Gama Township, karuo District, Changdu City, Tibet Autonomous Region

Gama Township

Gama Township, karuo District, Changdu City, Tibet Autonomous Region, is located in the upper reaches of the Zaqu river. It borders Nangqian County, Qinghai Province in the north, mianda Township, Chaiwei Township and Yoba Township in the East, West and south, respectively. It is 130 kilometers away from Changdu town. It is the gathering place of Changdu national handicraft industry. Because there is a famous Tibetan Buddhism Gama Gaju paizu temple - Gama Temple named.

Gama township was set up in 1959, the commune was changed in 1974, the township was restored in 1980, and the three townships of Qala, Wudong and wazhai were merged in 1988.

essential information

Gama township is located in the north of karuo District, Changdu City, and the vast area in the west of Zhaqu River Basin. The township is connected with Chaiwei Township in the East, Chaiwei Township and Yoba Township in the southeast and south, Nangqian County in Qinghai Province and leiwuqi County in Tibet in the West and North, covering an area of 393.33 square kilometers. Zhaqu river is about 50 kilometers through the township. It has jurisdiction over 12 administrative villages and 49 natural villages (villagers' groups). with high mountains and deep valleys, dense forests and an average altitude of 3700m, the territory is rich in tourism resources and relatively convenient transportation. As the gama temple has been preserved up to now, it has a profound cultural heritage, which constitutes a special geographical environment for the inheritance of folk handicrafts. Gama handicrafts include: Thangka, Buddha statues, religious supplies, clothing accessories, daily necessities, Mani stone carving, etc.

history

It is said that two craftsmen who are good at making Buddhist utensils brought by the seventh gamabaquzajiangcuo from Nepal settled down in baipocong, wazhai village, Gama Township, and gradually formed a unique style of Gama folk handicrafts. Due to historical, religious and natural reasons, in the hometown of craftsmen, with Gama as the center, it gradually divided into two national handicraft distribution centers. One is wengdagang village in Chaiwei Township, which is mainly built with various kinds of Buddhist statues. It was first born in the late 14th century, and derived from the strong influence of qiangbarin Temple (the largest Yellow Sect temple in eastern Tibet). The other is gamawazhai village, which is mainly carved with Buddhist scriptures. Its history can be traced back to the first half of the 12th century, and it was founded with Gama Temple (Kangqu), It has a long history of more than 850 years. The craftsmanship of the gama nationality is handed down from generation to generation, and there are few written records, but its reputation has always had a great influence in Kangba area. Among them, the history of Thangka painting can be traced back to the Tubo Period, with a history of more than 700 years. Based on the long-term development of mural art, his paintings gradually deduce a new kind of Thangka, which is unique, unique, easy to collect and conducive to the promotion of religion. Tangka in Gama Township belongs to the "gamagazhi" painting school. It is said that it was created by langkazhaxi living Buddha. Together with mijiuduoji, the eighth gamagaba living Buddha of the same period, it laid the theoretical foundation of the "gamagazhi painting school". In the 16th century, the gamagazhi painting school began to prevail in Kangqu, and a number of masters emerged one after another. In the process of development, because the living area of gamagazhi painting school is closely connected with the Han area in the Central Plains, the political, economic and cultural exchanges are relatively frequent, especially in the aspect of painting, which is mostly influenced by the fine brushwork heavy color painting of Han area after Ming Dynasty and the Sichuan Mianzhu woodblock New Year pictures. Its overall style is different from that of Miantang and qinze painting schools in Weizang area. The Buddha statues are mostly South Asian Sanskrit style. The colors and techniques of the main characters in the painting are local style. The background of landscape, flowers and plants are more Han style. At the beginning of the 20th century, the art of kazhi school reached a more perfect and mature state.

Cultural development

Due to the influence of the "Cultural Revolution", Gama handicraft was on the verge of extinction. Since the reform and opening up, especially since the 1980s, when the ethnic and religious policies have been fully implemented, Gama's handicrafts have been developed with more and more craftsmen, and many skills that are on the verge of being lost have been protected and inherited. In 2002, Gama township was named as "the hometown of folk handicrafts" by the autonomous region. after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Central Committee formulated a series of special preferential policies in view of the situation in Tibet. Especially after the 1992 National Working Conference on township enterprises and the regional working conference on township enterprises, the district Party committee and government made the "decision on vigorously developing township enterprises" and formulated the guiding ideology, principles, policies and objectives for the development of township enterprises in Tibet Mark and task. Changdu county has brought Gama handicraft into the management of township enterprises, and held training courses for many times, which has brought it into a new period of rapid development. Under the concern of the Party committee and the government, a group of old artists returned to their old business and taught their skills carefully, which enabled the folk handicraft which was once on the verge of extinction to be inherited. under the guidance and organization of the government, in terms of means of production and mode of production, Gama handicrafts not only boldly adopted modern advanced quenching, calcination and other processes, but also transited from single household operation to multi household cooperation, which greatly improved work efficiency, shortened product marketing cycle, and improved production content and product nature Corresponding changes. From focusing on one product in the past to focusing on one industry and diversified operation, i.e. developing to a multi-functional type, i.e. I can not only make Buddhist statues and sutras, but also produce agricultural and animal husbandry utensils and daily necessities according to needs, which greatly avoids blindness. These measures not only inherit folk art, but also promote the development of local economy and increase the income of farmers and herdsmen. In 2004, Gama Township established the development idea of "culture based Township, tourism based Township, ecological beautiful Township, handicraft rich township", taking Gama's rich human and natural resources as the basis of development, expanding the development space of Gama's national handicraft. in 2004, Thangka artist gamadler wrote and published the book "Buddha bottom line ancestral techniques". In 2005, the cultural work of karuo District focused on the collection and arrangement of folk culture, one of which is the gama national handicraft. We will investigate and find out the folk artists, and select the "top ten folk artists (national handicraft category) according to their artistic attainments, reputation and contributions, so as to promote the development of national handicraft. In 2008, he was named "the hometown of Chinese folk culture and art" by the Ministry of culture. In 2007, the Cultural Bureau of karuo District declared that the Tangka of "gamagachi" painting school in Gama township was included in the list of intangible cultural heritage at the autonomous region level. In February 2008, it was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage. We have carried out the investigation and survey of Gama's handicrafts, deeply studied its historical development context and rich cultural connotation, established a long-term mechanism of protection and inheritance, and expanded the influence of Gama's handicrafts. Karuo district plans to establish a national handicraft industry development zone with Gama and Chaiwei townships as the center, give full play to the traditional advantages of local national handicraft industry, actively establish professional villages and households on the premise of constantly updating technology and improving craft level, moderately centralize cooperation, form production scale, and increase famous, excellent, new and special brands. At the same time, we should do a good job in socialized service before, during and after production, and establish a national handicraft industry base in eastern Tibet as soon as possible, which integrates production, supply and marketing, so as to make the national handicraft industry become a new economic growth point of the whole county. At the same time, take the development of tourism as an opportunity to organically combine the national handicraft and tourism industry, develop the national handicraft products suitable for tourism shopping, and make Gama national handicraft become an important part of Gama tourist attraction. Now in Gama, almost every family knows how to do it, and every family has its descendants. Among the 1152 laborers in the township, there are 140 full-time silversmiths, 72 painters, 98 stonecutters and 18 carpenters. These craftsmen spread all over the nine administrative villages of the township, especially in wazhai, Litu and rugu, which are in front of Gama temple. Ethnic craftsmen take the initiative to go out of the mountain villages and go out to contact the market. Their footprints are all over the counties of Changdu, Lhasa, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and other Tibetan areas, and their reputation is growing.

Related research

As a famous ethnic and folk culture town in Tibet, Gama township has attracted many scholars from anthropology, ethnology, art, Tibetan studies and other fields to carry out academic research. Relevant research results include: Tuga, Changdu traditional culture and art of Kangqu District, Tibet art research, No.4, 2001, malihua, gamagou, A cultural landscape, Tibetan literature, 2002, issue 03, Zhang Jianshi, investigation of Tibetan Silver and copper technology in wazhai village, Tibetan studies, 2008, issue 02, Tang Xuxiang, record of Tibetan metal technology, decoration, 2006, issue 10, Liu Dongmei, investigation of Tibetan folk art resources in Changdu area, Tibet, China Tibetan studies, 2011, issue 2, palpitation of Tangka Town, Xi'an Human geography of Tibet, issue 3, 2011, Liu Dongmei, Dharma and creativity of statues, Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House, 2012