Name of Element: Tibetan MedicineLum Medicinal Bathing of Sowa Rigpa (Lhokha Lum Medicinal Bathing of Sowa Rigpa)

Date of Inclusion: November 2014

Serial No.: 448

Category No.: IX-9

Nominated by: Lhokha of Tibet Autonomous Region

Competent body responsible for local safeguarding: Lhokha Tibetan Medical Hospital

Description:

The Lhokha Lum Medicinal Bathing of Sowa Rigpa embodies the traditional knowledge and practices concerning life, health, and illness prevention and treatment. Having been transmitted for generations in the Tibetan communities concerned, the element is centered in Lhokha, and widely practiced in Lhasa, Shigatse, Nagchu, Chamdo, Ngari, Nyingtri, and other areas of Tibet Autonomous Region. Rooted in the natural conditions of plateau and medicinal ingredients resources, the element has been developed in daily life and production by the local Tibetans as knowledge of both illness prevention and treatment and recognized as an important component of their intangible cultural heritage.

The element is practiced by bathing the body in hot springs or boiled herbal water. With skin absorbing therapeutic remedies through and sweating, it helps to dispelling pathogenic cold and wind, treating diaphoresis and diuresis, relieving swelling and pain, promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, removing dampness from the body, as well as reducing itch. Hot springs containing such minerals as sulfur, gypsum rubrum, aluminite drak-shun (rock liquid) and limestone are frequently used. For the herbal water bathing, also called Five Medicinal Nectars bathing, five medicinal herbs are taken as the basic remedies, and extra medicines would be added according to specific symptoms. For instance, to treat digestive problems caused by pathogenic cold and wind, gypsum rubrum, long pepper, and ginger could be mixed in the herbal water as an effective remedy.

Recognized for its safe, green, economic, and convenient health practice, the element plays an important role in improving health conditions, increasing life expectancy, fostering a social code of behaviors, promoting respect for nature and social cohesion in living environment of the high-altitude Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, while strengthening the sense of cultural identity among the communities, groups and individuals concerned.