Begtse (Cham dance)
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Sometimes known as the God of War, Begtse is dressed very much in warrior’s garb.
Unlike most wrathful protectors, Begtse does not wear a diadem or crown of five skulls. Instead he wears a red helmet, typical of the Mongolian warriors of his time, from which protrudes a ‘banner of victory’.
He has a red demon face and four fierce fangs; his limbs are thick and short. He carries a lance laden with banners in his right hand and a bow and arrow in his left. He is rumoured to live in a leather castle on top of a mountain of copper surrounded by a sea of blood.
Begtse is one of the youngest dharmapalas, having only joined the ranks of Tibetan Buddhism in the 16th century. Originally Begtse was a pre-Buddhist deity of the Mongols and he had tried to block the passage of Sonam Gyatso, head of the Gelug order, on his pilgrimage to Mongolia to meet Altan Khan in the late 16th century. Sonam Gyatso, transforming himself into the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, defeated Begtse’s attempt to stop the visiting monk. Begtse realized that he had witnessed the great power of Buddhism and gladly became a protector of the Buddhist creed. The Gelug lama continued on his journey and met with Altan Khan. It was during this visit that Sonam Gyatso’s name was translated in to the Mongolian ‘Dalai Lama’ by the Mongolian khan[1]. Two previous patriarchs were posthumously given the same title, so Sonam Gyatso became the Third Dalai Lama.
[1] Sonam Gyatso, the Buddhist visitor from Tibet, was a lama in Mongolian eyes. They thought that ‘Gyatso’ was a family name which in Tibetan means ‘ocean’. Translated into Mongolian it becomes ‘dalai’. So the Gyatso lama was called the Dalai lama - hence the term Dalai Lama.