Guru Rinpoche

Mani Rimdu is held at a Nyingma monastery, in the lineage founded by Guru Rinpoche — Padmasambhava, the master remembered for carrying Buddhist teaching into Tibet in the eighth century and subduing the forces that opposed it. The festival's blessing is addressed to Chenrezig, the bodhisattva of compassion, but the story it stages is his.

That subduing is what the masked dances re-enact. The wrathful figures in the masked dances, the obstacles cleared, the order established over an older one — the sequence is a retelling of that work, performed annually rather than narrated. He is depicted seated, holding a vajra, with a distinctive curved hat and a wide, direct gaze, and images of him are found in every gompa in the Khumbu.

His presence explains something visitors often find confusing about the dances: the frightening masks are not demons in the sense of villains. Several of them are protective, and their ferocity is directed at what obstructs practice. Knowing which side a mask is on changes how the day reads.