Monthly Archives: July 2007

One of my favourite festivals in Thailand for taking pictures is Tak Bat Dok Mai Festival at Wat Phra Phutthabat Ratchaworamaha Wihan in Saraburi Province. This always takes places at the start of the Buddhist Lent. I wasn’t able to make it this year as I was covering the same event at a more remote temple. However, these are some of my never before seen pictures I took a few years back. This temple is famous for the Mondop at the top of a hill which houses a large Buddha’s footprint. Quite often, when I travel north on Highway 1, I stop here to pay respects. There is a slightly scaled down replica of this mondop at the Ancient City in Samut Prakan. It is just as beautiful both on the outside and inside.

In most temples at this time of year, lay people go to their local temples to give food and other basic essentials to the monks. However, this temple is quite unique in that the followers make merit by giving flowers to the monks. And not only a handful of monks. There were literally hundreds of monks as you can see from the above photo. The flower is called Dok Khao Phansa and only blooms during this time of the year. The monks approach the temple gates on both sides of the street. Lay people are waiting to present them with flowers. The monks then climb the steep steps to the top of the hill. Then, after paying respects to the footprint, they descend the other side where even more followers are waiting. This time the lay people wash the feet of the novices and monks as they walk down the steps. This is a lovely festival and I will try and make an effort to go again next year.

Today in Thailand it is a Buddhist holiday. It is Asanha Bucha Day. Tomorrow is Khao Phansa which is often translated as the start of the three month Buddhist Lent. A better translation would be the Rains Retreat. as it is now the rainy season, monks are not allowed to go out and wander between temples during this time. So, at the start of this retreat, people traditionally go to the temple to present the monks with large candles which are big enough to stay alight for the entire three months.

This evening I went to visit one of my local temples called Wat Chaimongkhol. Hundreds of people were expected for the traditional wien tien – the candlelight procession around the temple three times. I was a bit early so I sat down to talk with some of the monks. The picture above is of one of the novices. He told me that he had been at this temple for more than one year. Most novices only stay a short time when elderly relations die or during holidays. However, boys from poor families might go to temples for free education.

The candlelight procession started finally just after 8 p.m. It was led by about 80 chanting monks. There must have been several hundred local people. Most of them families. The same scene was repeated at many of the other local temples. It was interesting for me to be there early as I got to see the monks preparing everything for the arrival of the lay people. The monks were very friendly chatting with me. In my last two photos, I was aiming to get a blurred effect of people carrying the candles around the temple. Didn’t quite work to my satisfaction as it was too dark and little lighting.

Cutting hair and eyebrows before becoming a monk

While I have been in Thailand, I have witnessed a number of ordination ceremonies. These have been mainly for my former students when they turned twenty. It is traditional in Thailand for adult males to become ordained as monks for a short period of time. People believe that you are not a full man until you have been ordained. Some people, who have work commitments, only stay as a monk for 15 days. Others remain as monks for three months during the Buddhist Rain Retreat. It doesn’t really matter. However, if you are a government official, you are allowed full paid leave to become a monk. Though I presume there must be some kind of time limit. I know some people who ordained for a short period but ended up staying for years.

Parading around the town of Paknam

Over the last few days, there have been a mass ordinations of monks nationwide in order to celebrate H.M. The King’s 80th birthday in December. In total there were 7,476 Buddhist men being ordained. There were 89 men from each of the 75 provinces and then also 89 men from each of the main temples in Bangkok: Wat Bonornnivet, Wat Saket, Wat Chanasongkhram, Wat Paknam, Wat Trimitwittayaram, Wat Suthatthepvararam, Wat Phrachetupon Wimolmangklaram, Wat Yannawa and Wat Rama 9. An American friend of mine was being ordained at the same time though he wasn’t counted as one of the 7,476. The 89 men from Samut Prakan came from all over the province. On the morning of Thursday, each temple held the hair shaving ceremony.  For this I went to Wat Chaimongkol where my friend would be living as a monk. Then, in the afternoon, everyone came together at Wat Pichai in the city centre, for some chanting and also for the parade around the town.

Then, on Friday morning, all 89 men, wearing white clothes, went back to Wat Pichai for the mass ordination. There was a lot of important people at this ceremony. Including the governor and police chief. Some of their staff were also being ordained on this day.

Ordination ceremonies that I have been to before usually only took an hour or so. However, as there were so many people, we were there for nearly three hours. After the presenting of the robes and some more chanting, it came the time for the men to put on the monk’s robes. This of course is not that easy and they had to have plenty of help from other monks that had already been ordained.

After some more chanting and a sermon it was almost time for the monks to have their last meal of the day. At this stage, all of the men had been ordained as novices. The building that this ceremony was taking place in wasn’t a sacred place. So, what they had to do was go back to their individual temples in the afternoon in order to complete the ceremony.

I will be writing about the ordination and then subsequent life of the American monk in a future blog at thai-blogs.com. I want to give him a month or so to settle in and then I will visit his temple in order to document his life there. If you would like more information about ordinations and life in Thai temples, then please visit thaibuddhist.com where I have archived all of my blogs about Buddhism.