The Lama of the

Tamang people The Tamang people (; Devanagari: तामाङ; ''tāmāṅ'') are an ethnic group living in Nepal, Northeast India and southern Bhutan. In Nepal, they are concentrated in the central hilly and Himalayan regions and constituted over 1.6 mill ...

, is an ancient priestly clan having resided in the area now known as

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

since antiquity and predating the spread of Buddhism, is associated with spiritual and religious dealings, including

ancestor worship The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...

Additionally, other ''Swagen Bhai'' (Tamang kinship clans) perform priestly rituals, such as shaman ''Jhankris'', but the Lama are most associated with priesthood. This particular ''Swagen Bhai'' (kinship clan) of the Tamang are so associated with religion that all Tamangs are addressed as ''

Lama Lama () is a title bestowed to a realized practitioner of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. Not all monks are lamas, while nuns and female practitioners can be recognized and entitled as lamas. The Tibetan word ''la-ma'' means "high mother", ...

'' by other highland Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups in the region, such as

Gurung Gurung (exonym; ) or Tamu (endonym; Gurung language, Gurung: ) are a Tibetan people, Tibetan ethnic group living in the hills and mountains of Gandaki Province of Nepal. Gurungs speak Tamu kyi which is a Sino-Tibetan language derived from the ...

, Sherpa, etc. Nevertheless, only those of ''Swagen Bhai Lama'' are truly Lama. As with all ''Swagen Bhai'', there are complex restrictions on intermarriage between kinship clans. The exact relationship between ''Bon Lamaism'', their religion of antiquity that survives to modern times, Gurung Dharma, the religion of a nearby and related ethnolinguistically close people, and

Bon Bon or Bön (), also known as Yungdrung Bon (, ), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism.Samuel 2012, pp. 220–221. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but ...

Buddhist tradition (Bonpa), has not been established. Nevertheless, the Tamang are considered to be least influenced by

Khas Khas peoples or Khas Tribes, (; ) popularly known as Khashiya are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group native to the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, in what is now the South Asian country of Nepal, as well as the Indian stat ...

-ization of all ethnic groups in Nepal, in addition to being the most connected to traditional religion of the Southern Himalayan region.

References

Religion in Nepal Ethnic groups in Nepal {{religion-stub