Festival of the Scapegoat - Dosmoche, Nubra Valley, Jammu & Kashmir India

Dosmoche is celebrated with great fervour in Leh. Recognized as an annual prayer festival, “Dosmoche” was started by the rulers of Ladakh on the pattern of the popular Mon-Lam. It means 'Great Prayer' ceremony of Lhasa. Celebrated with enthusiasm and fervour, the festival is of the scapegoat. In Diskit, a group of folk dances is performed as interludes to the 'Chhams'. Sacred mask dances are carried out in the courtyard of the old chapel below the gates of the Leh Palace. For this, Lamas are drawn from different monasteries from across Ladakh on a rotation basis.

 One of the most popular prayer festivals in the Nubra Valley, the Dosmoche or Desmochhey - also known as the 'Festival of the Scapegoat' is celebrated at the Diksit Monastery. The same festival is also celebrated in Likir in Leh, but since it is celebrated in the peak winter of February when the Khardon peak is snowbound, all the locals gather at the Diksit Monastery to celebrate. The Dosmoche Festival is held in Leh from February 19-20, 2012. It is a two-day event and is celebrated towards the end of the Tibetan calendar. The key attraction at this festival here is the mask dance performed by the Lama's dressed dramatically, expressing the win of good over evil. The dances performed are believed to avoid any ill fortune in the coming New Year. People in the region throw images made of dough to deter any evil & to welcome peace & prosperity in their lives.

The Leh Palace comes alive as masked monks from various monasteries gather in the courtyard of a chapel below the palace and perform a sacred dance to ward off evil spirits and ill fortune. Also known as the ‘festival of the scapegoat’, the main attraction of the event is watching lamas dressed up in dramatic costumes and masks dance with gusto.

At Dosmoche, a great wooden mast decorated with streamers and religious emblems is etup outside Leh. At the appointed time, offerings of storma, ritual figures moulded out of dough, are brought out and ceremonially cast away into the desert, or burnt. These scapegoats carry away with them the evil spirits of the old year, and thus the town is cleansed and made ready to welcome the New Year. Spituk, stok, thikse, chemrey and Mathoall have their festivals in winter, between November and March. Likir and Deskit (Nubra ) time their festivals to coincide with Dosmoche.

The festival is a tradition that was started by a king named Lhachen Gongdup who ruled the region between the years 1295 and 1320. However, today, the main ritual of the festival is only performed by the monks of the Thak Thok Monastery. It is believed that this is the same monastery where Padmasambhava meditated during his journey to Tibet in the 8th century.

These lamas are said to be experts in tantric rituals and are responsible for preparing the main offering of the festival, which is a structure made out of colourful threads. This offering, also called as the ‘do’, along with other offerings, is carried through the main market of the town as a procession. Apart from the lamas, locals and musicians join in the fanfare as the offerings are taken out of the town and burnt.