Today is Lhabab Düchen, one of the major Buddhist festivals. This holiday of “Descending from the Realm of the Thirty-Three Gods” is widely celebrated by Tibetan and other Buddhist communities. Buddhists believe that Buddha Shakyamuni ascended to the gods’ realm to teach his mother, who passed away soon after giving birth to him and was reborn there. Lhabab Düchen is the day Buddha descended back to Earth after spending 90 days in the gods' realm. On this day, to rejoice in the Buddha’s return, laypeople and monks clean their spaces and whitewash walls. People go to monasteries and temples to pray and make offerings - they burn incense on the top of nearby mountains and circumambulate sacred sites, such as the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa. This woodblock print is based on a famous nine-composition painting set and created from carved wood blocks produced at the Derge Printing House in the Kham region of Tibet. This print depicts the Buddha descending from the Realm of the Thirty-Three Gods. In it, we see three ladders reaching the human realm from the gods’ realm above Mount Meru. At the bottom of the ladder, bodhisattvas and humans welcome Buddha back with offerings. At the center bottom is a stupa known as Lhabab Düchen Choeten or the Stupa of the Buddha’s Descent from the Gods’ Realm. In Tibetan Buddhist culture, this type of stupa came to represent this specific event from the Buddha’s life, although stupas with long stairs on their sides were quite widespread in northern India, Kashmir, and Central Asia. _______ Shakyamuni Buddha; Eastern Tibet; 1960; Ink on paper; Rubin Museum of Art; Gift of William Hinman; C2001.4.8 (HAR 87508) #Buddha #Shakyamuni #HimalayanArt #BuddhistArt #LhababDüchen #TibetanBuddhism #RubinMuseum