 | Buddhism and the spirit cults in North-east Thailand |  |
Recitation of Mahachad
When the circumambulation was over the participants in the procession
entered the sala, placed the bowls of glutinous rice near the pulpit and
took their seats. The ritual articles associated with merit-making for
Bun Phraawes as such are: miangmak (betel-nut packets), locally made
cigarettes (gawk ya), small flags, candles, joss-sticks; each of these items
must be 1,000 in number. Other items are: sanaam, four pans filled
with water containing fish and turtle, and these represent the four
ponds in the forest in which Phraawes lived in banishment; a bee hive
(in memory of the monkey's offering to Buddha); bunches of coconuts
and bananas.
The main sequences in the recitation of the story were as follows:
after presenting flowers and candles to the Buddhist trinity, and the
request for the five precepts, two elders in turn invited the thewada to
(victory) was shouted three times.
The next sequence was the sermon called Teed Sangkaad, delivered
by a monk. Its delivery has to be requested by a village leader of the
congregation. This invitation, called aratana Sangkaad (which I summarize
as recited in the village), is a recounting of the Buddha's renunciation of
the kingly life and his wife and son, his departure on his best horse, Maa
Keo, one of the seven treasures of the Emperor (Chakravartin), the death
of this horse through sorrow, the Buddha's cutting off of his hair and its
reception in a golden vessel by God Indra, who took it to his heaven
and deposited it at the Phra Choolamani monument.
The theme of the monk's sermon which followed was the well-known
Mara Yuddha (see Chapter 3); the features given prominence were the
tricks resorted to by Mara in order to defile Buddha's state of enlightenment.
Mara sent his three daughters to excite Buddha's sexual passions.
He rejected them, and the girls `finally became old women'. Informants
said that this sermon was an essential prelude to the Mahachad recitation.
Monks took turns in reciting the long text of the Mahachad, and the
recitation, which started early in the morning, did not conclude till 8 p.m.
First a Pali verse was recited; then the audience threw puffed rice at the
Buddha image; then the monks told the story in Thai. People came and
went and the attention to the sermon was not intense (see Plate 3).
At the conclusion of the recitation, villagers brought money trees
(ton ngoen) and presented them to the monks and wat. People came in
procession in groups. Finally a monk made lustral water (nam gatha
phan = water of 1,000 verses) and sprinkled it on all those present.
Villagers took home some of the sacred water to sprinkle on their buffaloes
in order to drive away illness. Thus were concluded the Bun Phraawes
ritual and festivities.
There is a belief associated with the Mahachad recitation that it must
be completed in a day; if not, unfortunate accidents and misfortune will
occur. This is why, we were told, the thewada ceremony had to be staged
in the early hours of the morning, so that the recitation could be started
very early and concluded in the evening.
The themes of the monks' preaching of the Dhamma were renunciation
of the kingly life and family, selfless giving in the Mahachad, rejection of
sexuality and passion in the encounter with Mara's daughters, and the
after-death phenomena of heaven and hell. It could be said that the last
phase of the Bun Phraawes, the sermonizing and recitation of texts,
recounts the great episodes of the Buddha's life: renunciation of secular
glory and comfort, the ardours of the search for the truth, and final
is that these words of renunciation and selflessness (as well as the other
ritual sequences) are viewed by the participants as endowing them with
merit, and ensuring a `good and healthy life' and plentiful rain. Mara,
the enemy of Buddha and man, is held at bay, and the lustral water of
the thousand verses (nam gatha phan) confers health on man and buffalo.
Thus a problem is posed as to the mechanics of the Buddhist ritual—
how the use of sacred words which deal with the virtues of renunciation
transfer to the participants the seemingly opposite benefits of life affirmation.
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