Tibetan traditional music

Tibet is located on the high mountain plateau of the Himalayas, its history and social development are largely determined by the neighborhood of the large countries of Mongolia, India and China. The ancient ancestors of today's inhabitants of Tibet, in the period around the 3rd century BC from the steppes of Central Asia, from the region of Mongolia, began to penetrate the Himalayan plateau, later they reached Nepal and northwestern India. The oldest legend says that perhaps in the 6th century a divine descendant descended from heaven along a sacred cord, who was accepted as the first king of Tibet and the Bön religion was established.
  The first traces of Buddhism penetrated from India to Tibet as early as the 6th century, they were politically promoted by King Songtsän Gampo and subsequently Thisong Decän. The Indian yogi Padmasandhala was invited to Tibet, who traveled through Tibet and taught the inhabitants Buddhism, founded the first Samjä monastery. He thus laid the ideological foundation of Tibetan Buddhism. The real influence and development of Tibetan Buddhism began only in the 11th century, in synthesis with elements of earlier shamanic and animistic traditions. In 1578, the Tibetan king Sönam Gyamtsö held talks with the Mongolian emperor Altakhan, who granted him the title "Dalai" (the Mongolian name for the ocean). This created the institution of the Dalai Lama as the religious and political leader of Tibet.
  All cultural (and often also social and political) life in Tibet was then shaped for many centuries under the influence of specific Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes called Lamaism. The Lama is a Tibetan spiritual teacher and master, and the Dalai Lama is also a leader in a political sense.

Chinese influence in Tibet
In history, Tibet has alternately found itself under the influence of China, India, Mongolia and other surrounding countries. The influence of China has always been dominant, even during the periods of independence of Tibet. In the 20th century, Chinese influence in Tibet significantly increased, especially in the period after 1950, when China concluded an agreement with the Tibetan government on its incorporation as an autonomous region. In addition to temporary disputes and political problems of the time (which have already subsided and are now not relevant for us), this brought significant positive aspects :
- The abolition of feudalism , which until then had survived in Tibet and kept many people, especially in the countryside, in subordination, poverty and ignorance (some even in slavery ).
- Equality of women, which used to be the most oppressed group of Tibetans.
- Land reform of the existing feudal, large-scale and monastic ownership of the land, which was made available to farmers for cultivation.
- Establishment of public education , instead of one-sided, false and backward monastic education. Monastic education has been preserved only for religious education, especially of monks.
  After overcoming the distortions of China's "cultural revolution", these positive aspects became prevalent and led to a substantial improvement in lifeordinary Tibetans. Let us believe that friendly and mutually enriching relations between China and Tibet will prevail and that progress will continue in the future in preserving and developing the true spiritual values and wisdom of Tibet ..! ..
Briefly summarized: A much better life has been established in Tibet than during the time of the feudal Dalai Lama and thousands of monkish parasites. The current Dalai Lama (T.Gyamtsho) lives in exile in India, but has basically progressive views.
Note: In 1959, an armed uprising broke out in Tibet - a civil war, in which the former "elites" tried to return to the old order of their rule. It was provoked by the secret services of the Western powers, who planned to establish missile military bases on the strategically advantageous Tibetan plateau, which would - in the spirit of the Cold War - militarily control the entire large area of ??Southeast Asia. This failed, Chinese soldiers were sent there and together with the Tibetans defeated the uprising.
 It should be emphasized that the relationship between China and Tibet is greatly influenced in our awareness by the gross political distortions by the Western mass media (ours have added rectoscopically); in reality it is different, it is all more complicated..!.. I am aware that these political circumstances do not belong to our brief discussion of Tibetan music (after all, I am personally apolitical, I emphasize only the ethical and philosophical side). With apologies, I mention them here only in the interest of objectivity - to at least partially correct the false ideas and opinions widespread in our country.

Tibetan Buddhism is a complex combination of Mahayana and Indian tantra *), which gives it a highly ritualized, mystical and esoteric character. Tibetan Buddhism has a number of sects, the main of which are four: minkmapa ("old school" founded in the 8th century), kagjupa (meditative school, founded in the 11th century), sakjapa (until the 15th century), gelukpa (The religious school of "yellow hats", founded at the beginning of the 15th century, has been the dominant direction since the 17th century; the Dalai Lama is also recruited from it).
*) The oldest texts of Indian tantraaccording to legend, they arose from the dialogues of the god Shiva with his wife Devi. The tantric system, which then complemented and expanded between the 5th and 10th centuries, contains elements of divine cult, fertility rites, magic, shamanism, sexual practices. Tantric yoga emphasizes the role of psychosomatic speculation - the concept of chakras - energy centers in the human body (mostly along the spine), "sublimation" or "transcendence" of sexual energy during orgasm into "higher realms of consciousness", which should lead to true culmination and liberating experience.
  Some tantric elements have been adopted into Mahayana Buddhism , especially in northern India. In India, then in the 12th century. Buddhism was pushed out and gradually integrated into Hinduism - the Buddha was then interpreted as the avatar of the god Vishna. However, Tantric Buddhism has been preserved and further developed in Tibet.

Also Tibetan traditional music developed in close liaison with the Tibetan variety of Buddhism - Lamaism *). This religious direction, more than any other direction of Buddhism, is oriented towards monastic life in monasteries with many rituals with a specific color (such as the Mahakala ritual ).
*) This refers to spiritually oriented Tibetan music. Tibetan folk (ethnic) music is completely different, its roots are not in India, it is more similar to the music of Central Asia and Mongolia.
  There are many Lamaist monasteries in Tibet (even every village or settlement tried to establish its own monastery where their boys could be educated). In history, around 10,000 monasteries have been built since the 8th century, of which about 1,400 have survived to the present day. The largest is the Potala Palace (pictured left) in the capital of Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region. There are around 20 other large monasteries. More than 45,000 monks now live in Tibet. Historically, there were up to 600,000 monks.
      
  The endless chanting of mantras by Tibetan monks takes place in a monotonous "grunting" voice with deep vibrations, which, however, has its melody and mystical impact. There is a peculiar peculiarity in the Tibetan vocal expression - an aliquot of biphonic throat singing . By a special setting of the tongue and lips, it is possible to achieve that when the nasal tone is emitted, some aliquot tones of the basic sung tone are amplified to such an extent that we hear two tones at the same time from the mouth of one singer . In addition to Tibet, biphonic singing is also practiced in Mongolia and mainly in the adjacent area of Tuva and Altai.
Critical note: the splendor and misery of Tibetan monasteries
For the sake of objectivity, we should not idealize life in Tibetan monasteries (and in traditional Tibetan theocratic-feudal society in general) too much! Enlightened philosophers and spiritual teachers made up only a very small part of it. Most monks were poorly educated, their mental horizon did not go much beyond the mechanical learning of mantras, which they constantly repeat over and over, without deeper understanding. The motivation for monastic life was not spiritual for most, but rather the possibility of an easier life in a poor country. The number of monasteries and monks in them was often excessive (up to a quarter of the total male population), so there were not enough people to work to ensure the standard of living and development in Tibet.
In communities with a large number of monks, negative phenomena such as bullying and sexual abuse also manifested themselves....

Tibetan musical instruments
The religious ceremonies of Tibetan monks are accompanied by sounds and music on specific instruments. The most simple are Tibetan bowls, which are bronze bowls of various sizes (originally also used as a dining bowl), which resound with the blow of a mallet, after which the tone of the rod can be maintained by rotating the mallet around the perimeter of the bowl. Then there are various gongs (often of considerable size), bells , Relmo cymbals , drums (such as the Nga frame drum ). Often also used shells whose protracted shouting in Munich to pose convened ceremonies. The powerful sound is made by the long Tibetan ovens - horns of Rang dung .
      

Sound library :

Buddhist Meditation
Sings: Lama Card
Vibration of Peace - Meditation Music for Tibetan Flute Starring:
Tibetan meditation - relaxation music based on Tibetan ceremonies Uploaded by: Phil Thornthon
Tibetan Buddhism - .................. ....
Dhama Suna - traditional Tibetan music "gar" ..........
..................... a number of other titles will be added. ........

Vojtech Ullmann