Third Month Festival in Phana

Did you know that we are well into the third lunar month? Not to worry. Later in the year the eighth month will occur twice. It does this every few years so that the lunar calendar can more or less catch up with the more usual Gregorian calendar. A bit like leap year adding a day, but in this case adding a month. I'm not sure how that works out as far as birthdays go for people born in the second of the eighth month . Not my problem.

Wat Phra Lao here in Phana always celebrates its temple festival at the time of the full moon of the third month. So the celebrations were this past weekend. In the past I have taken some pretty unsuccessful photos of the night-time activities so this year I photographed the preparations, which were still taking place an hour or two before things kicked off.

 

Every year the bot and the area in front of it is made to look really beautiful. Monks and lay people work together on the preparations.

 

Monks from lots of monasteries in the surrounding area are drafted in to help. They do a lot of rushing about, not their usual measured, calm way of moving.

 

Many of the ritual items are waiting to be put in their proper place:

 

 

On the first night of the festival a ceremony known locally as somphot is held. This means celebration, but the ceremony is also one where sacrilization or consecration takes place. There is a special kind of chanting by experienced monks in the ubosot and one monk meditates there all night. Outside, lay people dressed in white who have taken eight precepts repeat a chant 108 times, each one 108 syllables long. They do it in 9 'blocks', each block consisting of 12 repetitions. Are you still with me? Has the pattern emerged? It is a lot of chanting, not finishing until about 4 a.m. It is very melodic, very soothing, and puts me to sleep in bed 200 metres away.

 

 

Chanters sit underneath this grid of sacred thread. The small balls of thread are rolled down to be held or tied to the person sitting beneath it. Everyone is attached to the main Buddha image in this way.

 

 

 

People bring things precious to them to be blessed. The items are wrapped carefully, usually in canvas bags, and they have to be registered and clearly identifiable so that they can be collected by the rightful owners after the ceremony.

 

 

 

Not everything that is brought along to be blessed can be wrapped up. But everything is linked to the chanters and to the image of Phra Lao. If you have been missing some of your taxis in Bangkok, at least you know that they are safer now.

 

 

 

So are our local buses:

 
There are hundreds of images inside the bot waiting to be blessed.

And the acting abbot is checking that things are as they should be in there:

 

Behind him is this amazing naga made mostly out of banana leaves:

 

 

The energy that flows through all the monks and lay people who gather on this night must be very powerful. It all stems from the image known as Phra Lao, revered by all the villagers of Phana and known throughout eastern Isan as the most beautiful of all the images in these parts.

 

 

 
 

Comments

[Mike]

Lawrence, a good set of photographs. I know the trouble night time shots can cause.

Interesting ceremony too not sure whether the chanters would sooth me or not!

[Martyn]

Lawrence I spent a lot of my youth in betting shops and so your 9 blocks of 12 repetitions was easy for me to understand. Betting odds calculations have sharpened my mind to make quick sums a mere second thought.

I would have to agree with Mike and say the chanters would probably keep me up most of the night, I'd probably have to get in an extra packet of cigarettes.

The chanters sitting underneath the grid of sacred thread is a new one to me. Fascinating. Thai's do seem to have a lot of ceremonies where thread is attached to something or someone.

The night time photos. I'm with you on that one. Monks don't look quite so Buddhist with red eye and every goddamn flourescent light spreads itself halfway across the photo. Nice post and lovely photos.

[Lawrence]

Mike and Martyn:

Thanks to you both for your comments. I hope you can get to see the movie clips which should be up soon (I know Mike had some problems at first).

I could never do any sort of calculation until I became a bus (trolley bus, in fact) conductor in Derby one student Christmas. I learnt very fast to calculate multiple tickets and change . Then late in life I had to teach maths to 9 year-olds and I learnt 9x10 then 9x2. 9x12 became easy! Just shows we should spend less time in school and more time in betting shops and the like.