Below are six navigational ‘roses’ or search tools to assist you in finding images from the archive. These roses translate between the various concepts of time that people use in rural Ladakh and other rural Tibetan societies across Asia. Click on the terms Tibetan, Seasonal, Ritual, Agrarian, Gregorian, Lunar, or Time of Day to learn more about how these individual terms can enable a search for images in the archive.
Click on any navigational rose for a search tool that will lead you to individual images.
Below are five roses that translate between Tibetan and other concepts of time. The first three roses help you understand how the four seasons of a calendar year are associated with Tibetan months, Gregorian (or western) months, and common ritual and agrarian activities that take place each year. The fourth rose helps translate any western year into its corresponding Tibetan animal and element over the last six decades, offering the precise day of the year when the Tibetan New Year began. The fifth rose shows the thirty days of a Tibetan lunar month, which are oriented around the new and full moon.
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on any navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.
These three roses help you understand how the four seasons of a calendar year are associated with Tibetan months, Gregorian (or western) months, and common ritual and agrarian activities that take place each year. The Tibetan year, which is based on a lunar calendar of 12 months, is roughly 10-11 days shorter than the 365 day Gregorian year. As a result, the Tibetan New Year falls roughly 10-11 days earlier for 2 or 3 years in a row, until an intercalary (or extra month) is added to make up the lost days. There is some slippage between when any given Tibetan month falls in relation to a western or Gregorian month. The navigational roses provide the average or proximate relationship between the Tibetan months and their western counterparts.
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on any navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.
This rose explains the myriad agrarian activities that occupy people in Ladakh during a given calendar year in a given season or month. Note that the rose gives the average or proximate relationship between the Tibetan months and their western counterparts.
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on the navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.
This rose explains the myriad rituals that occur in the course of a single year during a given season or month. This rose uses the region of Zangskar, Karsha village, and its local nunnery and monastery as representative levels to show the difference between household, village, monastic, and regional rites. Different regions and villages across Ladakh will have slightly different ritual calendars. Note that the rose gives the average or proximate relationship between the Tibetan months and their western counterparts.
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on the navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.
This rose helps translate any western year into its corresponding Tibetan animal and element over the last six decades, offering the precise day of the year when the Tibetan New Year began. Note that the Chinese New Year does not always correspond to the Tibetan New Year in any given year as Chinese and Tibetan astrologers do not collaborate on setting their international calendars.
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on any navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.
This rose explains how the thirty days of the Tibetan month relate to a lunar month, which is technically only 29.5 days long. Note that the Tibetan month new moon usually falls on the 30th day and full moon on the 15th day, while the moon is waxing from day 1 through day 14 and waning from day 16 through day 29. If the moon does not advance by 12 degrees on a given solar day, the Tibetan lunar calendar marks the same day twice, and if the moon advances through two 12-degree quadrants in a solar day, the Tibetan lunar calendar skips a day. Hence, any given Tibetan month may have one or more repeated days and skipped days to assure that the full moon always falls near the 15th and the new moon on the 30th (or 29th if the 30th is skipped).
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on the navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.
This rose shows the rough divisions of time in a single day used in rural Ladakh, where some people do not have regular access to wristwatches or clocks.
More on how the Tibetan and Gregorian calendars relate
Click on the navigational rose for a search tool that takes you to individual images.