Sunday, July 24, 2011

Tibetan hats (ཞྭ་མོ་ / དབུ་ཞྭ་)

The pionier of Tibetan studies, Giuseppe Tucci, mentioned somewhere that the Tibetans are fond of hats. Sanggye Gyatsho (1653-1705), the famous regent of Tibet wrote that Lhasa is the city of different languages and different hat-styles (སཀད་རིགས་ཞྭ་རིགས་མི་གཅིག་པ་ / skad rigs zhwa rigs mi gcig pa).


Below are some illustrations of Tibetan hats (photographed from publications on the Potala murals)

these hats are propably called rtse-zhwa

probably hats from Khalkha ??

left: hats called thang zhu, right: this could be a gzi dom















The famous བོད་རྒྱ་ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ་ (Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo), vol. III, illustrations, lists some hats together with their names.



The hat of Gushri Khan (bstan 'dzin chos kyi rgyal po). Gushri Khan and sde srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (in front of the Fifth Dalai Lama)


Some more names of hats (found in Bod kyi dmangs srol gces btus, ed. by Bstan 'dzin dge legs, p. 208)

These hats were worn by monks:

bon zhva 'ob zhu
sgom zhva
jo zhva
byang chub ser zhva
gcod zhva
thang zhva
sa zhva
zhva nag 
sgro btsems
bla ma sgro rtse
sgro lhug ma




and on p. 211-12 we find a short list of Mongolian hats worn in Tibet in the 17th century:

zhva mo va sgor
lcags mda'
tog zhva
gser thebs
rta zhva tho mor
sog zhva



Bod kyi lo rgyus rig gnas dpyad gzhi'i rgyu cha bdams bsgrigs, vol. 23, p. 174:


zhva mo ar kon (this kind of hat is manufactured in the county of snye mo)

p. 175:
mu tig gi zhva mo thug khog (hat of women worn at festivities)
mu ti thug khog



(will be continued ....)