Kangling
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Kangling (Tibetan: Page Template:Bo-textonly/fonts.css has no content.རྐང་གླིང་།, Wylie: Template:Tlit), literally translated as "leg" (kang) "flute" (ling), is the Tibetan name for a trumpet or horn made out of a human tibia[1] or femur, used in Tibetan Buddhism for various chöd rituals as well as funerals performed by a chöpa. The leg bone of a deceased person is used.[2] Alternatively, the leg bone of a respected teacher may be used.[3] The kangling may also be made out of wood.
The kangling should only be used in chöd rituals performed outdoors with the chöd damaru and bell.[2] In Tantric chöd practice, the practitioner, motivated by compassion, plays the kangling as a gesture of fearlessness, to summon hungry spirits and demons so that she or he may satisfy their hunger and thereby relieve their sufferings. It is also played as a way of "cutting off of the ego."[citation needed]
A minor figure from Katok Monastery, the First Chonyi Gyatso, Chopa Lugu (17th – mid-18th century), is remembered for his "nightly bellowing of bone-trumpet [kangling] and shouting of phet" on pilgrimage, much to the irritation of the business traveler who accompanied him. Chopa Lugu became renowned as "The Chod Yogi Who Split a Cliff in China (rgya nag brag bcad gcod pa)."[4]
See also
References
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- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Attala, Luci; Steel, Louise, eds. (2019). Body Matters: Exploring the Materiality of the Human Body. University of Wales Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-1786834157.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Handa, O.C. (2005). Buddhist Monasteries of Himachal. Indus Publishing Company. p. 320. ISBN 978-8173871702.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Loseries-Leick, Andrea (2008). Tibetan Mahayoga Tantra: An Ethno Historical Study of Skulls, Bones and Relics. B.R. Publishing Corporation. p. 225. ISBN 978-8176466424.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Chhosphel, Samten (December 2011). "The First Chonyi Gyatso, Chopa Lugu". The Treasury of Lives. Retrieved 21 December 2025.
