Dharamshala holds prayer services for Jamphel Yeshi and Dhondup Phuntsok/ENG

2012. április 17./Phayul.com/TibetPress

By Tendar Tsering

DHARAMSHALA, April 17: The third week prayers services for Jamphel Yeshi and second week prayer services for Dhondup Phuntsok were held today at the Tsug-la Khang, the main temple in Dharamshala.

Around five hundred local Tibetans and foreign tourists gathered to offer their prayers and pay homage to Jamphel Yeshi, 27 and Dhondup Phuntsok, 26.

“Today is the third week of Jamphel Yeshi’s death who burned himself in protest against the Chinese government and second week of Dhondup Phuntsok’s death, who jumped into the Ganga river for a free Tibet,” Tenzin Tsundue, the president of Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, Dharamshala said at the prayer service.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that after death, the consciousness takes at least 49 days to travel from one life to the next and conducting prayers during this period can assist and guide the dead towards a good rebirth.

“We will be holding prayer service for both the martyrs and on the 49th day, we will organise grand prayer services by inviting monks and nuns from different monasteries in the locality,” Tsundue added.

Jamphel Yeshi had set himself on fire on March 26, at a mass protest rally in New Delhi demanding international intervention in the ongoing crisis in Tibet and protesting Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India.

Suffering 98 per cent burn, Jamphel Yeshi passed away in the morning of March 28.

In his last hand written letter to fellow Tibetans, Jamphel Yeshi explained his decision to torch his own body.

“What I want to convey here is the concern of the six million Tibetans,” Jamphel Yeshi wrote. “At a time when we are making our final move toward our goal – if you have money, it is the time to spend it; if you are educated it is the time to produce results; if you have control over your life, I think the day has come to sacrifice your life. The fact that Tibetan people are setting themselves on fire in this 21st century is to let the world know about their suffering, and to tell the world about the denial of basic human rights. If you have any empathy, stand up for the Tibetan people.”

A week later, Dhondup Phuntsok, 26, a Tibetan student living in the Indian city of Kolkata, jumped off the Howrah bridge into the Ganga river on April 2 wearing a ‘Free Tibet' t-shirt in an apparent protest against China’s continued occupation of Tibet.

Since 2009, the wave of self-immolations in Tibet has witnessed 34 Tibetans set their bodies on fire demanding the return the Dalai Lama from exile and freedom in Tibet. Major protests involving thousands of Tibetans in recent months have been brutally suppressed with indiscriminate firing and arrests.