Dhuechen means festivals, Lha means heaven and Bab means descent. This festival thus literally mean the descent of Buddha from the heaven of the thirty three gods after visiting his mother.
According to legends, Queen Maha Maya, the mother of Lord Buddha, did not live long after his birth and took rebirth in Trayastrimsa or the heaven of the thirty Gods. After enlightenment, Lord Buddha through his spiritual powers came to know about the whereabouts of his mother. At the age of forty one he ascended to the heavens along with thousand of his followers. Lord Buddha stayed in heaven for three months during which he delivered sermons to his mother and other celestial beings. However, he left behind one of his disciples on earth, Maudgalyayana, as his representative. This disciple and other devotees of the Lord could not bear the long separation and wanted to hear his sermons. Maugalyayana, who possessed miraculous powers, was urged to go to heaven to request the Lord to return back to the earth. The gods were not willing to let Lord Buddha return back to earth but Maugalyana suggested that as the earthly beings did not have the powers to visit heaven, similarly celestial beings did not possess power to visit Earth. Lord Buddha finally gave up and descended to the earth at a place called Sankasya with a triple ladder that was prepared especially for the occasion by Viswakarma, the God of Machines.
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