Guwahati, Friday, February 3, 2006
By A Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Feb 2 I am from the edge of the world, said Geshe Ngawang Tashi Bapu, or Lama Tashi as the world knows him, from Arunachal Pradesh here today. It has indeed been a long journey for the globetrotting monk, born in a remote village called Thembang in West Kameng district. His village is the last human habitation along the Indo-China border in the district.
Though his name was, till a few weeks ago, unfamiliar to the people of India, Tashi is already a known figure in the West. His Buddhist chants had endeared him to Western singers and musicians for close to 15 years and his album, Tibetan Master Chants, has taken him to the Top Ten charts in several countries.
Today, Tashi (38) left for Los Angeles (California) to attend the Grammy Awards 2005 function. His Tibetan Master Chants has been nominated in the Best Traditional World Music Album category. It is a first for a person from the North East. Only a handful of persons from India have ever been nominated for the Grammys. He was The Guest of the Month at the Guwahati Press Club this morning.
It is an honour that has come quite unexpected for Tashi. The Tibetan Master Chants is itself a chance creation, thanks to his musician friend Jonathan Goldman of Spirit Music who goaded the monk to casually record his mystical chants in his newly acquired recording equipment at his basement studio in his home in the US. That was in the mid-1990s. A decade after that, the recording has evolved into the Tibetan Master Chants. It has taken the West by storm after its 2005 release. It was Goldmans son who suggested the name for the album.
Acclaim is nothing new for the Lama though. His chanting of Buddhist hymns in his deep baritone has been heard, and appreciated, for years in the West. For those who do not know, his chants have also featured in the background score of Hollywood blockbuster Seven Years in Tibet, starring heartthrob Brad Pitt.
Born in 1968, Tashi heads the Government of India funded Central Institute of Himalayan Culture Studies at Dahung in West Kameng. Earlier, he was the principal chant master at the Drepung Loseling monastery in Karnataka, one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world with over 3,000 monks and dubbed the Second Nalanda. He embraced monastic life in 1983 when he entered the Gontse Gaden Rabgeyling monastery in Bomdila. Later that year he went to the Karnataka monastery to study Buddhist philosophy.
It is here that Tashi also mastered the monastic sacred dance and the sacred chants known as Tibetan Deep Voice, a multi-phonic singing technique employed in prayers. It is a vibrating sound that comes out from the vocal chords and I was initially reluctant to join the chanting group knowing that it would be a challenge, he explained. Some 16 years later, he became the principal chant master. In between, he served his monastary in various capacities. Tashis mastery over his vocal chords impressed his teachers so much that he was chosen to be part of the group touring the world spreading Buddhist teachings and performing chants and sacred dances.
While on tour, Tashi performed before the Dalai Lama in Brazil and in Pasadena (California). He had an 80,000-strong audience in New York. Between such tours, Lama Tashi has also performed alongside singers and musicians like Philip Glass, Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Patti Smith, Ben Harper, Billi Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins and Sheryl Crow. In the West people started looking at me as a singer and artiste, even a pop star, Tashi said.
Tibetan Master Chants was a totally amateur effort. It was more like play and there was nothing professional about its recording, Tashi admitted. What I chanted was very common. There was nothing sacred or profound in it. The chants are ones that are commonly recited in our society. Thus, it came as a surprise when the Lama was informed about his nomination for the Grammys. I couldnt believe it initially, he confessed.
Lama Tashi has dedicated his life to Buddhist teachings and propagating peace and compassion. He has been asked several times by friends to settle in the US. He refused. He even declined a scholarship to study at Harvard. I asked myself whether a Harvard degree would fit into my life. Tashi is currently working with several musicians. His next album is likely to be a fusion of Buddhist chants and Western classical music. I am aiming more for the listeners to practice the chants, he said.
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
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