Yab-yum (Tibetan: ą½”ą½ą¼ą½”ą½“ą½ą¼ literally, "father-mother") is a common symbol in the Tibetan Buddhist art of India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet. It represents the primordial union of wisdom and compassion, depicted as a male deity in union with his female consort through the similar ideas of interpenetration or "coalescence" (Tibetan: ą½ą½“ą½ą¼ą½ ą½ą½“ą½ Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha), using the concept of Indra's net to illustrate this.
The male figure represents compassion and skillful means, while the female partner represents insight. In yab-yum the female is seated on the male's lap. There is a rare presentation of a similar figure but reversed, with the male sitting on the female's lap, called yum-yab.
Tanggula is the source of the Ulan Moron and Dam Qu Rivers, the geographic headwaters of the Yangtze River. It functions as a dividing range between the basin of the Yangtze in the north and the endorheic basin of northeastern Tibet in the south.
The Dangqu, Dam Qu (Chinese:Ā å½ę², pĀ DÄngqÅ«) or Dam Chu (Tibetan:Ā ą½ ą½ą½ą¼ą½ą½“, wĀ 'Dam Chu, lit.Ā "Marshy River") is the longest source of the Yangtze River, with a total length of 365.7Ā km (227.2Ā mi) located in the Qinghaiprovince of the People's Republic of China. It runs from its source in an eastern offshoot of the Tanggula Mountains (åå¤ęå±±), receives its main tributary the Buqu-Gar Qu River (åøę²), and has a confluence with the Ulan Moron, where the Tongtian River is formed. The Dangqu has been discovered to be the actual and the longest headwater of the Yangtze River under modern criteria, although the nearby Ulan Moron or Tuotuo was traditionally regarded as the primary river of the two.
Bon or Bƶn (Tibetan: ą½ą½¼ą½ą¼, Wylie: bon, ZWPY: Pƶn, Lhasa dialect: [pŹ°ĆøĢĢ]), also known as Yungdrung Bon (Tibetan: ą½ą½”ą½“ą½ą¼ą½ą¾²ą½“ą½ą¼ą½ą½¼ą½ą¼, Wylie: gyung drung bon, ZWPY: Yungchung Pƶn, lit.ā'eternal Bon'), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but retains elements from earlier Tibetan religious traditions. Bon is a significant minority religion in Tibet, especially in the east, as well as in the surrounding Himalayan regions.
The relationship between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism has been a subject of debate. According to the modern scholar Geoffrey Samuel, while Bon is "essentially a variant of Tibetan Buddhism" with many resemblances to Nyingma, it also preserves some genuinely ancient pre-Buddhist elements. David Snellgrove likewise sees Bon as a form of Buddhism, albeit a heterodox kind. Similarly, John Powers writes that "historical evidence indicates that Bƶn only developed as a self-conscious religious system under the influence of Buddhism".
The Dalai Lama (UK: /ĖdƦlaÉŖĖlÉĖmÉ/, US: /ĖdÉĖlaÉŖ/; Tibetan: ą½ą½±ą¼ą½£ą½ ą½²ą¼ą½ą¾³ą¼ą½ą¼, Wylie: TÄ la'i bla ma[tĆ”ĖlÉĖlĆ”ma]) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" given by Altan Khan. He offered it in appreciation to the Gelug school's then-leader, Sonam Gyatso, who received it in 1578 at Yanghua Monastery. At that time, Sonam Gyatso had just given teachings to the Khan, and so the title of Dalai Lama was also given to the entire tulku lineage. Sonam Gyatso became the 3rd Dalai Lama, while the first two tulkus in the lineage, the 1st Dalai Lama and the 2nd Dalai Lama, were posthumously awarded the title.
Since the time of the 5th Dalai Lama in the 17th century, the Dalai Lama has been a symbol of unification of the state of Tibet. The Dalai Lama was an important figure of the Gelug tradition, which was dominant in Central Tibet, but his religious authority went beyond sectarian boundaries, representing Buddhist values and traditions not tied to a specific school. The Dalai Lama's traditional function as an ecumenical figure has been taken up by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who has worked to overcome sectarian and other divisions in the exile community and become a symbol of Tibetan nationhood for Tibetans in Tibet and in exile. He is Tenzin Gyatso, who escaped from Lhasa in 1959 during the Tibetan uprising and lives in exile in Dharamshala, India.
The ergative-absolutive alignment is in contrast to nominativeāaccusative alignment, which is observed in English and most other Indo-European languages, where the single argument of an intransitive verb ("She" in the sentence "She walks") behaves grammatically like the agent (subject) of a transitive verb ("She" in the sentence "She finds it") but different from the object of a transitive verb ("her" in the sentence "He likes her"). When ergativeāabsolutive alignment is coded by grammatical case, the case used for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb is the absolutive, and the case used for the agent of a transitive verb is the ergative. In nominative-accusative languages, the case for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the agent of a transitive verb is the nominative, while the case for the direct object of a transitive verb is the accusative.
Muktinath is an ancient Vishnu temple located in Mustang, Nepal. The temple of Muktinath, known as 'the lord of liberation', is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists whom they worship as an abode of Hindu deity Vishnu and Buddhist deity AvalokiteÅvara respectively. Located in the Muktinath valley at the foot of the Thorong La mountain pass, it is one of the world's highest temples at an altitude of 3,800 meters. The temple is given a status of one of the 108 Divya Desams of Sri Vaishnavism (and the only Divya Desam located outside India) as well as one of the eight most sacred shrines in that tradition, known as the Svayam Vyakta Ksetras or Sthalas. It is also one of the 51 Shakta pithas, associated with the head of goddess Sati. The temple complex is known as Mukti Kshetra, which literally means "the place of liberation (moksha)" and is one of the Char Dham in Nepal.
For Buddhists, Muktinath is an abode of dakinis - goddesses known as Sky Dancers and is considered one of the twenty-four Tantric places. Tibetan Buddhists call it Chumig Gyatsa, which in Tibetan means "Hundred Waters" and the murti is revered as a manifestation of AvalokiteÅvara, who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas.
Rato Dratsang (Dratsang in Tibetan means 'monastery', lit. "monk's nest"), also known as Rato Monastery (sometimes spelled Ratƶ Monastery), Rato Dratsang is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" order. For many centuries, Rato Dratsang was an important monastic center of Buddhist studies in Central Tibet.
The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617ā1682), referred to Rato Dratsang as Taktsang, or Tiger Nest, because of its fine scholars and debaters. The monastery served as a center for the study of Buddhist philosophy and logic; monks from many other monasteries came to Jang, under Ratoās authority, every year to intensively study and rigorously debate logic.
