Festival and Celebrations Manual in Uthai Thani
Tak Bat Devo, Uthai Thani Province TAK BAT DEVO, October, At Uthai Thani
Tak Bat Devo is a modern Thai Buddhist ceremony reliving an event recounted in the ancient Buddhist scriptures. It is about the time when it is said the Lord Budda, that former Indian prince who had renounced his father's crown, his rank and caste, and his luxurious life in the palace for the hardships of a mendicant.
Once the former prince had learned what he could, had practiced the meditations he'd been taught in the forest, he had that experience we call today The Enlightenment. It is only from this that we properly term that ex-prince Budda, a word meaning Englightened One. And it is from then that he undertook his ministry, walking abroad in India ever teaching what has come down to us today as Buddhism. The teaching spread across the waters and deserts of Asia, and reached Siam many centuries ago.
Among the many tales of the Lord Buddha, one deals with his desire to teach his mother, but this lady had passed away only a week after the princeling's birth. Thus the Buddha determined to ascend into heaven to preach to her.
Buddhist heavens, carryovers of ancient Indian beliefs, were of several levels and while the Buddha's mother abode in one of the highest, the Buddha determined to use his time to advantage by instructing some of the heaven-bound gods as well. So instead of ascending solely to the highest heaven, he stayed at a lower level where he could address all the celestial beings. When he had finished, he descended again to the world of earthlings.
It is this the Buddhists of Thailand celebrate, with abundant sharing of their food with the monks -- and through them, the belief goes -- to the gods above. Tak Bat Devo literally means to fill the bowls of the gods. While this is basically a monks' ceremony involving the laity mostly in an enlargement of their daily habitual practice of offering food to monks early in the mornings, in certain places in Thailand it takes on the character of an all our fair. Uthai Thani, north of Bangkok, is a place that celebrates Tak Bat Devo with unusual ceremonies, with the monks in the vicinity climbing to the top of a hill representing the Buddha's ascent, and then coming down to the massive offerings set out by the common folk, as the Buddha himself was believed to have done.
Other, extraneous elements have become mixed into this remembrance, as is typical of all ancient rites. In this case, a visitor will see an unusual display of elepant's tusks, some almost unbelievably huge, peacocks' tails spread out in colourful glory, ancient ceramicware, much of it from the days of imperial China and which remind the viewer that much of Thai culture derives from those two nearly-adjacent lands, India and China, and indeed may be better preserved in Thailand than it the original homelands.
This year, Tak Bat Devo will be celebrated in many neighbourhoods on the morning of October, and in Uthai Thani the traditional provincial ceremony will be reenacted, yet another link between the present and the remote past one so often finds in the lands of Asia.
Monks descend from a hilltop temple, to receive offerings from local people
It is this the Buddhists of Thailand celebrate, with abundant sharing of their food with the monks -- and through them, the belief goes -- to the gods above. Tak Bat Devo literally means to fill the bowls of the gods.
While this is basically a monks' ceremony involving the laity mostly in an enlargement of their daily habitual practice of offering food to monks early in the mornings, in certain places in Thailand it takes on the character of an all our fair. Uthai Thani, north of Bangkok, is a place that celebrates Tak Bat Devo with unusual ceremonies, with the monks in the vicinity climbing to the top of a hill representing the Buddha's ascent, and then coming down to the massive offerings set out by the common folk, as the Buddha himself was believed to have done.
Other, extraneous elements have become mixed into this remembrance, as is typical of all ancient rites. In this case, a visitor will see an unusual display of elepant's tusks, some almost unbelievably huge, peacocks' tails spread out in colourful glory, ancient ceramicware, much of it from the days of imperial China and which remind the viewer that much of Thai culture derives from those two nearly-adjacent lands, India and China, and indeed may be better preserved in Thailand than it the original homelands.
This year, Tak Bat Devo will be celebrated in many neighbourhoods on the morning of October, and in Uthai Thani the traditional provincial ceremony will be reenacted, yet another link between the present and the remote past one so often finds in the lands of Asia.
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Information : Tourism Authority of Thailand Tourist Service Center
: Hotel & Resorts in Thailand
: Hotel & Resorts in Uthai Thani Province
: Tourism Authority of Thailand,
credit http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/7153/uthai.htm#devo
