Costumes of Tibet

A few decades ago, thousands of Tibetans moved to Himachal Pradesh, India and settled down there along with the Dalai Lama.

Dharamshala and the surrounding areas have since assumed a distinctly Tibetan cultural flavour. Buildings, costumes, food, language, lifestyle have all migrated along with the people.

A common sight is a Tibetan woman with her traditional costume and her hair braided in traditional Tibetan style walking past slowly. With a prayer wheel in her hand and a walking stick in the other, she murmurs prayers constantly as she makes her way down the road. And if there is eye contact, she returns my smile with a huge warm welcoming beam.

There is no avoidance of eye contact. There is no hierarchy of ‘you’re not good enough to speak to me’. There’s no rush. There’s no stress in her demeanor. And it’s easy to have a little chat with each other even without a common language – a chat carried out in smiles, and eyes and hand movements. Souls have spoken to each other, exchanged a little love and warmth and then we carry on with our own days.

Serenity and peace are not just aspirational words there – this is just the aura of the place there.

So it is in this region that the Norbulingka institute and the Norbulingka teaching monastery have been set up just a few decades ago.

The institute houses a museum of the old Tibetan lifestyle. Maybe it is to educate the next generations about what was left behind. And maybe also to educate outsiders like myself.

The most interesting section was that with costumes from across Tibet – Ngari, Kham, Amdo, Central Tibet and the Northern region.

Here are a few photos as a teaser.