Love Song

Tibetan love song is a kind of poem that mainly describes the affection between young men and young girls in Tibet and has obtained an important status in Tibetan poems.

Because of the special history of development and religious tenets of the Tibetan Buddhism, love songs became an important component of the history of the Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan society. Among various love songs handed down in Tibet, the most famous ones were those of the 6th Dalai Lama (Tsangyang Gyatso).

The love songs of Tsangyang Gyatso have not only woodcut versions and handwritten copies that widely spread among the Tibetan people, but also translated versions in English, French, Russian, Japanese, Indian, Mongol, etc. Except a few poems that were related to religious songs of praise, most of them were about love. These love songs mainly cover loyalty and happiness of affection, sorrow when affection suffered setbacks and confliction between religion and affection. These love songs represented to a certain degree the state of mind of many young people under the binding of religious laws and regulations, so they won the favor of the local masses. The uniqueness of artistic presentation, forms, structures, metaphors, language usage and other aspects contributed a lot to the long-lasting popularity of these songs among people generation after generation.