Kabney: tradition of wearing ceremonial scarves in Bhutan Introduction The origin of Kabney dates back to the time of Lord Buddha and also the 7 th Century saint Padma Sambhava was said to have given the white scarves to be worn by commoners during all the religious ceremonies. The distinction and creation of Kabneys for cabinet, nyikelm and Gups were made during the great rein of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel in the 16 th Century when he unified and founded the of Nation state in Bhutan. Further with an establishment of Monarchy in the 20 th Century, the various scarves for cabinet minister and their deputies ( བློན་པོ་ལྷན་རྒྱས་ གོང་འོག ), Nyikelms ( གཉིས་སྐལམ ) , Chip Zhem ( ཆིབས་བཞོནམ traditional title for the lowest ranked officer ) and Rabjams ( རབ་འབྱམས ) were introduced as post-based scarves. With an onset of 21 st century, the tradition of kabney evolved further in the phase of modernization and scarves for Dzongda ( རྫོང་བདག ), Drangpon ( དྲང་ད
The Ritual of Mandala Offering Mandala offering symbolizes an offering of the entire universe and other priceless objects present within it to the Buddhas in order to accrue merit. Manda means the essence or midpoint and circumference and la means “taking hold of”. Thus, mandala refers to grasping the basis or essence for achieving all the magnificent qualities of the higher realms and the kingdom of Dharma, the sacred truths of cessation and the path. As per the Buddhist cosmology, the earth is considered flat with a giant mountain, Mount Meru in the middle, bordered by four major continents, each with two main and several minor sub-continents. There are incalculable of similar realms and we visualize offering all these worlds considering them as unpolluted lands and offered to the Buddhas and great enlightened beings. I would briefly explain the Thirty-Seven Point Mandala Offering as per Chögyal Pakpa Lodrö Gyaltsen. The simple copper plated mandal