The pious Tibetans started to celebrate its annual Sagya Dawa Festival on June 2, 2011, the first day of the 4th month on theTibetan calendar.

During the Buddhist festival, pilgrims in and out of Tibet gather together in the holy city of Lhasa to chant Buddhist sutras and pray for blessings.

A culture inheritance program was being carried out in Kunde Lin, one of Lhasa's four famous monasteries and seats of senior Living Buddhas, attracting many Tibetan youngsters to learn clay Buddhist figure scuplture, painting and gilding for free.

The handsome Chogyal from Dege County, Sichuan is one of them. After graduating from high school, he came to Lhasa to learn figure sculpture and Thangka painting. After more than one year of studying and training, Chogyal mastered the skills of figure sculpture and gilding,and then joined the thousand-Tsongkhapa figure painting project several days ago, which would take them about one week to finish.

The gilding of the main part of the figure is undertaken by Sherab Lhundrup, a lama of Kunde Lin, who has thrown himself into figure sculptures and gilding for over 20 years. Sherab Lhundrup is a strict teacher, but he creates a sound working environment for everyone.

For Chogyal, learning traditional art is more fun than modern entertainment. Besides clay sculpure, he is also keen on Thangka painting. After the completion of thousand-Tsongkhapa-figure project, he will further his study of Thangka painting in a monastery to the southwest of the Potala Palace.

"Sagya" is the 28th constellation named Di and "Dawa" means "month". The birth and the attainment of nirvana of Sakyamuni is believed on April 15 on Tibetan calendar, so more Buddhist ceremonies are held in this month.

Thousand Tsongkhapa figures at Kunde Lin [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Thousand Tsongkhapa figures at Kunde Lin [Photo/China Tibet Online]