CHINA-TIBET-FESTIVAL-MONLAM-MONKS

Tibetan Buddhist monks gather during ongoing celebrations for Monlam, or the Great Prayer Festival, at the Nyentog Monastery, also known as Nianduhu in Repkong on February 6, 2009, on the Tibetan plateau in northwest China's Qinghai province. The Monlam festival was established in 1409 by Tsong Khapa, founder of the Geluk (Yellow Hat ) school and is the greatest religious festival in Tibetan Buddhism, a body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions in the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, India (Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Sikkim) and also practiced in Mongolia and parts of eastern Russia and northeast China. AFP PHOTO/Frederic J. BROWN (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)