Dragons in Tibet?
Posted: 09 Dec 2010, 06:04A photo of two peculiar dragon-shaped objects taken from a plane flying over Tibet’s Himalayas piqued many users’ interest when displayed on a Chinese website. The photographer is an amateur.
On June 22, 2004, the photographer went to Tibet’s Amdo region to attend the Qinghai-to-Xizang Railroad laying ceremony, and then took a plane from Lhasa to fly back inland. When flying over the Himalayas, he accidentally caught these two "dragons" in a picture that he took. He called these two objects "the Tibet dragons."
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-8-7/31030.html
The original article in Chinese:
http://epochtimes.com/gb/5/8/5/n1008756.htm
Although I enjoy stories like this, I am quite skeptical of this one. In the digital age, photo editing is not hard to do.
Secondly, I think if some flesh and blood flying dinosaur still existed in Tibet that the Chinese would have already captured one and put it in their zoo in Beijing and would have showcased it for the 2008 olympics. Also, I think I would have heard about more about dragons if they frequented the region, since I'm always reading books about Tibet.
Here is an interesting except from an interview with H.H. Sakya Trizin (the head of one of the main sects of Tibetan Buddhism) in which he talks about dragons and zombies:
D.R. There are many stories about zombies in Tibetan history. Do people still encounter them nowadays?
H.H. I don’t think there have been any instances recently (laughs). However, when I was visiting in Ladakh earlier this year I noticed that the door frames were very low and wherever you went your head was always hitting the frame. They told me that this was because there used to be a great many zombies in Ladakh and zombies are not supposed to bend. The height of the doors was therefore to stop them getting anywhere! One does not find such stories nowadays, however.
D.R. Have you met any zombies?
H.H. No. However, I have seen a dragon, and I mentioned this in my autobiography. Nearly 20 years ago, when we were celebrating Tibetan New Year in Purwala, it was raining and lightning. Some parts of the sky were blue. Suddenly there was a big thunderclap and as the place where the clear sky met with the clouds we saw a long tail the colour of dark clouds shaped just like the tail of a dragon. As we heard the thunderclap the tail shook and disappeared into the clouds.
http://www.dechen.org/resources/html/In ... rizin.html
I don't know much about the details of Tibetans' ideas about dragons. Somehow I think that these "dragons" might just be some kind of spirits which are only seen very rarely. Somehow I don't think that Sakya Trizin meant that he saw a flesh and blood dragon. I guess I'll have to read his autobiography sometime to find out...
On June 22, 2004, the photographer went to Tibet’s Amdo region to attend the Qinghai-to-Xizang Railroad laying ceremony, and then took a plane from Lhasa to fly back inland. When flying over the Himalayas, he accidentally caught these two "dragons" in a picture that he took. He called these two objects "the Tibet dragons."
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-8-7/31030.html
The original article in Chinese:
http://epochtimes.com/gb/5/8/5/n1008756.htm
Although I enjoy stories like this, I am quite skeptical of this one. In the digital age, photo editing is not hard to do.
Secondly, I think if some flesh and blood flying dinosaur still existed in Tibet that the Chinese would have already captured one and put it in their zoo in Beijing and would have showcased it for the 2008 olympics. Also, I think I would have heard about more about dragons if they frequented the region, since I'm always reading books about Tibet.
Here is an interesting except from an interview with H.H. Sakya Trizin (the head of one of the main sects of Tibetan Buddhism) in which he talks about dragons and zombies:
D.R. There are many stories about zombies in Tibetan history. Do people still encounter them nowadays?
H.H. I don’t think there have been any instances recently (laughs). However, when I was visiting in Ladakh earlier this year I noticed that the door frames were very low and wherever you went your head was always hitting the frame. They told me that this was because there used to be a great many zombies in Ladakh and zombies are not supposed to bend. The height of the doors was therefore to stop them getting anywhere! One does not find such stories nowadays, however.
D.R. Have you met any zombies?
H.H. No. However, I have seen a dragon, and I mentioned this in my autobiography. Nearly 20 years ago, when we were celebrating Tibetan New Year in Purwala, it was raining and lightning. Some parts of the sky were blue. Suddenly there was a big thunderclap and as the place where the clear sky met with the clouds we saw a long tail the colour of dark clouds shaped just like the tail of a dragon. As we heard the thunderclap the tail shook and disappeared into the clouds.
http://www.dechen.org/resources/html/In ... rizin.html
I don't know much about the details of Tibetans' ideas about dragons. Somehow I think that these "dragons" might just be some kind of spirits which are only seen very rarely. Somehow I don't think that Sakya Trizin meant that he saw a flesh and blood dragon. I guess I'll have to read his autobiography sometime to find out...
