The Grand Prayer Ceremony of Lhasa

China's Tibet is a minority autonomous region. The religious consciousness and activities have important position in the daily life of the Tibetans, and they penetrate into their basic necessities of life, the birth, old age, illness, death and other aspects. Therefore, there are many religious activities in Tibet. The most famous activity is the Lhasa Grand Prayer Ceremony, one of the four biggest Buddhist activities in Tibet. The Lhasa Prayer Ceremony is held annually in Lhasa grandly.

Lhasa Prayer Ceremony is one of the Buddhist ceremonies created by the grandmaster Tsongkhapa of the Tibetan Buddhism. In 1408, Tsongkhapa, 52 years old then, who lived in the Sera Monastery, deemed that the Figure of Sakyamuni at Lhasa was the same as that of the real Buddha. In order to greatly propagate Buddhism, he made a promise and established the Lhasa Grand Prayer Ceremony. He then made a fine gold coronet, silver alms bowl and silver Manzha (one of the Buddhist utensils used to offer sacrifice to Buddha) for the Sakyamuni Buddha. The gold coronet was inlaid with many jewels and engraved with the Five Figures of Buddha. In addition, he also respectively offered a silver coronet to the Sakyamuni's warrior attendant and the eleven-side Kwan-yin located at the Ramoche Temple, and made very ceremonious offerings to the Buddha figures of every worship hall. The formal Grand Prayer Ceremony of Chunga Choepa was held on the 1st to 15th of the first month on lunar calendar in 1409.

Activities during the ceremony include vegetarian lunch after morning meeting, sutras chanting, Buddhism converting, scripture explaining and many other folk activities.