Thailand Festivals Makha Bucha Day Celebrated by Buddhists in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos

February 4, 2017 By Richard

Thailand Festivals Makha Bucha Day

Discover Thailand with Thailand Discovery

Thailand Festivals Makha Bucha Day

Thailand Festivals Makha Bucha Day. Makha Bucha (also: Magha Puja) (Lao: ມະຄະບູຊາ; Thai: มาฆบูชา) is an important religious festival celebrated by Buddhists in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos on the full moon day of the third lunar month (this usually falls in February). The full moon of the third lunar month, a month known in the Buddhist Pali language as Makha. Bucha, also a Pali word, means to venerate or to honor. As such, Makha Bucha Day is for the veneration of Buddha and his teachings on the Full Moon day of the third lunar month.

Magha Puja is a public holiday in Thailand and Laos, and is an occasion when Buddhists tend to go to the temple to perform merit-making activities.

The celebration of Makha BuchaThailand?

In the morning Thai people wake up early to give alms to monks at the temples or to the wandering monks who pass by their homes.

In the evening each temple holds a candlelight procession called a wian thian (wian meaning to circle around; thian meaning candle). The monks and congregation members hold flowers, incense and a lighted candle, while walking clockwise three times around the phra ubosot (ordination hall), once for each of the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

Lay persons and believers make merit by also:

Going to temples for special observances and joining other Buddhist activities. (Known as tham bun)

Keeping the Five Precepts. (The Practice of Renunciation), Observe the Eight Precepts, (the Practice of Meditation and Mental Discipline), staying in the temple, and wearing white robes, for a number of days. (Known as rap sin)

Origin

Magha Puja day marks the four auspicious occasions, which happened nine months after the Enlightenment of the Lord Buddha at Veluvana Bamboo Grove, near Rajagaha in Northern India. On that occasion, four miraculous events coincided;

1,250 enlightened disciples of the Buddha spontaneously gathered
Every one of those enlightened disciples had been given monastic ordination personally by the Lord Buddha
Those disciples knew to meet together without any previous appointment
It was the Full Moon day.

The Buddha gave an important teaching to the assembled monks on that day about 2,600 years ago called the ‘Ovadapatimokkha’ which laid down the principles by which the monks should spread the Buddhist teachings. In Thailand, this teaching has been dubbed the ‘Heart of Buddhism’.