Tibetan astrologers caught in political battle over February 25 lunar New Year

February 23, 7:26 AMAstrology ExaminerMaria Barron

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Losar celebration in Tibet (Wikimedia Commons)  

Losar 2009, the Tibetan New Year, comes with the new moon this Wednesday, Feb. 25. Sometimes referred to as the Buddhist New Year, Losar actually pre-dates Buddhism and is traditionally the most important holiday of the year for Tibetans, kicking off 15 days of celebrations.

This year, protest groups in the Dalai Lama’s home in exile in Dharamsala, India, who hope to free Tibet from Chinese rule, have called for the celebrations to be boycotted. In response, the Chinese government has stepped up incentives to celebrate. They’ve given Tibetan workers the week off, distributed money to buy holiday goodies and called upon an expert in traditional Tibetan astrology to clarify that, in their calls for a somber New Year, the protest groups have gotten their astrology wrong.

The Tibetan calendar includes elements of the traditional calendars of India and China along with elements particular to Tibet. This year is an Earth year and an Ox year, according to both the Chinese and Tibetan traditions. Astrologer Gongkar Rigzin, 67, of Lhasa, Tibet, said that in Tibetan tradition, 2009 is a red year, which means that it should be festive and auspicious, but dry.

In a feature published by the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, he said the Tibetan Youth Congress in Dharamsala had erred in saying the year would be black. “The TYC, by calling red black, was playing politics and misleading the public,” he said.

Regardless of the astrology of the lunar calendar, the protest groups’ message has been heard within Tibet, situated north of the Himalayas in Asia, and in Tibetan communities around the world, according to reports from multiple sources.

Yet the idea of replacing the joyous holiday with a period of mourning for independence protesters killed last year in the contested land is controversial even among those who support the idea of an independent Tibet and who back the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile.

In an opinion piece published on the Phayul.com website, an online community for Tibetans living outside of Tibet, Gelek Badheytsang argues that joyous celebrations are themselves a blow for cultural freedom against oppressors.

“The Chinese government may have taken a lot from us, and they continue to, but they can’t take our identity from us,” Badheytsang wrote. “Before all this talk of boycotting Losar, let us not forget that it belongs to us. It is a piece as unique and integral to us as our language, religion and mountains. A part of us that we can hold up against any other country in the world, to let them marvel at the heft of our ingenuity; that a civilization speckled on a vast plateau high up the Himalayas can devise an intricate calendar all their own. There aren’t a lot of U.N. countries that can boast of that fact. But we can. Because Losar is ours.”

In respectful recognition of one of the many beautiful cultures and star-based calendars of our multi-faceted world, I echo the writer’s traditional Losar greeting: Tashi Delek – good luck to you.