The two oracles or Ronstang of Matho Gonpa today expressed their happiness on Flowering Dharma’s project of “International Institute for Culture & Ethics” ensuring their support and protection for the swift success of the Institute.
འདི་ལོའི་མང་སྤྲོ་ཤྭ་གླིང་དགོན་པའི་ལོ་འཁོར་དུས་མཆོད་ནག་རང་ཉིན་ཡུལ་ལྷ་རོང་བཙན་གཉིས་ནས། ཆོས་ཀྱི་འདབ་བཞད་ཆོས་ཚོགས་པའི་ལས་གཞི་རྒྱལ་སྤྱི་རིག་གཞུང་དང་ཀུན་སྤྱོད་སློབ་གཉེར་ཁང་གསར་བཞེངས་འཐད།་(Flowering་Dharma’s Project of international institute for culture and Ethics) ཐུགས་ཉེས་པའི་རྣམ་འགྱུར་དང་འབྱུང་རྒྱུར་ལས་དོན་མཐའ་དག་ལ་གྲོགས་དང་འཕྲིན་ལས་གནང་བའི་ཞལ་ཞེས་མཛད།
The Oracle Matho Nagrang Festival is held at the Matho Monastery or Matho Gompa in Ladakh in the first month of the Tibetan new year. It is believed that two oracles, or Ronstang, inhabit the bodies of two specially chosen monks to predict the future of the village and individual villagers. Such traditions might seem unbelievable to the outsiders, but for the people living here, it’s a way of life. Matho Nagrang Festival is one of the most important festivals of the Tibetan Buddhism Sakya School which like other Tibetan festivals, is celebrated with great pomp and show.
Matho Gompa Ladakh was founded by Lama Tugpa Dorjay in 16th century. During this festival, two oracles, known as “Rongtsan”, are said to inhabit for a few hours the body of two monks. The purpose of these oracles is to attempt to predict the fortunes of the local village communities for the coming year. Two monk that are to be the oracles vehicles are chosen every three years by the monks of the monastery for a duration of 3 years. The first year the monks will have to meditate for 9 months before the festival. The following two years the meditation will last 2 months. When the two monk come out from the retreat, all the monks will gather together to form a circle. The names of the two monks will be placed in a bowl. The bowl is then sealed and passed from one monk to the next until one name comes out from the bowl – this monk is chosen by the monastery’s protector to perform the oracle.
