Fifty Tibetan monks began a three-day long hunger strike in Dharmsala on Wednesday, part of an unofficial boycott of New Year festivities to mourn victims of a harsh crackdown on anti-government protests last year.
Monks also lit ceremonial butter lamps and offered special ritual prayers to remember those killed in Lhasa last year.
The Dalai Lama on Tuesday called on Tibetans not to take part in New Year celebrations, saying they were inappropriate in the wake of the heavy-handed Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protests last year.
In a message to the Tibetan people on the occasion of the New Year, the exiled spiritual leader called on Tibetans to skip festivities and, instead, dedicate good deeds to the victims of the uprising.
The hunger strike was a sign of "respect to Tibetans who have died trying to highlight the really bad situation in Tibet since March 2008," Thupten Samphel, the spokesman for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharmsala, explained Wednesday.
Dharmsala has been the headquarters of the Tibetan exiles in India since the Dalai Lama fled there after an abortive uprising against China in 1959.
Festivities were also toned down elsewhere.
Tibetan groups told of widespread cancellations of religious ceremonies and other activities in Tibetan-inhabited western China.
At temples in Tibet's capital Lhasa, rifle-toting Chinese paramilitary guards have replaced crowds of celebrants, while candlelight vigils and austere prayer ceremonies have supplanted the usual merrymaking, they said.
The Dalai Lama's message on Tuesday came amid rising tensions in Tibet ahead of two crucial anniversaries - the one-year commemoration of the March 15 protests and on March 10, the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising against Chinese rule that saw the Dalai Lama flee to India.
Beijing says 22 people died last year in the largest Tibetan protest against Chinese rule since 1959, but Tibetan supporters say many times that number were killed in the protests and subsequent military crackdown.
Hundreds of Tibetans have since been detained.
The Dalai Lama's comments were certain to anger Beijing, which has vilified the exiled spiritual leader, blaming him and his followers for instigating the protests.
China has been eager for New Year celebrations to go ahead in a bid to show that normalcy has returned to Tibet.
A mass refusal to take part in state-backed celebrations would further raise tensions ahead of the upcoming anniversaries.
Authorities, who are wary of unrest during this sensitive period, have already declared Tibetan areas off-limits to foreigners and reportedly cracked down violently on demonstrators.
Also, Communist Party officials in Tibet have warned Buddhist clergy against political activity and ordered them to denounce the 73-year-old Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama called the Chinese-backed celebration plans "provocative" and accused China of trying to goad Tibetans into further protest.
"I would like to make a strong appeal to the Tibetan people to exercise patience and not to give in to these provocations so that the precious lives of many Tibetans are not wasted, and they do not have to undergo torture and suffering," he said.
China claims that Tibet has been a part of its territory for four centuries, while many Tibetans say they were effectively an independent state for much of that time.
APTN