Gonkhang

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As Gonkhang (also: Gönkhang, Gon Khang, མགོན་ ཁང་ ། Wylie mgon khang ) in Tibetan Buddhism a room in the monastery for the worship of the protective gods is referred to.

Sacrifice to the goddess Pelden Lhamo . This painting comes from a Gonkhang in Tibet.

Surname

The name Gonkhang comes from go po ( མགོན་ པོ ། Wylie mgon po ) = lord and khang ( ཁང་ ། ) = house, i.e. the house of the lord.

Location and appearance

The gonkhang is often located behind the assembly room or a little further above the main building. The Gonkhang is painted red on the outside and black on the inside. The door to the Gonkhang is narrow and low. It has no windows and is only lit by butter lamps. In the Gonkhang there are stuffed animals, terrifying statues, depictions of sacrificed human skulls, eyes and entrails.

meaning

The protective gods are also called wrathful protective deities. The protective gods are mostly dangerous gods and demons of the Bon religion, which was widespread in Tibet before the introduction of Buddhism. According to tradition , when Padmasambhava came to Tibet, he subjugated these dangerous demons and made them protective gods. Since these protective gods / demons are particularly terrible, entry of the Gonkhang is forbidden for women. To protect the viewer from seeing them, the protective gods are often covered with cloths.

The merging of the old Bon religion with modern Buddhism is expressed in these traditions . The integration of Bon into Tibetan Buddhism became official when the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama recognized Bon as the fifth spiritual school of Tibetan Buddhism in the 1970s.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b temple . In: English-Tibetan Dictionary of Key Spiritual Terms ; accessed on December 5, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Jutta Mattausch: Ladakh and Zanskar . Reise Know-How Verlag Peter Rump, 1996, ISBN 3-89416-176-0 , pp. 330–339, 412–424
  3. ↑ lord . In: English-Tibetan Dictionary of Key Spiritual Terms ; accessed on December 5, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b c Gon khang at tibetanmaterialhistory; accessed on December 4, 2018.
  5. ↑ Dharmapāla . In: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; accessed on December 4, 2018.
  6. ↑ Dalai Lama, Bon. (PDF) epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de; accessed on December 5, 2018.
  7. ↑ Bon and Tibetan Buddhism at studybuddhism.com; accessed on December 4, 2018.
  8. ↑ Religion in Bhutan at bhutan-discover.de; accessed on December 4, 2018.
  9. ↑ Christoph Baumer : Bon. The living ancient religion of Tibet. Academic Printing and Publishing Company, 1999, ISBN 3-201-01723-X
  10. ↑ Bon in Tibet. univie.ac.at; accessed on December 5, 2018.