Buddhists commemorate Makha Bucha Day

Thousands of Buddhists yesterday travelled to Sanam Luang to offer food to monks on the occasion of Makha Bucha Day. /Prasert Thepsri

Photo Id: 12202975

Photographer: Prasert Thepsri

Caption: Thousands of Buddhists yesterday travelled to Sanam Luang to offer food to monks on the occasion of Makha Bucha Day.  /Prasert Thepsri

/////

Nationwide, Buddhists also made merit on this first major Buddhist holiday of the year.

The Buddhism Promotion exhibition, organised since last Wednesday, included candle light processions, group prayers and plays about dharma.

Yesterday morning, deputy city clerk Taweesak Dechdecho presided over the ceremony of making merit and giving food offerings to 83 Buddhist monks in Sanam Luang as a tribute to Their Majesties the King and Queen as well as other members of the Royal Family.

Makha Bucha Day, which falls on the fullmoon day of the third lunar month, commemorates a great event in which 1,250 enlightened monks paid homage to Lord Buddha at the same time without prior notification. Lord Buddha then recited to his disciples the "Ovadha Patimokkha" (the Fundamental Teaching), which was summarised into three acts - to do good, to abstain from bad action and to purify the mind - to be followed by all Buddhists.

Buddhists also visited and made merit at the Golden Mount of Wat Sa Ket and other temples.

In Chaiyaphum, thousands of Thai and foreign Buddhists joined the merit making ceremony at Wat Sa Hong and raised funds for the building of a 199 metre high Buddha image.

Thippayakorn Rinthaisong, a famous Buddhist practitioner said the budget was estimated at over 10 thousand baht. The construction could take seven years.

People were enthusiastic to make merit in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phichit, Songkhla, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Buddhamonthon in Nakhon Pathom province and even in Muslim dominated Yala and Narathiwat. Buddhists there made merit in dedication to the victims of violence in the restive South.