New Year
Description:
New Year is celebrated in Thailand, as in most countries of the world.
In 1940, the Thai government decided to celebrate the New Year on January 1. Despite this, the main holiday of Thailand remained the traditional Thai New Year or Songkran, which takes place in April.
On this day it is customary to give gifts to friends and relatives.
The celebration of the New Year begins traditionally on the eve, as in most countries of the world. Nowadays at this time, festive fairs, festivals, exhibitions and other entertainment events are held everywhere. Everyone visits friends and relatives and gives gifts to each other.
Three days before the holiday, Buddhist temples begin to read special pre-New Year prayers - Khurals, dedicated to the beginning of a new time cycle.
On the eve of the holiday, a special ritual of purification is held in all houses, during which all failures and bad things accumulated over the previous year are thrown out of the house and from the life of each person. It is performed by a lama invited to the house with the participation of all family members. After the festive meal, the remnants of food, together with coins, rags, a candle and a Hadak (a special scarf that is given to guests during the greeting as a sign of respect) are put into a large bowl, where a humanoid figure is also placed, sculpted from dough and painted in red (torm). Taken together, this serves as a ransom that should force evil and failure to leave the house. In the evening, in the light of the lantern, people carry these objects to the wasteland by the road and throw them away, turning to evil with the words: “Get out of here!” Then they return quickly, without looking back (according to the belief that if a person turns back, evil can return with him).
A characteristic element of the holiday is also the ritual of symbolic extermination in the fire of enemies of the faith, which is held in monasteries usually two days before the celebration of the New Year. For this rite, weed is made - a high pyramid crowned with a skull of slats, paper and dough, resembling an arrowhead. Under ritual prayers in the garbage "invest" bad karma of the community over the past year, and then solemnly burn it at the stake. The struggle against enemies of faith is also symbolized by the rite of ling: for him, too, a torma figurine is sculpted from dough, personifying evil and enemies of faith, which is then solemnly cut into 12 parts and burned as a sacrifice to the lord of death Yama.