism signifies patience, stability, clarity and beauty, which dispel all ignorance. It is belived that butter lamps results in realization of Clear Light or wisdom, clarification of dualistic thoughts and dispersal of confusion.
Butter lamps are also offered as a dedication to the dead in order to guide them through the darkness, remove the obscurations on the path, help to awaken their true wisdom nature and attain the wisdom light.
So, pilgrims often enter monasteries with a tub of butter and use it to top off the butter lamps.
In olden days only butter or clarified butter was used to light the lamps, in present times some monasteries have adopted using vegetable oils. Not in this gompa though, we can see the rich, creamy and deep yellow butter that keeps the wick alight of the lamps.
Female yaks known as drimo gives only three liters of milk a day but exceptionally thick butter can be yielded from it. This valley has always been very famous for such butter production and would trade it for other essential commodities in earlier times. No doubt the biggest friary in this region (the one we are visitng now) has no shortage of donars for contributing butter to keep the lamps burning day and night.
The light is bounched off from the surface of another unlit lamp and a beautiful copper jug with inlay work for serving chang or barley beer (also used as an offering to the deities).