| Festival In Myanmar |
Nayoun (Nayone) : June
A Month of Thunder, Lightning and
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With Nayone (June), the third month of the Myanmar
calendar, the monsoon is in full swing.Gone are the lyrical dreams inspired by
showers that fall like multicoloured bead strings through the sun-beams and
fragrant vapours rising out of the sun-scorched earth, as gentle drops fall
like mercy from heaven.
Now, everything is wet... just WET through and through. Dark
skies, torrential rains and storms. Fair is foul, and foul is fair sort of
weather. Anyway it is a change, perhaps not so nice as one would wish,
but a change from those hot days. Nature is in full splendour and the mind
"creates a green thought in a green shade". The weather is ideal for
curling up on a sofa with a nice book. It is also story time when kids gather
round the old granny.
If the blonde, blue-eyed children of the West are
fascinated by the story of Persephone who brings in spring, sunshine and
flowers, the Myanmar children are no less soby the legend of the rains caused
by the warfare between the gods above.
The booming of thunder was the sound of the celestial
drum whose frame was made of the shell of a giant crab who breakfasted on
mammoth mastodons. The crab's claws served as drumsticks. Thagyarmin, King of
the celestials (he's the same who comes down to bring in the New Year,
remember?), strikes the drum to rally his forces.
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Here we are again, another story featuring Thagyarmin. The
whole thing began when the first Thagyarmin started the dynasty at the
Abode of the Celestials.
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Magha, the Good Samaritan
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Thagyarmin, before he became what he is, was a human being.
His name was Magha. Bom of a rich and noble family, he devoted himself to good
works. He formed a group of 30 men and organized people to do good deeds...
repairing roads, building public rest houses, bridges, and digging wells. |
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Magha's wife Sujata was a woman of beauty and charm and she
was a happy-go-lucky type, content to enjoy a life of ease and pleasure. Magha
doted on her arid he let her have her way.
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When Magha's life span ended, he was reborn in the
celestial regions. His thirty companions were with him. They' named their abode
Tavatimsa, the Abode of me Thirty Gods. Magha was almost happy, but not quite,
because among his good friends and companions, his beloved Sujata was
missing. Thagyarmin, for this was Magha's new title, longed for Sujata...
which was rather surprising, since there was no dearth of nymphs, what with a
harem
of billions. |
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Thagyarmin waited and waited for Sujata to join him, but she
did hot come. With his omniscient powers he looked for her in other planes of
existences. It was a sad day for him when he found that his beloved, gay,
fun-loving Sujata, lacking the strength of good deeds, was reborn in the animal
world... a crane in the forest. |
It was fortunate that the life span of celestials was very very long...
one day in the life of a celestial is approximately a thousand years in human
life. So Thagyarmin had time to wait for Sujata and help her to gain enough
merit to be reborn in
the celestial abode. |
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Thagyarmin went to Sujata, the, crane and made known to her
who he was and took her to see the grandeur, bliss and pleasures of his abode.
He told her (hat all these could be hers, if she would only follow his advice.
If she wished to be reborn in the celestial abode, she must do deeds of
merit. She could practise self-denial and abstain from taking life, which was
one of the five precepts humans observe on earth. |
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It was pretty hard for a crane, a bird of prey living on
live things like fish and insects, to abstain from taking life, but she
promised to do so. Thagyarmin had made her realize how she had missed being
reborn in the celestial abode, because of her failure to do her share in her
husband's good deeds. |
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It was pretty hard for a crane, a bird of prey living
on live things like fish and insects, to abstain from taking life, but she
promised to do so. Thagyarmin had made her realize how she had missed being
reborn in the celestial abode, because of her failure to do her share in her
husband's good deeds. |
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Sujata was determined to dp her best, she lived on things
other than live ones; one day she saw a fish lying still like dead; she picked
it up by its head but its tail wagged. Sujata dropped it. She would rather go
hungry than kill for food. It was not long before she died of starvation. |
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It looked as if Sujata had not done enough. She was reborn as
a human being... a potter's daughter. Thagyarmin, ever watching her, saw that
the family was poor. It would be difficult for her to do good deeds. So he took
the appearance of an old man selling pumpkins. When Sujata saw the old man
bowed down under the weight of his wares, her heart was filled with pity. She
called the old vendor and offered to buy the whole lot of pumpkins just out of
compassion. |
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The old vendor, Thagyarmin in disguise, let her have the
pumpkins at a token price and went away. Only when Sujata started to prepare
the family meal featuring a dish of pumpkins, did she notice that the fruits
were not fit for eating... they were of solid gold! So the family became rich
overnight and Sujata devoted herself to good works. She simply gave away her
riches in charity. |
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Whilewaiting for Sujata'to join hina, Thagyarmin was busy
consolidating his position in the celestial abode. Some other celestials were
therebefore him. Theywere called Asuras. Their deeds of merit of the past lives
bad blessed them with god-like appearance, super-normal powers and a place in
the celestial abode, They, however, were too drunk in their blissful state to
be good. They indulged in all kinds of debauchery. |
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Naturally Thagyarmin did not want such strays in his abode.
One day, while the Asuras were drunk deep in the celestial liquor, Thagyarmin
and his friends drove them out of their territory. The Asuras did not realize
their fallen state until the season of coral flowers. Up in the celestial
abode, there was a tree that bloomed exotic red flowers of incomparable beauty
and sweetness. Only when the fallen Ones sawthe common flowers without any
scent on the bushes, did they realize their loss.
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The Asuras immediately rallied their forces to wage war on
Thagyarmin. The beating of the war drums sounded like thunder and the flashing
of arms fitted through the skies like lightning. All the heavenly regions were
disturbed and clouds' melted in raindrops. |
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It was a twist of fate that Sujata, after iving a good and
virtuous life, was reborn as the daughter of the king of Asuras. She was famed
for her beauty and goodness and many celestial princes desired her. So a day
was fixed for'the choosing other bride-groom. On that day Thagyarmin joined the
goodly company of celestial princes-and won her love. He carried her off much
to the. indignation of me Asura king. Thagyarmin made Sujata his Chief Queen
and celebrated the happy event by taking the tide Sujapati, the Lord and
Husband of Sujata. It was his best loved and proudest title. Even as
children listen enthralled to the story of Thagyarmin and Asuras, young people
dream of the kind of love that lasted not just one life but many many lives. |
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It is in this month of Nayon that scriptural examinations
for monks and nuns are held. The lay people, mindful of the serviqe of the
monks and their life-long dedication to die study of the Buddha's teachings, do
their best to supplythe comforts and, amenities of the candidates. It is
necessary, to offer daily amis food to those who come from other towns to the
examination centres. Contributions to the cause are donated by the
community and organizations.
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Organizations take charge of offering daily alm,s food to a
large nupiber of monks. Each household takes, in one or more monks, according
to their means. Everyone is anxious, to do ..the meritorious deed of giving
support to the monks, the Order of the Sapgha, custodians of the Buddha's
Dhamma.
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Apart from written examinations, there are those where
the candidates have to recite all the scriptures by rote. It is a tremendous
undertaking to commit to memory all the Buddha's discourses, kniown as the
Three Baskets of Learning. There are but few who could pass the recitation
tests and those who do are showered with honours and gifts. It is in deep
gratitude to the Theras (monks) of olden times, who enshrined the Word, of the
Buddha in their hearts, that the tradition of recitation by rote is still kept
up to this day. It was only after 400 years after the demise of the Buddha that
the discourses were written down on palm leaves. There were hard time when
there was famine and monks had barely anything to eat. They buried themselves
up to the waist in sand dunes to ease the rumblings of their empty stomachs and
went on with their daily recitations of the discourses. |
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In this way, the monks kept the Word of the Buddha alive
even without sophisticated tools like tape recorders and microfilms. Today
scriptural examinations are an important feature in Buddhist life. This
month is a busy time for Buddhist households. There is a lot to do for the monk
candidates who carry aloft the torch of Buddhist learning by dedicated study
and devotion. |
