CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 81 of 120

Correct — B, Ladakh. The Naropa festival is held at Hemis in Ladakh, at the largest Buddhist monastery in the region, and it is a twelve-year event — which is why it is often called the Kumbh of the Himalayas. It honours Naropa, the eleventh-century Indian mahasiddha whose Six Yogas are a core practice of the Kagyu lineages, and its central moment is the display of the Six Bone Ornaments associated with him, brought out of the monastery's keeping for the occasion. Hemis itself sits on the bank of the Indus about 45 km from Leh and is the principal seat of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, which organises the festival. The other three options are all Himalayan or north-eastern states with rich festival calendars of their own, but none of them has any claim on Naropa, whose association is with the Drukpa establishment of Ladakh.

• (a)Sikkim — Sikkim's Buddhist calendar centres on other observances — Saga Dawa, Losar and the Pang Lhabsol — and its monasteries belong mainly to the Nyingma tradition at Pemayangtse and Rumtek's Karma Kagyu seat, not to the Drukpa establishment that runs Naropa.
• (c)Arunachal Pradesh — Arunachal has a strong Tibetan Buddhist presence around Tawang and its own festivals, including Losar and Torgya, but the Naropa festival is not among them.
• (d)Nagaland — Nagaland's best-known festival is the Hornbill Festival at Kisama, a showcase of Naga tribal culture. The state has no Tibetan Buddhist monastic tradition of this kind.

Ladakh's religious life runs on the Tibetan Buddhist monastic calendar, and its gompas each hold annual observances with masked cham dances. Hemis is the largest of them and the seat in India of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage. Two distinct events are held there: the annual Hemis festival, which honours Padmasambhava and falls on the tenth day of the fifth Tibetan month, and the Naropa festival, a much rarer twelve-year occasion built around the relics associated with Naropa.

The item can be settled by tracing the name rather than the place. Naropa belongs to the Indian mahasiddha tradition and his teachings pass down through the Kagyu schools; the Drukpa Kagyu has its Indian seat at Hemis; Hemis is in Ladakh. Once that chain is in place the other three options fall away, because none of them is Drukpa country. It also helps to know that Ladakh in February 2020 was a Union Territory in its own right, separated from Jammu and Kashmir on 31 October 2019, so a question could name it as an answer without naming a state. Do not confuse the two Hemis observances: the annual one is Padmasambhava's, the twelve-yearly one is Naropa's.

• The Naropa festival is held at Hemis in Ladakh as a twelve-year event and is called the Kumbh of the Himalayas.
• Hemis Monastery lies on the bank of the Indus about 45 km from Leh and is the principal seat of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage.
• Naropa was an eleventh-century Indian Buddhist master; the Six Yogas of Naropa are central to Kagyu practice.
• The annual Hemis festival is a separate observance dedicated to Padmasambhava.
• Ladakh became a Union Territory separate from Jammu and Kashmir with effect from 31 October 2019.

• Confusing the twelve-yearly Naropa festival with the annual Hemis festival held at the same monastery.
• Assigning any Tibetan Buddhist festival to Sikkim by default because it is a Buddhist-majority Himalayan state.
• Reading Nagaland as an option for a Buddhist festival; the Hornbill Festival is a Naga cultural showcase.

As a festival-to-state identification, or inside a matching set pairing regional festivals with their states.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Hemis Monastery, the venue of the Naropa festival, belongs to which lineage of Tibetan Buddhism?

  • (a)Gelug
  • (b)Nyingma
  • (c)Drukpa Kagyu
  • (d)Sakya

  Answer(c) Drukpa Kagyu — Hemis is the lineage's principal seat in India, on the bank of the Indus about 45 km from Leh.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Hornbill Festival, held annually at Kisama, belongs to which one of the following states?

  • (a)Nagaland
  • (b)Mizoram
  • (c)Meghalaya
  • (d)Sikkim

  Answer(a) Nagaland — a showcase of Naga tribal culture, and a common distractor in questions about Himalayan Buddhist festivals.