PANG LHABSOL

SOME THOUGHTS ON ‘PANG LHABSOL’

Worship of Khangchendzonga and celebration of Sikkimese unity must not be clubbed together.

By Jamyang Dorjee Chakrishar, Tibetan calligrapher and former civil servant

   We have seen that there are divergent views and explanation of the word "Pangtoe". Two main views; the first views believes that the word 'Pang' means 'witness' and that the Pangtoe Chham actually started as a celebration of the swearing-in of the great blood brotherhood of Bhutias and Lepchas at Kabi Lungtsok, North Sikkim, in the 13^th century, where Lord Gangs chen mzod lgna (Khangchendzonga) was a witness.

   The second view is that 'Pang toe' has nothing to do with the celebration of blood brotherhood at Kabi Lungtsok. It is a warrior dance performed by Pemayangtse Monastery, West Sikkim, and later at Tsuklakhang Monastery, Gangtok, in praise of Lord Gangs chen mzod lgna.

   Prior to the coronation of the first Chogyal Phuntsok Namgyal in 1642, Lhatsun Chenpo, the great Dzogchen master of Vajrayana Buddhism, who opened the ‘hidden land’ of Beyul Demajong (Sikkim) in the 17^th century, composed Dralha dpangs ༼དཔངས་བསྟོད༽ stoe or prayers for Gangs Chen mzod lgna and other deities of Sikkim and during the reign of Chogyal Chakdor Namgyal dpangs toe Chham was composed and performed. 

   Let us look at the spellings of the word in question. There are three spellings of the same pronounced in Tibetan. 1. spang སྤང་༼རྩྭ་སྔོན་སྐྱེ་བའི་ཐང་སྟེང་༽ Spang means land covered with green pastures, or reference as Pangri, Pang-shong 2. Dpangs. དཔངས་བསྟོད་༼མཐོ་བར་བསྟོད་པ། ༽ dpangs-stoe means great felicitation or prayer. 3. dpang དཔང་means witness

   Dra-lha spsngs-stoe དཔངས་བསྟོད་ is a regular prayer performed by the lamas of Sikkim. They based their prayer on sbrs-sjong-gney-gsol (prayer for sacred places of Sikkim) compiled by Taklung Gasi Rinpoche in consultation with Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche, Ja-drel Sangye Dorjee and which is published by the Palace in 1988. Jang-gter dra-lha dpangs-stoe 'gshen-phen-rol-pa' has the actual word spoken by Guru Padma Sambhava as revealed by Terton Rigzen rgoe-dhem and also words written by Lhatsun Namkha Jigme himself. Both these prayers mentioned Dra-Lha dpangs-stoe and clearly spelt out as 'dpangs-stoe', དཔངས་བསྟོད་ , meaning great felicitation or prayer.

   According to notes made by the Burmiak Kazi bKra shis dgra 'dul gdan sa-pa from the original manuscript preserved at Talung and appeared in 'Waddell, Buddhism,p.49' and also appeared in 'Oracles and Demons of Tibet' by Rene De Nebesky-Wojkowitz, p217 : When Lha-tsun-chenpo finally reached his destination (Dra-lha-gang at Dzongri), he performed a thanksgiving ceremony to all the deities of the country for his safe journey across the Himalaya; this tradition was annually repeated by Sangchen Pemayangtse Monastery and became more elaborate in the course of time. Further, this ceremony became more elaborate, until its present form, including the performance of the mask dance, was established by Phyagrdor rnam rgyal, the third ruler of Sikkim (1686-1717) in cooperation with the sprul sku Jigs med dpa bo, the third re-birth of Lha-Tsun-Chenpo.

 

To conclude:

   If we conclude sbrs-sjong-gney-gsol, the writings of Lhatsun Chenpo himself duly compiled and edited by by Taklung Gasi Rinpoche in consultation with Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche, Ja-drel Sangye Dorjee as authentic then the spelling of the word is དཔངས་བསྟོད་dpangs stoe (great prayer) and not དཔང་བསྟོད་dpang toe (witness prayer)

   I have not seen any reference where Chogyal Chakdor Namgyal decided to perform Pang Lhabsol celebrating the blood brotherhood pact at Kabi, an event that happened six generations ago. I am not ruling out completely the non-existence of such source. If Pang Lhabsol was meant to celebrate the great historical brotherhood pact then some references must be mentioned in the dpangs stoe cham yik or the text of the chhams (dance), which I learnt does not exist.

    Another interesting tradition is the arrival of a Mun or Bong-thing, a day preceding the Pang Lhabsol dance to the Palace. The Bong-thing goes into trance and possessed by the spirit of Thekong Thek, reminds the Chogyal of the great blood brotherhood pact and approaches the Chogyal for the fault his ancestors had committed as alleged by the Lepchas. The Chogyal has to assure the welfare of the Lepchas and request the spirit for the success of the forthcoming dance.

    Research needs to be done on whether the appearance of the Bong-thing preceding Pang Lhabsol started during the time of Chogyal Chakdor Namgyal and on whether the Bong-thing commanded the Chogyal to perform Pang Lhabsol to celebrate the brotherhood pact.

   My opinion: All said and done, if the composer of dPangs sToe or Pang Lhabsol Chham was to celebrate the unity of the Bhutia and Lepcha or appeasing the protecting deities for prosperity and unity of the people, the intellectuals of the present generation must collectively work to establish the fact to achieve the best purpose for which Pang Lhabsol was aimed and not pass on the confusion to the next generation.

   The division of opinion will further weaken the communities which are already in minority. The swearing-in of blood brotherhood of Bhutias and Lepchas at Kabi Lungtsok between Thekong Thek, the Lepcha chief, and Gya Bum sa, the Bhutia leader, was a historic event. Naturally, as a tribal tradition, such a big event must have happened by swearing-in or putting as a witness to the highest revered object of the country, which is Lord Gangs-chen-mzod-lnga. Therefore, there is, I think no dispute in this theory. The dispute is when we try to link this great historical event to the dpangs- stoe Chham during spangs Lha- sol.

   Kabi Lungtsok event plays a vital role in the restoration of pride and unity of the Bhutias and Lepchas. This historical brotherhood pact is of great significance, a binding factor between the two communities and giving a religious colour to it actually lessens its importance. This day deserves a separate national honor, depicting the unbroken lineage of 800 years of peaceful coexistence of Sikkimese people which is unique to Sikkim.