These horns, known locally as dun chen, issue the deep, hoarse notes that herald the unforgettable Mani Rimdu Festival.

Every year, in the Khumbu region of Nepal, this Buddhist Dance Drama is enacted by the monks of Tengboche Monastery. The site of this high altitude entertainment is the temple, or gompa, within the monastery itself. Situated on a generous plateau at an altitude of almost four thousand metres, the gompa is crowned by some of the highest mountains in the world: Thamserku (6608m), Kangteiga, (6779m) Taboche (6542m) and two kilometres or so away, the summit of Mount Everest (8848m) peers above the Lhotse-Nuptse Wall.

Tengboche gompa is home to around 36 monks and 25 students, under the leadership of the Abbot Ngawang Tenzin Zangbu. The Abbot spent his early years in Namche Bazaar, a busy trading centre in the Khumbu Valley. As a small child he expressed a wish to return home to Tengboche, a desire that coincided with the death of the previous Abbot, Lama Gulu. It was believed that the child might be the Lama's reincarnation, and monks from Tengboche visited Namche Bazaar with a heap of possessions to test him. He picked out all those that had belonged to Lama Gulu, and from the age of five was raised at Tengboche as the Reincarnate Lama and Guru Rinpoche of the monastery.
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