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Written by National Culture Commission
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This ceremony is a religious
service that is performed in sacred memory of the dead. It is really
one of the important duties that needs to be done during the Songkran
Festival. When a person died and was cremated, the ashes and charred
bones were buried at the root of a sacred fig-tree in a temple. Such
trees are to be found in the grounds of almost every temple. It is a
symbol of the Lord Buddha's enlightenment for under such a tree did
Buddha sit in meditation and receive his enlightenment. If a person
is able to erect a Pra Chedi or pagoda in the temple, the ashes and
bones are then deposited in it. In later times a portion of the bones
was sometimes kept in the house in a receptacle.
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| The white string or
what we called "sai sin" in Thai. |
You will that area for
the ceremony is made sacred with this sai sin |
Around the outside wall
are the places where the ashes of our dead ancestors are kept |
On Songkran Day a religious
service in sacred memory to the dead may be officiated by a monk or
monks at the place where the ashes and the bones have been deposited,
or as in some localities the people bring their dead bones to a village
temple in company with others where a joint memorial service is performed.
In some parts of the country the guardian spirits of the village and
town receive also their annual offerings on Songkran Days. Obviously
there are reminiscences or traces of ancestor and animistic worship
in by-gone days.
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| My grandmum is replacing
the old garlands there with some new and fresh ones for our relations.
Inside the wall there is where we have the ashes of our relations.
Anyway, they aren't all my relations!!! There are also someone else's
too. |
After
changing the garlands, we then pay our respect to our dead ancestors
in front of their picture on the wall. |
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| A couple of my relations
are getting the monk's offerings ready while everyone is coming
here. |
After that we then pay
our respect to the Buddha images inside the bot while the
monks are walking here. |
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| Some of the monks are
arriving already, the head monk for this ceremony is sitting near
the sai sin. |
When all the monks are
here, they start the ceremony with the first chanting. |
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| After the first chanting
has finished, we pass along the sai sin to nearly everyone
there. |
Then at last after we
passed it along, my dad picked it up and then went to put it back
on a tray next to the monk. |
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| The monks passed the
sai sin to each other then they started to chant again, the second
chanting. |
After the second chanting
has finished, we are giving the offerings to all the monks. We are
touching each other to have some merit from it. She is going to
put the offerings on the cloth that is on the floor. This is because
female people are not allowed to give something directly to the
monk. |
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| My dad is burning some
pieces of paper that has all the names of our relations written
on. The reason is to pass some of the merit to them. |
The head monk is getting
ready for another round of chanting while my aunt is getting ready
for "gruat nam". This is one way of many different
ways to pass the merit to the ancertors. |
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| They are doing "gruat
nam" on to the ashes of the papers that my dad burned
a minute ago. My aunt is praying to the monks after she has finished
hers. |
While we are doing "gruat
nam", the monks are giving us a final chanting for the
ceremony before they leave. |
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