Thingyan
Thingyan is the Burmese New Year Water Festival and usually falls around mid-April (the Burmese month of Tagu). It is a Buddhist festival celebrated over a period of four to five days culminating in the new year. Formerly the dates of the Thingyan festival are calculated according to the traditional Burmese lunisolar calendar, but now fixed to Gregorian calendar 13 to 16 April; it often coincides with Easter.
The dates of the festival are observed as the most important public holiday throughout Burma and are part of the summer holidays at the end of the school year. Water-throwing or dousing one another from any shape or form of vessel or device that delivers water is the distinguishing feature of this festival and may be done on the first four days of the festival. However, in most parts of the country, it does not begin in earnest until the second day. Thingyan is comparable to other new year festivities in Theravada Buddhist areas of Southeast Asia such as Lao New Year, Cambodian New Year and Songkran in Thailand.
History
Thingyan is originated from the Buddhist version of a Hindu myth. The King of Brahmas called Arsi, lost a wager to the King of Devas, Śakra(Thagya Min), who decapitated Arsi as agreed but the head of an elephant was put onto the Brahma's body who then became Ganesha. The Brahma was so powerful that if the head were thrown into the sea it would dry up immediately. If it were thrown onto land it would be scorched. If it were thrown up into the air the sky would burst into flames. Sakra therefore ordained that the Brahma's head be carried by one princess devi after another taking turns for a year each. The new year henceforth has come to signify the changing of hands of the Brahma's head.
Thingyan Eve
The eve of Thingyan, the first day of the festival called a-kyo nei , is the start of a variety of religious activities. Buddhists are expected to observe the Eight Precepts, more than the basic Five Precepts, including having only one meal before noon. Thingyan is a time whenuposatha observance days, similar to the Christian sabbath, are held. Alms and offerings are laid before monks in their monasteries and offerings of a green coconut with its stalk intact encircled by bunches of green bananas and sprigs ofthabyay or jambul (Syzygium cumini) before the Buddha images over which scented water is poured in a ceremonial washing from the head down.
By nightfall, the real fun begins with music, song and dance, merrymaking and general gaiety in anticipation of the water festival. In every neighbourhood pavilions or stages, with festive names and made from bamboo, wood and beautifully decorated papier mache, have sprung up overnight. Local belles have been rehearsing for weeks and even years, in the run-up to the great event in song and dance in chorus lines, each band of girls uniformly dressed in colourful tops and skirts and garlanded in flowers and tinsel. They wear fragrant thanaka - a paste of the ground bark of Murraya paniculata which acts as both sunblock and astringent - on their faces, and sweet-scented yellow padauk blossoms in their hair. The padauk (Pterocarpus macrocarpus) blooms but one day each year during Thingyan and is popularly known as the "Thingyan flower". Large crowds of revellers, on foot, bicycles and motorbikes, and in opentop jeeps and trucks, will do the rounds of all the mandat, some making their own music and most of the womenfolk wearingthanaka and padauk. Floats, gaily decorated and lit up, also with festive names and carrying an orchestra as well as dozens of amorous young men on each of them, will roam the streets stopping at every mandat exchanging songs specially written for the festival including the Thingyan classics that everyone knows, and performing than gyat (similar to rapping but one man leads and the rest bellows at the top of their voices making fun of and criticising whatever is wrong in the country today such as fashion, consumerism, runaway inflation, crime, drugs, AIDS, corruption, inept politicians etc.). It is indeed a time for letting go, a major safety valve for stress and simmering discontent. There will be the usual spate of accidents and incidents from drink driving or just reckless driving in crowded streets full of revellers and all manner of vehicles, as well as drunkenness, arguments and brawling which the authorities have to be prepared for at this time of the year. Generally however friendliness and goodwill prevail along with some boisterous jollity.
New Year's Day It is a time for people to visit the elders and pay obeisance bygadaw (also called shihko) with a traditional offering of water in a terracotta pot and shampoo. Young people perform hairwashing for the elderly often in the traditional manner with shampoo beans (Acacia rugata) and bark. Many make new year resolutions, generally in the mending of ways and doing meritorious deeds for their karma. Releasing fish is another time-honoured tradition on this day; fish are rescued from lakes and rivers drying up under the hot sun, then kept in huge glazed earthen pots and jars before releasing into larger lakes and rivers with a prayer and a wish saying "I release you once, you release me ten times".Thingyan (a-hka dwin) is also a favourite time for shinbyu, novitiation ceremonies for boys in the tradition of Theravada Buddhism when they will join the monks (Sangha) and spend a short time, perhaps longer, in a monastery immersed in the teachings of the Buddha, the Dharma. It is akin to rites of passage or coming of age ceremonies in other religions.
On the New Year's Day, people make food donations called satuditha (စတုဒီသာ) at various places. They typically provide free food to those participating in the new year's celebrations.
Buddha's Dharma is very peaceful..! love and respect to Buddhism !
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