In an ordinary summer day, Chokhe led his granddaughter to fetch water – the spring was several kilometers from their home.

For the inhabitants of the high-altitude regions of Tibet, the journey to the spring is not merely a household necessity, but often a peculiar ritual connected with the veneration of nature and the guardian spirits of the locality.

Chokhe drew water, but is in no hurry to leave. He takes out a mold for a tsha tsha and begins a special prayer ceremony.

Tsha tsha are small clay or gypsum plaques with images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or sacred symbols. They are made using special molds.

The very word tsha tsha in the Tibetan language means "to reproduce," "to copy" – that is, to create many copies of a sacred image. They are considered powerful talismans and blessings. Therefore, they are placed in shrines, on mountain passes, and at the sources of rivers to spread spiritual power and protect the area.

Today, Chokhe dips the clay mold directly into the water, symbolically creating countless water talismans. He believes: wherever this consecrated water with the tsha tsha flows, the people in those places will receive a blessing.

This ritual is an example of how Tibetan Buddhists spiritualize natural elements: water becomes a conduit of benevolent force.

- "We live at the source of the Yangtze River and protect it," says Chokhe. "I have lived here for seventy years. And although I have never been to the inner regions of the country, I have always hoped that all people and animals living along the Yangtze will live healthy and happy lives."

...It is hard to say how important her grandfather's rite is for five-year-old Tsomu. Perhaps in her imagination, bright wild flowers stretch in an unending chain – from the source of the Yangtze to the place where the river flows into the sea. After all, water carries all things beautiful within it.

The source of the Yangtze is located in the mountains on the Tibetan Plateau. For local residents, the river is not just a water flow, but a living entity, a source of life and a sacred artery connecting the highlands with the plains.

Protecting the source is not an ecological slogan, but a deep spiritual practice: people believe that the purity of the source affects the well-being of the entire river basin.

Chokhe's wish is a typical example of the Tibetan worldview, where the well-being of an individual is inextricably linked with the well-being of all living beings and nature.

For the child – Chokhe's granddaughter – the ritual may remain a mystery, but it is absorbed as part of her worldview: water is not a "resource," but a living thread connecting the mountains, valleys, and distant cities.