This moving eye-witness account, illustrated with many rare photographs, present the major state rituals and festivals officially enacted in the Tibetan capital under the auspices of the Dalai Lama's government before the Chinese Communist occupation of 1959. Starting with month-long ceremonies of the New Year, the reader is taken through the full chronological sequence of both secular and Buddhist rites which punctuated the Tibetan Year. Together they form an intricate panoply of processions, sacred dances, oracular seances, ritual competions and official feasting which occupied the energies, enjoyment and deep faith of the entire populace of Lhasa, from the highest to the lowest.