2025 – 2030

This proposal outlines a five-year project dedicated to reconstructing and transmitting the lost

Cham Yig of the Drikung Kagyu lineage in Ladakh. The Cham Yig—ritual dance manuals that

encode choreography, ritual meaning, and lineage continuity—are essential to the performance

of monastic dances (Cham). In the case of Drikung Kagyu, the complete Cham Yig has been

lost; only fragments survive in manuscript form, supplemented by oral transmission and annual

performance.

The aim of this project is to create, for the first time in centuries, a complete Drikung Kagyu

Cham Yig, through a process that unites living transmission with scholarship. The project brings

together monks of different generations, scholars, dancers, musicians, and senior ritual leaders

to reconstruct, document, and disseminate a new, complete Cham Yig. The result will be both a

practical manual for performance within the Drikung Kagyu tradition and a model for how lost

ritual traditions might be revived in other Buddhist lineages.

Over five years, this collaborative effort will reconstruct the text, confirm its ritual accuracy

through performance and teaching, and publish it for both internal and wider audiences.

The first conference of monastic dance scholars convened in October of 2025