Losar

Losar
Also called	Tibetan New Year Lhochhar
Observed by	Tibetans, Tibetan Buddhists
Type	Tibetan culture, Tibetan Buddhist
Frequency	Annual
Related to	Other Asian Lunar New Year festivals

Losar (Tibetan: ལོ་གསར་, Wylie: lo-gsar; "new year") is a festival in Tibetan Buddhism. The holiday is celebrated on various dates depending on location (Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan) and tradition. The holiday is a new year's festival, celebrated on the first day of the lunisolar Tibetan calendar, which corresponds to a date in February or March in the Gregorian calendar.

The variation of the festival in Nepal is called Lhochhar and is observed about eight weeks earlier than the Tibetan Losar.

Losar predates the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet and has its roots in a winter incense-burning custom of the Bon religion. During the reign of the ninth Tibetan king, Pude Gungyal (617-698), it is said that this custom merged with a harvest festival to form the annual Losar festival.

The 14th Dalai Lama (1998: p. 233) frames the importance of consulting the Nechung Oracle for Losar:

For hundreds of years now, it has been traditional for the Dalai Lama, and the Government, to consult Nechung during the New Year festivals.

Tenzin Wangyal (2002: p.xvii) frames his experience of Tibetan cultural practice of Losar in relation to elemental celebrations and offerings to Nāga (Tibetan: Klu):

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