THE SPIRIT HEALERS OF LADAKH

Anjali Pathak
To witness the spirit healers of Ladakh at work is to journey to a different realm where time stands frozen and modern concepts come tumbling down like a pack of cards. Each Ladakhi village has its own shaman or shamaness called LAMO and there are over 200 such spirit healers in Ladakh. Traditional healers in the Tibetan healing tradition called AMCHIS also work alongside the lamosthere is no conflict of interests, no jealously guarded territories, only mutual cooperation and a desire to alleviate human suffering. Lobsang Dolma,69, of Stok Phele, 20 km. from Leh, has been healing people since 1993. She did not choose to become a healer, rather she was chosen by a higher power. She suffered a strange illness for 25 years which could not be diagnosed or healed by the amchis or by modern allopaths. Finally an amchi told her that she was possessed by the spirit of a powerful deityBhairav. Lobsang Dolma then trained under a spirit healer of Thikse for 2-3 years and started healing people herself. This inititation and healing work helped Lobsang Dolma heal her own bodymind. Her husband Jamyang Dorji, 70, is a pensioner and has worked for the ITBP and the Ladakh Scouts. The couple have a spacious, well maintained home in Choglamsar and have agricultural land. We are well off and are not desperate for money was a frequent refrain of Dorji, who acts as an assistant and interpreter for his wife during her healing sessions. After donning a special head dress Lobsang Dolma begins a healing session by chanting special mantras and prayers addressed to her guru and to her protector deity in front of a low table upon which offerings of barley, tsampa, a butter lamp and seven bowls of water have been placed. A bell and damru are sounded and a dorje (vajra) is held in one hand as a symbol of power. After an invocation to the spirit of Bhairav she enters into a trance. The patients are called in one by one and are healed. Prophesies are also made. Dolma plays the damru, throws barley grains on the damru, studies them for a few moments and then makes a prophesy. At times the procedure with the barley grains is repeated several times before the patient can be given sage advice. Blockages or negativity are sucked out of the body with a slim aluminium or copper pipe . I felt slight pressure on the skin when undergoing the sucking process, otherwise there was no pain or discomfort. The sucked out blockage is put into a metal bowl; it may be a reddish-brown mass, yellowish phlegm, a blackish mass or even small white stones! Kidney and gall bladder stones are routinely sucked out by the spirit healers, or so it is claimed. On Sundays, Dolma heals about 50-70 people till lunchtime. On weekdays a few odd people show up and they are healed too. Dolma also visits the homes of severely ill and bedridden patients. Dorji tells me proudly that Dolma has gone as far as Srinagar where large audiences of 400 have shown up for healing on a single day. She has also travelled to Nepal, Delhi, Agra, Patna and Dharamshala upon invitation. But she is human after all and feels depleted after healing large numbers of people. However, Bhairav will not let her retire and so she must continue to heal, for her own good and those of others. In

the guru-shishya tradition she has trained 4-5 women as lamos from Zanskar, Thikse, Shey and Dolkar villages. Agu Pay Lamo, 52, is a younger and more dynamic spirit healer from Chushot. Tsewang Dolma is her real name and she has been healing for the past 25 years. After her first delivery she became half-mad and went to a rimpoche to seek relief. The rimpoche diagnosed it as a case of spirit possession. She then went to Sabu, met her guru Abi Lamo and received the guru mantra from her. She also trained under Tarshita Padma Lamo of Tarshita village. The training was hard she states plainly. Her husband was a subedar in the BSF and she has two sons, one daughter and several grandchildren. Agu Pay Lamo has visited several foreign countries upon invitation and has also been to Delhi, Nepal, Sikkim and Darjeeling. She does not remain in Leh during the bitterly cold winters, choosing to spend them in gentler climes. A wealthy sponsor called Ladakh sardar by the locals, often invites her to Sikkim for healing among the poor. She has also trained about 25-30 lamos from different villages over the years. The most striking thing about Tsewang Dolma is her deep faith in karma and her feeling of compassion for all living beings. She also heals cows, yaks and other animals. Obviously, her healing work is not a commercial business but a sadhana for her. By and large freed from the daily grind of hearth and home she can spend her time as she pleases. But if she sits idle at home she feels physically uneasy, develops muscular spasms, itchy rash and other complaints which make it difficult for her to sit still. Healing restores fluidity and buoyancy to her body and soul. It brings her peace and joy and she is supported by her entire family in her healing work. Watching her at work in a small room in the Hemis Complex in downtown Leh was a revelation. After the preliminaries when she went into a trance she started sucking out blockages from the people in quick succession with her lips, using a pipe rarely. Water squirted out of a shaven nuns head with such force that it wetted the onlookers. Soon a metal bowl was filled with phlegm and mucus that had been sucked out from various patients. No question of modern hygiene, sterilization, bacteria or virus out here. This was spirit healing plain and simple. Within 90 minutes she had treated 45-50 patients with lightning speed which left me stunned. At the end of it Agu Pay Lamo laughed and chatted with her assistants. The patients on their part offered her money as dakshina for her services and they were generous, many offering a hundred or fifty rupee note. It is this deep rooted faith of the Ladakhis in their traditional healers that has made them survive in such a harsh climate, on the roof of the world. Visitors to Leh can contact the lamos for healing. Lobsang Dolma: (01982)263485, 09419613454. Agu Pay Lamo: 09469049129