Mask room at the Pemayangtse Monastery.West Sikkim.
Each big monastery peforms Sacred Dances once a year, presided over by the monastery's head lama, attended by the public. The Dances are the means of "Liberation by Seeing", the personified psychodrama of dealing with ego. The ferocious masks are a preview of the visions of the after-death state, presented so that the viewer may recognise them in future as reflections of one's own mind and thus be liberated from fear.