The Tibetan lunar calendar is used to calculate festival dates and these correspond to different dates on the Western calendar each year.

February/March Driving out of evil spirits (last day of year). Twenth-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.

Losar, Tibetan New Year. First day of the first lunar month.

Monlam, Great Prayer Festival, Lhasa. Eighth day of the first lunar month.

Butter Lamp Festival - final day of Monlam. Fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

May/June Birth of Buddha. Seventh day of the fourth lunar month.

Saga Dawa (Buddha's Enlightenment). Fifteenth day of the fourth lunar month.

Gyantse Horse Festival. Fifteenth day of the fourth lunar month.

July Tashilunpo Festival, Shigatse. Fifteenth day of the fifth lunar month.

July/August Buddha's First Sermon. Fourth day of the sixth lunar month.

Drepung Festival. Thirtieth day of the sixth lunar month.

August/September Shotun (Yoghurt Festival), Lhasa. First to the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

Bathing Festival, Lhasa. Twenty-seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

September Damxhung Horse Festival. Thirtieth day of the seventh lunar month.

September/October Harvest Festival. First to the seventh day of the eighth lunar month.

November Lhabab (Buddha's descent from Heaven). Twenty-second day of the ninth lunar month.

November/December Peldon Lhama Festival, Lhasa. Fifteenth day of the tenth lunar month.