The Blue Yonder (TBY) has brought out an attractive calendar for the year 2008 in collaboration with Thashi Lhunpo monastery in Bylakuppe, Karnataka as a fund raiser for the Buddhist monastery in Bylakuppe. TBY has been working closely with the monastery and supporting their cause for many years now.

Reestablished in northern and southern Karnataka, India’s most thriving monastic universities have been passing on the uninterrupted Mahayana tradition of 5th century Nalanda University (Bihar) and Vajrayana practice, as it spread throughout the Himalayan belt and beyond.

About 85 kilometers in the north-west of Mysore district at the foothills of the Western Ghats are located a group a monasteries where more than ten thousand monks and nuns devote their life to the study and practice Buddhist philosophy and meditation. The vast population of these communities gathers people coming from countries as far as Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan and all the Indian Himalayan regions such as Zangskar, Ladakh, Spiti, Lahaul, Kinnaur, Sikkim, Darjeeling and Tawang in a spirit of compassion and deep devotion.

As part of a Tibetan refugee settlement located in Bylakuppe on the Mysore-Madikeri road these educational monastic institutions are certainly worth a stopover.

In an astonishing blend of agricultural land, forest and Himalayan architecture stand out vast remarkable ensembles of temples, prayer halls and quarters.

Namdroling Monastery, locally called the Golden Temple, attracts hundreds of visitors and pilgrims every day for its radiating golden roofs and spectacular 60 feet tall statue of Buddha Shakyamuni flanked by 58 feet tall Guru Padmasambhava and Buddha Amitayus.

A prayer wheel corridor circumbulates around the monastery compound offering the visitors a quiet stroll and a meritorious activity.

Most notable among these Buddhist communities are the large monastic universities of Sera Mey and Sera Jey where about six thousand monks daily engage in spectacular sessions of philosophical jousts.

The smaller and aside Tashi Lhunpo Monastery will charm anyone wishing to melt into its population of friendly and teasing monks from all over the Himalayas and share their daily routine: be it at a morning puja, a session of debates in the shade of a majestic Banyan tree or when painstakingly creating a colorful sand mandala.

Try to visit Tashi Lhunpo in February two days prior to the Tibetan New Year when the monks celebrate the yearly ritual of Gutor (dgu-gtor) by performing sacred masked dances (cham) all day long.

The monk dancers invite different deities or members of their retinue to reside in them while performing elaborated sequences of movements in the yard of the temple as part of a complex tantric liturgy accompanied by traditional instruments such as drums, cymbals and long horns.

The ceremony concludes by the burning of a giant effigy propitiating local evils and pacifying mental obstacles in order to begin the coming year under the most auspicious circumstances.

The monastery also shelters an incense factory and a painting school where talented artists and monks preserve the cultural tradition of religious painting scrolls named thangka.

These calendars are printed to raise funds to run the say to day activities of the monastery. Pick up one and support livelihoods in the monastery. Check out this page for details on purchase.