Makha Puja Day

Today is Makha Puja (วันมาฆาบูชา) which is considered one of the most important celebrations on the Buddhist calendar. It refers to the worship that takes place on the full moon of the third lunar month to commemorate the day on which Lord Buddha recited the “Ovadha Patimokkha” (the Fundamental Teaching) to his disciples. This teaching laid down the principles by which the monks should spread the Buddhist teachings. In Thailand, this has been dubbed the “Heart of Buddhism” and can be summarized into three acts, i.e. to do good, to abstain from bad action and to purify the mind.

This day marks the great four events that took place during Lord Buddha’s lifetime, namely

• The time of the full moon in the third lunar month;

• 1,250 Buddhist monks from differents places came to pay homage to the Lord Buddha at Veluwan Temple in Rajgaha City of Magaha State, without any appointment;

• all of them were Arahants (enlightened monks) who had attained the Apinyas (Six Higher Knowledges);

• all of them had been individually ordained by Lord Buddha himself (Ehi Bhikkhu).

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, Makha Puja Day had never been celebrated in Thailand, as explained by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) — “..the Magha Puja was never performed, the ceremony has just been practised during the reign of King Mongkrut (Rama IV) of the Chakri Dynasty”. Having realized the importance of this day, King Rama IV ordered the royal MaKha Puja Ceremony to be performed in the Emerald Buddha Temple in 1851 and to celebrate it yearly.

Later, the ceremony was widely accepted and performed throughout the kingdom. It was declared to be a public holiday so that everybody could go to the temple to make merit and perform other religious activities in the morning and to take part in a candlelit procession or Wien Tien in the evening.

While I spent much of the day fretting over website concerns and student report books, many of the Thai teachers from our school listened to sermons during the day and met during the early evening to take part in the candlelit procession.