Thrue Bab on September 22

September 16: It is not reflected in the calendar, but September 22 will be a national holiday, says the home ministry.

The Cabinet yesterday approved the home ministry’s recommendation to reinstate Thrue Bab, which, along with the much-celebrated national holiday Nyen Pa Guzom, was cancelled in 2007 from the national holiday list. The latter, however, has not been reinstated.

Home minister Lyonpo Minjur Dorji said that, though the recent Assembly session discussed reinstating Thrue Bab and Nyen Pa Guzom (meeting of nine evils) as public holidays, and the Speaker directed the minister to include either of the two in the public holiday list, the home ministry, Lyonpo said, recommended Thrue Bab because of its cultural importance and spiritual heritage. “But since Bhutanese believe that all nine evils meet on Nyen Pa Guzom, it is not that important,” he said.

Thrue is celebrated as a day, which marks the end of the monsoon and the start of the losar season. In other words, it is the end of the farming season and the beginning of the harvest season.

A Semtokha astrologer told Kuensel that this year’s Thrue Bab would begin at 5 a.m. On this day all natural water is considered to be holy and people take outdoor baths to cleanse themselves, says the astrologer, of “bad deeds and bad karma”.

Thrue is also observed in other places like Ladakh in India, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and some parts of China.

source: kuensel