Mangtro Nagrang

Matho Nagrang is a two-day festival celebrated on the 14th and 15th days of the first month of the Tibetan calendar. The festival is held at the Matho monastery, which is part of the Sakya School of Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh. The festival is also known as the Oracle Festival. It is a five-century-old ritual that involves two oracles, known as Rongtsans. The Rongtsans employ ordained monks as their medium. They meditate at least two months in isolation to make themselves conducive for the oracles to transcend in. They perform astounding supernatural feats such as running on the roof parapets of the monastery with steep drops of the mountain on which it’s perched, jumping on the corners of the tall monastery walls, cutting themselves with swords and so on. The next day, they display such unbelievable acts completely blindfold.