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The activities of the fair

I have thus far concentrated on the Buddhist rituals. I must now
describe the fair briefly in order to give a rounded picture, for Bun Phraawes
combines with merit-making robust fun and sheer entertainment. The
annual temple fair is the chief recreational event in village life and characteristically
Buddhism shows its robustness by combining it with conspicuous
merit-making.

The fair ran for three days and two nights, the nights being the time
of peak activity. Shops—mostly selling food and drink—were set up in
the wat compound. The chief attractions were ramwong (popular dancing),
conducted by a professional orchestra and dance hostesses from a nearby
village; maulam (folk opera), also performed by a visiting professional
troupe; and movies.

The monks, true to their rules of priesthood, avoided the maulam
and ramwong, but did not avoid interest in the movies. They were, however,
mainly involved in ritual merit-making activities in the pavilion with the
Buddha statue. There, the two main activities were: takbart sawan—
laymen put money in the monks' bowls and in turn were sprinkled with
holy water; and pidtong phraa—laymen bought pieces of gold leaf and
daubed them on the Buddha statue. (An additional money-making device
was khai dogmai, in which laymen bought flowers in order to present
them to Buddha.)

Persons of all ages and both sexes attended the fair. Most old persons,
male and female, first engaged in merit-making by contributing money,
then looked at the movies for a while, and then gravitated towards the
folk opera. Adults watched the movies and ramwong and also found the
maulam of absorbing interest; the young men were primarily interested
in the movies and ramwong, while young girls of the village found the
movies and maulam their chief attraction. Children were the most consistent
audience at the movies. No local village girl took part in the
dancing. The fair was an occasion for flirting between the sexes. Some

ritual sequences of Bun Phraawes, which ran parallel with the fair, were
largely ignored by the young people.

A few words about the scale of participation. Bun Phraawes in all the
villages around Baan Phraan Muan is staged with a fair. It therefore
attracts devotees and pleasure-seekers from a number of adjoining villages.
People from at least seven or eight tambon (communes) were present at the
Phraan Muan proceedings: they made merit, contributed money and had
fun. Particular hamlets or groups of villagers from elsewhere often acted as
a merit-making group, each contributing a gift of paddy or a money tree.
Twenty-six monks from other wat took part in the Bun Phraawes proceedings.
It is usual to send out invitations to other wat, and for the
latter to send representatives. The following distribution shows the range
of inter-wat co-operation—15 monks came from 15 wat in the same
tambon in which Baan Phraan Muan is located; 6 monks came from 6 wat in
the adjoining tambon of Mumon; the remaining 5 monks came either from
the same district (Amphur Muang) or from the adjoining districts of Pen
and Pue. The vendors of food and drinks also came from a widespread
area. Of a total of 40-5 vendors only 5 were from the local village; 4 came
from the town of Udorn and the rest from at least 8 adjoining tambon.

These facts, I think, establish the nature of festive Buddhism as a supra-local
religion. It is true that it is local people who primarily patronize
a village wat; but merit-making is a society-wide ethic and such prominent
merit-making occasions as a gnan wat attract many others who see participation
in them as a chance of acquiring greater merit than usual. Just as
outsiders attend grand merit-making rites at Baan Phraan Muan, so do
residents of the latter participate in the wat festivals of other villages.
By contrast, the cult of the village guardian spirit (Tapubaan) is of an
essentially local character, being bound up with a settlement (baan) and
its land and people. All the villages around Phraan Muan propitiate the
same village guardians; the cult is widespread but no outside villager
needs to propitiate the guardian of another village. But traditionally the
villages in the region combined to propitiate a common swamp spirit
which expressed a regional identity and interest. (The guardian spirit
cults will be described in a later chapter.)