The One Minion Search Party, vol. 37

This one intrigued me:

tibet myths and folktales

I know squat about Tibet except it’s full of mountains and wise old men in funny furry hats, and other bald men who dress in yellow, sit around, and hum.

Just kidding… kind of. I really am lax on increasing my world knowledge.

Geographically speaking, where is it? It’s tucked under China’s armpit, thus saving Nepal and Bhutan from the horrific scent of B.O. I’m sure they thank it. There was an article about its geography and climate in the Guardian recently, and how changes there will eventually impact the rest of the world:

Scientists say the desertification of the mountain grasslands is accelerating climate change. Without its thatch the roof of the world is less able to absorb moisture and more likely to radiate heat.

Partly because of this the Tibetan mountains have warmed two to three times faster than the global average; the permafrost and glaciers of the “Third Pole” are melting.

To make matters worse, the towering Kunlun, Himalayan and Karakorum ranges that surround the plateau act as a chimney for water vapour – which has a stronger greenhouse gas effect than carbon dioxide – to be convected high into the stratosphere. Mixed with pollution, dust and black carbon (soot) from India and elsewhere, this spreads a brown cloud across swaths of the Eurasian landmass. When permafrost melts it can also release methane, another powerful greenhouse gas. Xiao Ziniu, the director general of the Beijing climate centre, says Tibet’s climate is the most sensitive in Asia and influences the globe.

Politically speaking, the Sydney Morning Herald highlights the continued crisis there in terms of China, communism, and the past violence that must have felt like the only way Tibetans could fight back.

Religiously speaking, Buddhism is like breathing there. Potala Palace was turned into a museum in 1959 and while thousands of tourists might pour through its gates in a day to look at the artifacts and architecture, there’s just as good a show outside, because locals pray there every day.

To witness locals performing prayers at the square in front of the palace is to understand how holy the palace is. The 117m-high palace is likened to a cluster of red and white buildings decked repeatedly, one layer after another. The scale of the place is astounding. The former winter palace of the Dalai Lamas has over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and 200,000 statues.

It houses Arya Lokeshvara, the most venerated statue in the palace, in the Phapka Lakhang chapel which dates back to the 7th century. Other relics found in the palace include tombs of eight previous Dalai Lamas (from the fifth to the 13th reincarnation, except for the sixth) in the form of stupas.

The tomb of the 13th Dalai Lama (1876-1933) is one of the highlights of the palace. Built in 1933, the giant stupa is made of priceless jewellery, a tonne of gold and offerings like elephant tusks, porcelain and vases.

I’ll get to the one of the myths now, the fact that they believe in reincarnation.

It looks like they have a great pile of folktales, too. I like the one about the wise carpenter whose arch nemesis (a painter) tried to get him killed and “sent to heaven” to build a temple for one of the gods. Clever indeed how he got out of that one. The frog and the tiger is a pretty hilarious one. Size matters less than brains do, I suppose is the moral.