Sho Dun Festival

Sho Dun began in the mid-eleventh century as a matter for the monasteries. Tibetan Buddhist discipline forbids the taking of life, and in summer, when grass and insects are abroad, monks withdrew behind closed doors from the fourth to the sixth Tibetan month — the 'summer retreat'. Released at the end of the sixth month, they came down the mountain to find the lay community waiting with freshly made yoghurt and picnic feasts spread in the meadows. In Tibetan 'sho' is yoghurt and 'dun' is to eat or to feast; the name of the festival comes from there.

By the mid-seventeenth century Tibetan opera had joined the festival, centred on Drepung Monastery west of Lhasa and known as 'Drepung Sho Dun'. After Norbulingka was completed in the early eighteenth century the opera performances moved into its grounds and ordinary townspeople were able to enter and watch, so the festival moved from the monastery out into the streets; for a time Drepung, Potala and Norbulingka Sho Dun were held side by side. After the democratic reform in Xizang in 1959 the festival grew richer in content; from 1986 it was organised by the cultural department of the autonomous region, and from 1994 by the Lhasa municipal government.

The festival opens at Drepung. At dawn on the thirtieth day of the sixth Tibetan month monks carry the rolled silk thangka up the hillside and unroll it slowly from top to bottom on the unveiling terrace, long horns sounding, while tens of thousands of monks and lay people throw offering scarves; Sera Monastery holds its own unveiling the same day.

Tibetan opera is the heart of it. In Norbulingka, folk opera troupes take the stage in turn from morning until dusk, performing the old repertoire that has run for centuries — Prince Norsang, Princess Wencheng, Drowa Sangmo. Below the stage people pitch tents, spread carpets and set out barley wine and yoghurt: what Lhasa calls 'going lingka' — opera, picnic and wine offered tent to tent, for a full week. Horse racing and horsemanship are the other draw, with riders scooping scarves from the ground and loosing arrows from the saddle.

Sho Dun links the thangka unveiling, the art of Tibetan opera and the plateau's summer outings into one observance, which is why it is also called the Festival of Tibetan Opera: it gives an art more than six centuries old its most dependable stage. In May 2006 Sho Dun was inscribed on the first national list of intangible cultural heritage as item Ⅹ-31, nominated by the Xizang Autonomous Region; Tibetan opera entered the national list the same year and was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. According to a CCTV report in 2019, with state support folk Tibetan opera troupes in Xizang grew from fewer than fifty to more than one hundred and fifty over a decade, giving over a thousand performances a year.