Myanmar Traditional Wedding Ceremony
When a boy and a girl come of age and, love one another and will want to marry and live happy ever after, a wedding ceremony will be performed for them where their parents, relatives, honourable guests and friends are invited, so that they will be recognized as a newly married couple. This wedding ceremony we present, celebrated according to Myanmar Traditions and computable to the modern age.
As marrying is a once in a life time occasion, Myanmar women regard the wedding ceremony very seriously, and you can be sure the bride will be having cold feet, butterflies in her stomach and perspiration on her forehead as she faces this very special day of her entire life. On this day of matrimony, it's a custom for the bride's family: parents, brothers and sisters, to dress her up in the finest of attire and bedeck her with the best jewelleries they can afford.
Wedding Ceremony by Offering Food & Alms to The Sangha
On auspicious occasions, offertory is dedicated to Lord Buddha and the assemblage of celestials. The offertory usually contains three or five hands of bananas, one coconut and Eugenia sprigs. The auspicious wedding ceremony by offering food and alms to the Sanghas is also no exemption.
In fact,
the bride and groom work hand in hand untiringly to prepare food and other alms for the Sanghas, setting adorable tradition in itself.
Elders from both sides offer sumptuous food and snacks to the Sanghas.
The bride and groom offer food, robe and other alms with the firm belief that it is the harbinger of auspicious and happy life for the future.
Court Marriage Ceremony
There are also court marriages usually performed by judges ranging from township to Supreme Court Justices, depending on the wish and accessibility the partners. Wherever the wedding is performed, the couple wants to show and receive acceptance from society that they are eligible and duly married before respectable personages. Here we are presenting the court marriage of a youthful, vibrant and beauteous couple. Not so large a number of guests have already gathered, as the ceremony is to commence soon.
Dinner Receptions
Some Myanmar have adapted the western ideas of the Dinner Receptions too. The couple usually get married at the court and in the evening, they throw a dinner party at the pool side of the hotels in big cities like Yangon and Mandalay.
This way of the wedding includes the parents of both the party and some wear traditional dresses but some with gowns. It is a more lightly way to have fun together with the couple. Invited guests come to the dinner to wish the bride and the groom to have a happy long life.
Shwedagon Pagoda Festival
The festival of the Shwedagon Pagoda is celebrated on the fullmoon day of Tauaung (March) every year. Many people in the country contributes funds for the repairing and a great number of people pay homage every day. There are many festivals throughout the year. The pouring water to the sacred Bo-tree, the overnight weaving contest for the yellow robes, the donation of goldleaves in a buck and many others are unnoticed festivals in each occasion.
The greatest festival is that of Tabung festival. The renovation works were greatly done and the escalator on the western stairway and the elevators in all others are beautifully firced and the elevators in all others are beautifully farced and the spires are rebuilt. Even the campy is renovated with modern techniques.
Visitors from all over the country enjoy the festival at such a time. They come to donate offertories.
Buddhism
Freedom of Religion
Freedom of religion is practiced in Myanmar, although a majority (some 89.1%) are Buddhists in Myanmar. But Myanmar seems democratic that Buddhism is not defined as the official religion of the country, like most Islamic countries does.
Faith and religion are a little hard to differentiate or divide, and they are often very much inter-related or confused. All teaching by a religion is generally considered as religious matters, while other customs and traditional beliefs not taught by a religious body is considered as faith. In addition to that, superstition often influences the faith and the lives of the Myanmar people.
The History of Buddhism
In Union of Myanmar majority of the population are Buddhist, Theravada Buddhism is professed widely. Religious intolerance or discrimination on grounds of religion is non-existence in the Union of Myanmar throughout it's long history. The main religions of present day Myanmar are Buddhism (89.20%), Christianity (5.05%), Muslims (3.78%), Hindus (0.55%), and Animism (1.27%) and other faiths such as Bahai Sikhs, Lipian fujianhal, Chinese, etc.(0.61%).
Theravada Buddhism flourishes in Myanmar .With reference to stone inscriptions, palm leaf inscriptions and court chronicles tell us that Buddhism arrived in Myanmar not once but many times.
The first arrival of Buddha Sasana
The first arrival of Buddha Sasana was associated with the legend of the Shwedagon Pagoda. In accordance with this legend, Buddhism arrived in Myanmar in the lifetime of Buddha. In the Maha Sakarit year 103,while the Buddha. was in a phalasamm apatti meditation at the foot of Rajayatana Lin Lun tree in the Uruvela Forest near the Nerajara River, two merchant brothers Taphussa and Bhallika of Ukkalapa village of Ramannadesa came to worship the Buddha .The brothers offered the Buddha honey cakes and the Buddha preached the Dhamma to them. At their request the Buddha gave them eight sacred hairs of His Head as His relics to venerate. On their return home, they enshrined the Sacred Hairs in a ceti (pagoda) they built on the hill then called Tampaguta. That ceti was we now call Shwedagon Pagoda. This legend is mentioned in the Shwedagon stone inscription, set up by King Dhammazedi (AD 1472-1492) of Hanthawaddy Kingdom.
Shin Pyu (or) the Novice hood
The word "Shin Pyu" in Myanmar means "initiating into Buddhist Order as a Novice". To go in detail, the word ‘Shin’ means a novice and ‘Pyu’ means to make one.
The Shin Pyu ceremony is a common event, as a family earns great merit when a son forsakes his childhood life and dons the robe of the monk. Henceforth, he will have no possessions, save the bowl with which he begs his meals. Few novices remain in the order long enough to take their ordained vows, but clearly the initiation of the novice is cause for a huge celebration.
Myanmar New Year
Thingyan Festival
Thin-gyan is a word drive from Sanskrit "sankranta" meaning the end of pass year and the beginning of new year.
Since the beginning of March, the weather has been hot, dry and the whole countryside lies parched and barren. The harvest time has been gathered and celebrated at the festival of full moon of Tabaung in March (this Tabaung festival is a Buddhist festival now, but in the remote pass it used to be a harvest festival). It is now nearly the middle of April, and the Burmese cultivator, like his paddy field and his plough-oxen, finds the weather trying and the enforced holidays monotonous. But there is a excitement in the air, for the Feast of the New Year is swiftly approaching.
The Astrologers have published broadsheets in which the details of the New Year are given. The king of the Gods, Thagyamin, is coming down to the earth on his annual visit. He will come and spend the last two days (sometimes three) of the old year in the abode of the human beings, and the exact moment of his departure will bring in the New Year. The Feast lasts for three days (sometimes four), and the day of his arrival is known as the Day of Decent, the day of his departure the Day of Ascent, and the day in between (sometimes two days in between) the Day of Sojourn. During these three days (or four days) elderly people fast and keep the Eight Precepts or Ten Precepts and go to the monasteries and pagodas to offer alms-food.
At home, the housewife prepares cooling drinks and sweet cakes to be presented to the neighbors. The children are warned to be on their best behaviors, for the king of the Gods, thagyamin, brings with him to big volumes, one bound in dogs-skin hide, the other in Gold, and he records in Dog-skin book the names of those who have committed miss-deeds during the course of the year, and in the Gold book, the names of those who have performed acts of merit. The exact times of the arrival and departure of the God, which have been calculated and proclaimed in the broadsheets, will be signaled by the Booming of cannons, and firing of guns under the supervision of the relevant administrative official of Government, and on the front porch of every house there stand the New year pots filled with special flowers and special leaves to welcome the visiting God. At the exact time of his arrival, the head of the household lifts up the pots towards the sky as a gesture of homage, and the exact time of his departure the head of household pours out slowly the water from the pots on to the ground with the prayer for good fortune, good rainfall, and good harvest for the coming year. As both the husband and the wife are joint heads of the family these ceremonials are performed either by the husband or the wife or by both, and are performed simply and quietly.
But outside the house there is very little quiet, for the Feast of the New Year is also the merry Festival of water. Since dawn, teams of young men and young women have been occupying strategic points on the roadside with pails and buckets of water. Groups of young men and young women are also to be found in the gaily decorated temporary structures which have sprung at almost overnight at every street corner, in which in addition to pots and cans of water. There are all kinds of sweet cakes, and cool drinks for all the passers-by and the merry-makers. No passers-by will escape the drenching, no matter whether he or she is a Buddhist or non-Buddhist, Burmese or nom-Burmese. Only the monks and the sick and the infirm are spared the deluge. Gaily dressed young men and young women in decorated cars or cart drive round the town or village, throwing water and getting drenched in return. Sometimes a bunch of young men will challenge another group of young men or a group of young women to throw more water on them by shouting slogans and singing songs.
Modern Thingyan Celebration
If someone should catch you by surprise while you are on your way to an appointment and doused you with a bowl full of water, what would be your response?
May be, a wrathful encounter. May be, something else. But be it between kindred souls of strangers, water-throwing is taken as a natural process at Thingyan, a festival enjoyed by one and all.
A bowlful, a bucketful, a squirtful, or, for those who are out to enjoy it rough and tough, an array of high-power nozzle water jets worked by a pump. Whatever the mode, you get doused, drenched to the skin, and, even with water in the nostrils and ears, not to mention the plight of your eyes, you came out laughing, for the spirit of Thingyan calls for cheer and camaraderie spontaneous.
Good humor prevails during festival time and groups of revelers move about from water-throwing pandal to pandal in open cars and trucks, to be given the soaking they asked for.
At many of the pandals, the organized revelers would chant barbs and sing songs specially composed for the occasion while damsels fair, attired in matching clothes, would also sing and dance, and thereby lend the necessary prelude to the dousing.
Or, there are decorated floats not intended to be wet in any manner, but to carry competitors to pandals where prizes are offered, and crowds would swarm around to look, listen and laugh. The barbs gibe at society's ills, and do their best. There is fun and fancy free.
The origin of Thingyan is woven around ancient lore and myth, and , as a scholar has put it together, it goes liker this:
Among the indigenous national groups who celebrate Thingyan with a traditional tinge distinctive of their culture are the Rakhines, who attract large crowds of participants and onlookers to their pandals where there is much grace and charm.
One of the eats that is in abundance at Thingyan is the moant-lone-yaybaw, (the snacks for all passerby called Studitha in Burmese) the floating dough-ball might be an apt interpretation, which is made by immersing larger-than-thumb size rice-flour dough balls with a jaggery center in a cauldron of boiling water where they cook and float to the top and can be retrieved and served with a sprinkling of grated coconut.
For those too jolly to consume any of them or are too full after a few stops at such give-aways these double as missiles when verbal combat of passing cars turn sour. Nonetheless, it is taken in the cheery spirit of Thingyan.
During Thingyan and on New Year Day, young girls in the urban or rural communities bathe and attend to the manicure and hair shampooing of those among the most senior citizens in the community. The old ladies are supplied with paste of sandalwood or thanakha (paste of scented bark) which is employed as traditional make-up or to render womenfolk neat and clean.
Three days of city-style water-fest can leave a lot of the young and not-so-young hoarse, sunburned and exhausted. New Year Day that immediately follows is a day for rest, for humility and charity. Having yelled themselves till they had lost their voice, the youngsters join the elders at the monastery, keep Sabbath or join the fish-freeing procession.
The freeing of fish or even bigger animals has been a traditional event as also the New Year Day wish for Buddha images and pagodas.
Padauk (pterocarpus) and ngu-shwe-wa (cassia fistula) are the golden seasonal blooms, which are joined by yingat (gardenia) when nature lavishes the month of Tagu.
Come mid-April and you hear festive music, merry shouts and shrieks and everyone joins in with his or her share of fun. Even tourists on erstwhile visits and diplomats or foreign guests find Thingyan a festival for all to enjoy.
What is Myanmar?
Myanmar, an Exotic Travel Destination, formally know as Burma, is a country of largest main land in South-East Asia sharing border with Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. It is about the twice size of French and Britain combine, and is an unknown and hidden treasure among international travelers.
In fact, Myanmar is a word meaning a union of many nationalities as many as 135 groups, with their own languages and dialects. The term Myanmar implies all nationalities: the Kachin, the Kayah, the Kayin, the Chin, the Bamar, the Mon, the Rakhine and the Shan. Each of them belongs to one of the three major migrations: the Monkhmers, the Tibeton Bamars and the Thai-Shans.
|
|
| ||
Myanmar Monk and Monastery
For every Myanmar Buddhist, the Three gems, or the three objects for special veneration and respect, are the Buddha, the awaken one, the Dhama, Buddha’s Law or teaching and the Sanga, Priesthood or monk.
Hpone-kyi or Monks are dedicated to the service of the Buddha, and they role the most important part of the propagation of Buddhism. After the pass of the Gaw-ta-ma-Buddha, since the time of no palm-leaf inscriptions and papers were invented, the successive monks have achieved the propagation of Buddhism through recitations or narrations.
Not only do hpongyis occupy a dominant and special position in the Buddhist scheme of things, but to them is also entrusted the entire education of a certain percent of the male population. The influence of hpongyis, therefore on the lives of the Myanmar people is indeed considerable. Before the introduction of the present system of education into Myanmar, there must have been, on the lowest computation, 60 percent of Buddhist boys receiving free education in hpongyi kyaungs both as lay pupils or as koyins (i.e., novices). No fees were charged and poorer boys were even given food and clothing. In return the boys rendered a few personal services to the master or teacher.
A Hpongyi Kyaung (Monastery)
In village tracts one or two kyaungs (monasteries) would minister to the religious and educational needs of a large village or a group of small villages. The number of hpongyis residing in a kyaung would depend upon the size of the building, but no overcrowding was noticeable. The presiding hpongyi would have a room to himself opening out into a large central open hall, while the other priests would occupy the remaining rooms. Each hpongyi has allotted to him a small space and a hall with a window at the head of his bed, and all his worldly possessions would consist of a box, generally a wooden one, for storing his yellow robes, and a mat and a pillow and a blanket. Hpongyis are not permitted to handle money. To each priest are attached pupils from one to three in number and also a few koyin, i.e. young novices in yellow robes who occupy a position somewhere between that of lay pupil and that of a fully ordained priest. Pupil koyins attached to each hpongyi are taught individually by the hpongyi himself. There are no classes and no yearly examination. A boy can join a Hpongyi Kyaung at any time of the year and no school leaving certificates are required to be produced. Each boy forges ahead in his lessons as far as his capacity or industry will carry him.
Daily Routine
Everybody in a kyaung has to get up very early in the morning. At about 5 a.m. along piece of wood about 4 feet in length and six inches in diameter, suspended between two posts is beaten with a wooden mallet announcing that it is time for everybody to get up. Pupils and koyins will cook one or two pots of boiled rice to be served at dawn to priests in small plates. Hpongyis, it must be mentioned, have been on a fast and not taken any food since twelve noon of the previous day. After partaking of this boiled rice, priests, except those who are very aged or sick and the head priest, would go out to the town or to the village to receive food provided by devotees, each carrying a bowl, or sometimes with a pupil carrying a bowl following him.
Socially or generally, we can differentiate three social status;
1.Rich people
2.Middle class people, and
3.Poor people.
For the first class people, they can invite the Buddhist monks to their house to serve of alms food. This type of Dhana (Sanskrit) meaning charity can be done ceremonially or daily devotional acts.
For the middle class people, they can not invite the monks to their home to serve of alms food, but they can able to send the alms food to Hphone-kyi-kyanug, the monastery.
For the last clsass people, neither they invite the monks not send the alms food to the monastery. So, they can have change to offer the alms food while Hpone-kyi, the monks are going round for alms food. The monks since the Buddha’s time consider that to go round for alms food is a loving kindness or great compassion to the poor people who can gain the meritorious deeds.
It is a lovely tradition of Myanmar people to offer the food to the monks unless they have nothing to eat for themselves.
It is customary for each Myanmar household to keep apart some rice and curry to be offered to hpongyis who come along every morning with their bowls, the quantity and quality depending on its "Well-to-do-ness." Hpongyis would stop in front of a house and receive a spoonful of rice and sometimes a bowl of curry. He goes from house to house in this manner until a sufficient quantity of rice and 4 or 5 dishes of curry have been collected before returning to the kyaung between 8 or 9 a.m.
Occupations
Those boys who stay behind will clean and sweep the halls and also the grounds around their kyaung. In a portion of the central hall specially reserved for the purpose, is kept an image of the Buddha. The face of the image is wiped with a clean towel and freshly plucked flowers placed before it in small lacquer trays. The boys will carry water from the wells - there is a well for each Kyaung - for filling drinking pots and also for the head priest and wash their master's robes and their own cloths. Some would read their lessons aloud, while others would indulge in a game of marbles, or of gonnyyin (round seeds about two inches in diameter and one quarter of an inch thick) projected forward by turning them round with the index or middle finger, the object being to hit a marked seed about 12 feet away), or other simple games. When hpongyis come back from their receiving rounds between 8 and 9 a.m. the boys take over the bowls and commence the preparations for serving the only meal of the day.
No Meal after 12 noon
After few minutes rest, hpongyis go to the well for their morning bath - to draw water for one's master is an act of merit and there is no lack of volunteers among the boys for this task. Hpongyis sit down to their meal in groups of 5 to 10 in a large open passage. All the curries and rice brought by the priests forming a particular group are placed on a round wooden or lacquer table and the hpongyis take their meals sitting round the table on the floor. The best curries are offered to the presiding hpongyi who ordinarily has a small table to himself. After the hpongyis have had their repast, koyions boys sit down to what is left. The place is then cleaned. Bowls and plates are washed and arranged on a rack ready to be taken round again on the following morning.
About half an hour or so before noon all the priests, including the head priest sit down to tea - tea without milk or sugar, but served with jaggery, slices of coconut or sweets. After the tea hpongyis retire to their rooms or halls - a few to have a short siesta and the rest either to teach their pupils, both boys and koyins, or to read Pali texts as a preparation for the day's lecture. Each boy is taught separately either by the master or by elder pupils. Pali stanzas and passages are learnt by heart and after a boy can repeat from memory. his master explains the meaning to him. As a hpongyi has not more than 2 or 3 pupils, each boy gets individual attention, which would be impossible in a big class. There is a wholesome atmosphere of intimacy and understanding between the teacher and the taught.
Koyins (Novices)
It is obligatory for a Buddhist boy to become a koyin once in his life time and to remain as such for some months. Before the time when necessity for getting employment induced parents to send their boys to English or lay school, a boy would spend at least three months as koyin, but such a thing would now mean loss of one year and missing of one's class promotion. Present day parents have, therefore, to be content with sending their boys to hpongyi kyaungs for only a few days during holidays. A Buddhist who has not been a koyin or donned the yellow robe is looked upon as one who has missed the most essential privilege of his existence in this world. Some koyins, after acquiring what is considered to be sufficient education for the secular world, leave the kyaungs, while others, become attached to the simple religious life, and stay on in the yellow robe to become ordained priest at the age of 19. The ordination ceremony has to be performed in a specially consecrated building known as a "Thein" and lasts for four to five hours. A hpongyi, however, can "come back" to the world at any time he chooses. There is no such thing as a vow for life-long priesthood.
Charity of Learning
Of all charities, the charity of learning is the noblest. A hpongyi renowned for his learning will give free lectures to all and sundry. Young priests in search of knowledge from all parts of the country will crowd around his lectures. The teaching in a hpongyi kyaung is mainly religious, even social ethics, philosophy and literature taught therein are derived from religious texts, and sometimes over crusted with legends and fables.
Boys do not have to buy books or pencils. Lessons are written on long rectangular boards about one-third of an inch thick covered with a thin layer of paste of powdered charcoal and rice gruel. Each boy has one such board of his own. These boards are erased every day and prepared for the next day's lessons.
They pass on from one lesson to another and from one text to the next when the teacher is satisfied that the first has been mastered. Competitions in calligraphy and memorizing are held quite frequently. No tangible prizes are awarded; however, the winner has a free ride on the back of the loser round the kyaung to the simple enjoyment of the spectators. No ill-feeling is created thereby.
About 4 p.m. the hpongyis come out and take a stroll round the kyaung for exercise or pay visits to their friends in other kyaungs. Then there is another bath after which they congregate in the prayer hall to worship the Buddha and say their prayers and light candles. Beads are counted before retiring for the night.
The boys play chinlon or leap frog before dinner, which they have to cook themselves. It is very plain affair - rice, dried fish and vegetable soup. The boys also have to say their prayers every evening and repeat aloud the passages they have learnt by heart in the course of the day.
A library is kept in the central hall, consisting of square shaped wooden almirahs, some richly carved and gilt, others covered with mosaic work, in which are kept bundles of palm leaf texts neatly wrapped up and piled.
Before the commencement and after the end of the Buddhist Lent, lasting from 3 to 4 months, during which as a rule hpongyis do not travel, koyins are allowed to put on lay gala clothes for a few days and pay short visits to their parents and relatives and to join in the customary festivities.
Hsi-la-shin (Nun, Buddhist Nun)
Here in Myanmar, female are also getting same level status like the male.
Not only men can be the hpongyis (monks), but also women can be Hsi-la-shin (nuns). Of course, there are some difference rules and regulations, or disciplines and discourses for the nuns who are having less disciplines than the monk. They also have the shelter, the nunnery like the Hpongyi Kyaung (monastery) provided by the wealthy donors or the common charity of the public.
What is more difference is that the monks go round for alms food every day, but the nuns only go round for alms food on the two pre-Sabbath days. Whatever the different disciplines and discourses, the nuns also dedicated to the service of the Buddha, and the Government held the annual examination for all monks and nuns, and the out standings are always awarded with suitable titles.
