Kangling

{{Short description|Musical instrument}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} right|thumbnail [[File:Alexandra David-Neels.jpg|thumb|Alexandra David-Neel in 1933 Tibet with a Kangling instrument at her waist|alt=]] '''''Kangling''''' ({{Bo|t=རྐང་གླིང་། |w=rkang-gling}}), literally translated as "leg" (''kang'') "flute" (''ling''), is the Tibetan name for a trumpet or horn made out of a human tibia<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jDiqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA166|title=Body Matters: Exploring the Materiality of the Human Body|editor-first1=Luci|editor-last1=Attala|editor-first2=Louise|editor-last2=Steel|publisher=University of Wales Press|year=2019|page=166|isbn=978-1786834157}}</ref> or femur, used in Tibetan Buddhism for various chöd rituals as well as funerals performed by a chöpa. The leg bone of a deceased person is used.<ref name=Handa04>{{cite book|title=Buddhist Monasteries of Himachal|first=O.C.|last=Handa|publisher=Indus Publishing Company|year=2005|pages=320|isbn=978-8173871702 }}</ref> Alternatively, the leg bone of a respected teacher may be used.<ref name=Loseries-Leick>{{cite book|title=Tibetan Mahayoga Tantra: An Ethno Historical Study of Skulls, Bones and Relics|first=Andrea|last=Loseries-Leick|publisher=B.R. Publishing Corporation|year=2008|pages=225|isbn=978-8176466424}}</ref> The kangling may also be made out of wood.

The kangling should only be used in chöd rituals performed outdoors with the chöd damaru and bell.<ref name=Handa04 /> In Tantric chöd practice, the practitioner, motivated by compassion, plays the kangling as a gesture of fearlessness, to summon hungry spirits and demons so that she or he may satisfy their hunger and thereby relieve their sufferings. It is also played as a way of "cutting off of the ego."{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} [[File:Detail of two shin-bone trumpets from a Tibetan banner Wellcome L0030388.jpg|left|thumb|Two shin-bone trumpets and skull cup from a Tibetan banner representing attributes of Palden Lhamo|alt=]] A minor figure from Katok Monastery, the First Chonyi Gyatso, Chopa Lugu (17th – mid-18th century), is remembered for his "nightly bellowing of bone-trumpet [kangling] and shouting of phet" on pilgrimage, much to the irritation of the business traveler who accompanied him. Chopa Lugu became renowned as "The Chod Yogi Who Split a Cliff in China (rgya nag brag bcad gcod pa)."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Chopa-Lugu/8631|encyclopedia=The Treasury of Lives|title=The First Chonyi Gyatso, Chopa Lugu|first=Samten|last=Chhosphel|date=December 2011|access-date=21 December 2025}}</ref>

==See also== *Gyaling

==References== {{reflist}} {{Musical instruments of Nepal}} Category:Natural horns and trumpets Category:Tibetan Buddhist ritual implements Category:Tibetan musical instruments Category:Femur Category:Tibia Category:Trumpets of Nepal