TIBET

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Nawang Doma and her rosary, Tibet

Tibetan nun with rosary Tibet.

These are the hands of Nawang Doma, a 77 year old nun, ani, from the Drakar Taso monastery in the Kyirong valley of Tibet.
In her hands she holds a rosary. There are 108 beads in the central string. At each bead she says a prayer, mantra that resembles the "purring of a cat" and gives the act of telling the beads its Tibetan name tan-tsa.
At the very bottom of this photo you can see one of the two smaller strings of ten metallic rings which are used as counters. A full cycle of recitation is 108 x 10 x 10 = 10,800 prayers or mystic formulas. Elderly Tibetans may recite up to twenty bead-cycles in a day and this is especially true for pious nuns like Nawang. She was born in the nearby village of Kyirong. At a young age she went to Drakar Taso monastery, famous as the meditation site of Mila Repa. During the Cultural Revolution much of Drakar monastery was destroyed. During this time went home, to return to monastery only in the past few years.
As a young woman in Kyirong she knew Heinrich Harrer, the author of 'Seven Years in Tibet', during the nine months that he spent in this 'Valley of Happiness.'

Next month: 'Tse Potala': the palace fort of Lhasa

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revision 18 Mar 2001
http://www.greenkiwi.co.nz/footprints/photo/ph9909.htm