The Wangduephodrang Tshechu is the annual three-day religious festival of Wangdue Phodrang Dzongkhag, held each autumn at Wangdue Phodrang Dzong. It is best known for the Raksha Mangcham, a mask dance depicting the judgement of souls in the after-death bardo. After the original dzong burned down in 2012, the festival was held at Tencholing army ground for a decade until full-scale festivities resumed at the rebuilt and reconsecrated dzong in 2022.
The Wangduephodrang Tshechu (Dzongkha: dbang 'dus pho brang tshe bcu) is the annual religious festival of Wangdue Phodrang Dzongkhag, held each autumn over three days at Wangdue Phodrang Dzong. The festival is one of the principal tshechus of central Bhutan and is attended by communities from across Wangdue and adjoining dzongkhags, with the Royal Family typically in attendance on the final day.[1][2]
The tshechu falls on the eighth, ninth and tenth days of the eighth month of the Bhutanese lunar calendar, corresponding to late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar; in 2026 it is scheduled for 19–21 September. The festival is best known for the Raksha Mangcham, the Dance of the Judgement of the Dead, performed on the second day, in which the Lord of Death weighs the deeds of recently deceased souls.[2][3]
The 2012 fire that destroyed Wangdue Phodrang Dzong forced the festival to relocate to the Tencholing army ground for a decade. Full-scale festivities resumed at the reconstructed dzong following its consecration on 11 November 2022.[4]
Origins
The festival was instituted by Tenzin Rabgye (1638–1696), the fourth Druk Desi and a religious successor of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, in the late seventeenth century. Tenzin Rabgye also instituted the larger Thimphu Tshechu in 1670, and the Wangduephodrang and Thimphu festivals share a number of dance items and a common liturgical structure. The festival commemorates the deeds of Guru Padmasambhava and serves as both a religious observance and a marker of the agricultural year, falling at the end of the rice-growing season and before the harvest.[2][5]
Cham dances
The festival programme is dominated by cham mask dances performed by monks of the Wangdue rabdey (district monk body) and lay dancers from local communities. The principal dances include:
- Shana Nga Cham — the Dance of the Twenty-One Black Hats with Drums, opening the festival and ritually purifying the dance ground.
- Peling Ging Sum — a sequence of three dances of the Ging (with sticks, swords and drums respectively) attributed to the visions of the fifteenth-century terton Pema Lingpa.
- Dramitse Ngacham — the Dance of the Drums from Dramitse, originating in eastern Bhutan and inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.
- Raksha Mangcham — the central dance of the festival, depicting the judgement of souls in the bardo, with masked dancers playing the Lord of Death (Shinje), the white god, the black demon, the assembly of judges and individual souls of varying merit.
- Dranyen Cham — the Dance of the Lute, performed by a Royal troupe in seventeenth-century costume.
The festival concludes on the third day with the unfurling of the giant Guru Tshengye Thongdroel before dawn, a thangka of Guru Padmasambhava in his eight manifestations whose viewing alone is believed to confer liberation. Crowds queue from before sunrise to receive the blessing as the thongdroel is suspended from the dzong's outer wall.[2][3]
The 2012 fire and the festival's relocation
On 24 June 2012 a fire broke out at Wangdue Phodrang Dzong, attributed to a faulty electrical water cooker. The blaze rapidly destroyed the timber upper structure, leaving only the foundations, lower walls and a portion of the central tower. Most of the dzong's relics, statues and movable religious property were saved because conservation work had been under way at the time of the fire and items had been removed for cataloguing.[4][6]
For the next ten years the Wangduephodrang Tshechu was held on the Tencholing army parade ground on the western side of the dzongkhag, with a temporary thongdrol erected each year. The relocation reduced the scale and ritual completeness of the festival but allowed continuity of the principal cham dances.[1][4]
Reconstruction and 2022 reconsecration
The reconstruction of Wangdue Phodrang Dzong was undertaken as a Bhutan–India development partnership project, with a Royal Government allocation announced in July 2012 and Government of India financial and technical assistance from 2014. The rebuild used traditional rammed-earth and timber techniques while incorporating fire suppression systems, service tunnels and seismic isolation features absent from the original.[6][7]
The reconsecration ceremony was led by His Holiness the seventieth Je Khenpo Trulku Jigme Choedra over three days from 9 to 11 November 2022, attended by the fourth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fifth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Queen Jetsun Pema Wangchuck and other members of the Royal Family. The 2022 tshechu, the first to be held in the rebuilt courtyard, returned the festival to its historical setting.[6]
Social and economic role
The tshechu is the largest social gathering of the year in central Bhutan and serves as an occasion for extended families to reunite, for arranged marriages to be confirmed, and for the dzongkhag administration to communicate civic announcements. Local markets, food stalls and itinerant traders cluster around the dzong for the duration of the festival, and the event is one of the more significant community-economy markers of the autumn calendar in Wangdue.[1][2]
References
- About the Dzong — Wangduephodrang Dzong Reconstruction Project
- Wangdue Tshechu — Breathe Bhutan
- Wangduephodrang Tshechu — Tourism Council of Bhutan
- Wangduephodrang Dzong rises to glory stronger — Kuensel
- Wangdue Phodrang Dzong — Asian Architecture
- Wangduephodrang Dzong Reconstruction Project — Bhutan Today
- Wangdue Phodrang Dzong summary — Dzongkhag Administration
See also
Punakha Tshechu
The Punakha Tshechu is an annual spring religious festival held at Punakha Dzong in western Bhutan, renowned for its distinctive re-enactment of a seventeenth-century battle against Tibetan invaders and its vibrant programme of sacred masked dances honouring Guru Rinpoche.
culture·5 min readParo Tshechu
The Paro Tshechu is the largest and most famous annual religious festival in Bhutan, held over five days in the spring at Paro Rinpung Dzong. It culminates in the pre-dawn unfurling of a massive thongdrel depicting Guru Rinpoche, an event believed to grant spiritual liberation to all who witness it.
culture·6 min readThimphu Tshechu
The Thimphu Tshechu is a three-day religious festival held annually in autumn at Tashichho Dzong in Bhutan's capital city, Thimphu. As the capital's principal tshechu, it is among the most attended festivals in the country and features elaborate mask dances, the display of a sacred thongdrel, and large-scale public celebration.
culture·5 min readDzongkha
Dzongkha is the national language of Bhutan, spoken natively by approximately 170,000 people in the western districts and used as the official language of government, education, and media throughout the kingdom. It belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family, is written in the Tibetan script, and has been compulsory in Bhutanese schools since the 1960s.
culture·6 min readBhutan Paralympic Committee
The Bhutan Paralympic Committee, established in 2017, is the national body responsible for developing disability sport in Bhutan and fielding athletes at the Paralympic Games. Bhutan made its Paralympic debut at Tokyo 2020.
culture·3 min readNational Library and Archives of Bhutan
The National Library and Archives of Bhutan, established in 1967 in Thimphu, is the primary repository for the kingdom's published works, manuscripts, and official records. It houses one of the largest collections of Dzongkha-language texts in the world and preserves thousands of rare religious manuscripts on traditional Bhutanese paper.
culture·4 min read
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