Tibetan love song is a kind of poem that
mainly describes the affection between young men and young girls in Tibet and has obtained an important status in
Tibetan poems.
Because of the special history of
development and religious tenets of the Tibetan Buddhism, love songs became an
important component of the history of the Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan
society. Among various love songs handed down in Tibet, the most famous ones were those of the
6th Dalai Lama (Tsangyang Gyatso).
The love songs of Tsangyang Gyatso have not
only woodcut versions and handwritten copies that widely spread among the
Tibetan people, but also translated versions in English, French, Russian,
Japanese, Indian, Mongol, etc. Except a few poems that were related to religious
songs of praise, most of them were about love. These love songs mainly cover
loyalty and happiness of affection, sorrow when affection suffered setbacks and
confliction between religion and affection. These love songs represented to a
certain degree the state of mind of many young people under the binding of
religious laws and regulations, so they won the favor of the local masses. The
uniqueness of artistic presentation, forms, structures, metaphors, language
usage and other aspects contributed a lot to the long-lasting popularity of
these songs among people generation after
generation.